Hi,

You want it to be about 1 min to 1.30.

I was actually around the 2 min mark most times, so to buy more time i would usually say something like "sorry..ill just be a couple more seconds" - most interviewers said, "no worries take your time".

Honestly, 2 mins is fine.... IF, the structure is great and really nails the case prompt. If you take 2 mins and its what others could do in 1 min, then this may cause issues.

Cheers,

Hi,

Always take:

• 1-2 min for initial structure. But the faster the better. 1.5 looks fine
• 30 sec to analyze the graph / table. Very often you can come up with more than one conclusion from the graph / table(e.g. main conclusion, outliers, correlations)
• 30 sec - 1 min for questions on creativity. It's really hard to be creative "On-the-go". Spend this time creating the buckets of ideas and then the ideas within the buckets.
• Up to 1 minute for the conclusion. Again, the faster the better. But always take the time! Your conclusion should be very well structured and your arguments should include supporting numbers and you need time to collect them. Spend 1 minute on collecting the numbers for the arguments. Remember that 70% of your arguments should have numbers

It's a bit more tricky with taking time during the case:

• It's not OK to take 30 seconds and then come up with just 1 or 2 ideas. And then if the ideas are not correct to keep the science again. This is called "Guessing"
• It's OK to take 30 seconds, draw a new structure (or continuation of your previous structure) and come up with a structured way to approach the problem further.

Best,

Vlad

(edited)

Hi Anonymous,

in general, you should be able to draw your structure in 1-1.5 minutes. 2 minutes is still ok but the interviewer may interrupt to ask if you have done with your analysis. Again, that’s generally not an issue (just say you would need a bit more time as Anonymous B suggested), just be aware this could happen.

Generally speaking, 2 minutes is quite some time to prepare a standard structure. If you are regularly requiring such amount of time, it could be due to the following reasons:

• You are overcomplicating the structure
• You aren’t using abbreviations for the key elements of the structure (eg writing Revenues and Costs instead of R and C)
• You haven’t practiced enough in writing structures on paper
• You don’t have enough knowledge of that particular type of case

Once identified the issue, you can work on that particular area to improve your speed accordingly.

Best,

Francesco

(edited)