Case Interview Assessment & Tracking

You’ve decided you want to break into consulting. You researched firms, built a target list, networked, and received an invitation to interview with one of your top firms. Congratulations! Now, it’s time to prepare for game day – your consulting case interview. All your hard work leads to this, and your interview performance will play a pivotal role in whether you land the offer. Most successful candidates cite diligent preparation in this stage as a key factor – conducting mocks, completing an interview assessment form, and tracking interview performance over time. But, how do you do this? Let’s break it down.

Assessment After Interview

After each mock, you’ll want to be diligent in tracking performance. It’s vital to be honest about how you did, ask for feedback from your interviewer, and track trends over time. Consulting case interviews can take many forms, but there are standard pieces which you can expect to see in most cases. The remainder of this article will focus on these very common pieces of consulting case interviews:

Prompt recap: Restating what you heard to ensure you captured all important information from the prompt.
Clarifying questions: Asking the few high-leverage questions you need to gain further information upon which to build your case structure.
Case structure: Building a mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive (MECE) framework to demonstrate how you’d approach the case.
Exhibits/analysis: Showing your analytical prowess by deciphering graphs, charts, etc. to derive insights and “crack” the case.
Brainstorming: Coming up with structured, yet creative thoughts on the fly based on a question within the case.
Final recommendation: Succinctly delivering the answer, backing it up with evidence from your analysis, and recommending next steps and/or identifying risks and mitigations.
Universal skills: A catch-all category for skills to demonstrate throughout the case interview, such as coachability, structured communication, business acumen, body language/poise, and adaptability.

For each of those sections, you’ll want to give an assessment after the interview. This assessment should include questions to ask yourself and a score based on a rubric. More on that later, but first, let’s talk about helpful assessment questions.

Interview Assessment Questions

You may be wondering what types of interview assessment questions to ask yourself after each mock interview. Questions should push you to identify at least one strength and one opportunity for growth in each section of the case interview. Here are some sample questions you can use:

- Prompt recap: Did I capture all key elements of the prompt? Did I demonstrate positive energy/excitement for the case?
- Clarifying questions: Did my questions ensure I acquired the highest leverage information that would influence my case structure (i.e., BGOT – Business model, geography, objective, timeline)? Did I show business acumen?
- Case structure: Did I tailor my structure specifically to the case at hand? Was my structure MECE? Did I drive out of my structure by asking for data, and did my interviewer have that data?
- Exhibits/analysis: Did I require interviewer support? Was I confident? Did I derive the highest impact insights? Were my calculations crisp and accurate?
- Brainstorming: Were my ideas structured, creative, and tailored to the problem at hand? Did I show strong business acumen? Did I exhaust all my best ideas, pull from personal experience, and remain structured?
- Final recommendation: Did I definitively deliver the answer upfront? Was I able to reference my analysis in support of the conclusion? If I identified a risk, was it pertinent, and did my next step mitigate it?
- Universal skills: Was I able to pivot if the interviewer redirected me? Did I demonstrate an 80/20 and/or “So What” mentality to show my business acumen?

Assessment After Interview Example

You may choose not to write all your reflections down for each mock case you complete. Still, it’s important to consider the questions above to capture your biggest opportunities for growth and to understand where you’re strongest. One way to capture the highest leverage takeaways is a stoplight feedback structure: across the entire case, what are the three things you should start (green), stop (red), and continue (yellow) doing to take you to the next level?

Below, find some example strength/opportunity responses for each question:

Prompt recap:
- Strength – Succinct, mostly correct, showed positive energy.
- Opportunity – Forgot to confirm current revenue numbers as stated in prompt.
Clarifying questions:
- Strength – Asked the highest leverage questions, which informed case structure.
- Opportunity – Asked 2 more questions than necessary, took up too much time.
Case structure:
- Strength – Very good tailoring of buckets and sub-buckets to the specific case.
- Opportunity – Need to be careful about overlap between diagnosing problems and solving problems (MECE).
Exhibits/analysis:
- Strength – Mental math was quick and accurate.
- Opportunity – Needed interviewer’s help setting up the final equation.
Brainstorming:
- Strength – Remained structured throughout.
- Opportunity – Failed to exhaust my ideas when pushed by the interviewer.
Final recommendation:
- Strength – Delivered answer first.
- Opportunity – Rambled when providing evidence from analysis.
Universal skills:
- Strength – Continually brought insights back into the overall context of the case problem.
- Opportunity – Took too long to zoom out when the interviewer was trying to redirect me.

Interview Performance Evaluation

Evaluating your performance is a crucial step in the interview assessment process. It involves a careful analysis of how well you performed in each section of the interview and identifying areas where you excelled and where you need improvement. Your ability to critically evaluate your performance can significantly contribute to your growth and development as a candidate.

However, performance evaluation can often be subjective and can sometimes overlook key aspects of your performance. To avoid this, it's essential to have a structured approach to evaluating your interview performance. This is where an interview assessment form comes into play.

Interview Assessment Form

So far, we’ve focused primarily on the subjective side of assessing your interview performance. How do you parse through this information quickly, especially to understand what you should focus on now? See our MC Case Scoring Guide - Interviewer Led form, which includes a rubric and scoring system for each key piece of the consulting case interview.

For each section of the mock case, give yourself a score between 1 (lowest) and 5 (highest). The rubric on the interview assessment form lists specific behaviors associated with each section and each score. Feel free to incorporate feedback from your interviewer into these scores, as well. Remember, this is a tool for your eyes only. Being honest with yourself about how you did is vital to your improvement.

When you’ve given a score for each section, it’s time to compile them, apply weights, and arrive at a final overall score. We’ve assigned the following weights to each section, but feel free to modify as needed in the Rubric & Weights sheet:

- Prompt recap: 0%. Aside from candidates who are very early in their preparation, this section should be table stakes. Aim to nail it every time. If the prompt is short, you may not even need to verbally recap it.
- Clarifying questions: 10%. Good questions significantly inform and/or change your approach to the case structure, impacting your overall interview performance.
- Case structure: 35%. Firms typically assign the most value to this section of the case. Your ability to approach the case in a structured, tailored, and creative way is critical to your overall interview performance. Conversely, poor performance in this section can significantly lower your chances of success.
- Exhibits/analysis: 20%. Clearing charts and exhibits adeptly, performing calculations quickly and accurately, and communicating your insights effectively are some of the key skills that firms will look for in an interviewee. See this article for a deeper dive into exhibits and charts.
- Brainstorming: 10%. Structuring your thoughts, even in real time, is an integral part of being a consultant. Firms often use brainstorming sections to assess this
- Final recommendation: 25%. Finishing strong, with a definitive answer supported by evidence and analysis, is crucial. Your recommendation is the last impression you’ll leave your interviewer, and it gives important clues into how you’ll interact with clients as a consultant.
- Universal skills: 0%. Because these skills should be demonstrated throughout the case interview, it’s difficult not to double-count when assigning weight to this section. Still, giving yourself a score based on the number of skills you demonstrated can help you track progress over time, even if it doesn’t impact your overall score.

How to Improve Interview Performance

Now that you have a robust interview assessment system, let’s discuss tactical strategies for how to improve interview performance. If you’ve used the interview assessment form and completed at least a few mock cases, you have scores for each section, plus an overall score out of 100% for each case. This data will be especially helpful in devising an improvement strategy. For example, if your scores are trending lower for a given section, here’s how you could triage:

Prompt recap, clarifying questions, & case structure: With a friend or independently, practice recapping a variety of case prompts (long vs. short, detailed vs. vague, etc.), asking clarifying questions, and building case structures. You can find sample prompts in the Management Consulted Case Structure Drills (available as a part of our Black Belt case prep program).
Exhibits/analysis: Devote a period of time per day to exhibit/chart drills and mental math drills. You’ll be surprised how much you improve with intentional, diligent practice. Shorter spurts over long timespans (i.e. 30 minutes per day over 2 weeks) tend to work best for building these skills.
Brainstorming, final recommendation, and universal skills: These are best practiced and assessed with full case run-throughs. If possible, find a peer who is also case prepping, and give each other a case. Seeing how another person approaches a particular case structure, exhibit, etc. can be very enlightening for your approach. When you feel ready, practicing with an expert coach can often be the key unlock that takes you from good to great, ensuring you are ready for interview day.

Conclusion

In conclusion, diligent preparation for a consulting case interview is essential for success. This includes conducting mock interviews, assessing performance, asking for feedback, and tracking improvement over time. Key sections of the interview such as prompt recap, clarifying questions, case structure, exhibits/analysis, brainstorming, final recommendation, and universal skills should be carefully evaluated after each mock interview. Utilizing an interview assessment form with a scoring rubric can help in identifying strengths and areas for growth. With strategic preparation and consistent practice, candidates can significantly improve their performance, ensuring they are ready for the interview day.