Recently I had two interviews with 2 partners, and both interviews are quite different from the traditional case process that I have consistently been practising. To be more specific here's some unexpected situation that I encountered:
1. Case is not structured, comparing to the cases given by consultant level interviewer. The case tends to be projects done by the partner. So usually just some simple background information + a few graphs.
2. Not much specific data. For instance, I know that the company is in problem and we need to help it turnaround. So I asked about the turnaround goal - is it revenue / profit / market share? The interviewer just told me everything is dropping.
3.Didn't have chance to layout initial structure. When I mentioned is it okay to draw my structure first, the interviewer asked me to answer several questions instead. The question itself was not those kinds of question an interviewer led style would ask. It is more about how would you solve this case, look in to ABC, verify hypothesis, etc.
My question is - how could I prepare for these kinds of untraditional case types and random case interview questions appearing in the second round? In 2nd round interview, the interviewer tends to challenge a lot on my thoughts, but this part was not practised enough during case interview with partners. Also, assuming it is a candidate led case, is it possible to solve the case without laying down a case structure in beginning?