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What's the difference between a structured and an unstructured case?
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The interviewer is implicitly trying to figure out if you could help him/her look good in front of the client and get promoted/elected to the next level. How do you do that? By showing you can follow a structured, repeatable and MECE approach to solving a problem, and draw the logical insights.
If you crack the case because you came with a battery of questions seemingly at random and lucked out, you do not advance. If however you follow a MECE framework and run out of time, you still stand a chance of moving on to the next round.
Ben is exactly right: unstructured case means going home; structured case is a must, no 2 ways around it.
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going or not going to next round...
More concretelly, lack of structure will conduct to listing randomly multiple ideas, that individually could be good but without structure will bring to a complicate thinking and discussion.
Using an adapted structure will facilitate the discussion, make sure from the beginning you have a clear plan on how to tackle the topic and guide your progression in the case once you start.
Best
Benjamin
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