Advice on Nailing the McKinsey Case

Today I had a talk with my "McKinsey buddy," the consultant whom I was paired with to help answer some of my questions about the interview process. This was actually a very helpful conversation from which I learned a few things about the case interview:

1) The process is much more important than the final answer (although the final answer is still important)
2) Add as much detail as possible-be specific in your analysis
3) Be creative...show you are thinking beyond a standard framework or canned answer

I'll give a little more detail as to what I mean above. First, structuring your answer is VITAL. The interviewer needs to see how you are working and understand your logic in order for them to assess your ability to solve a problem. This is what I mean by process...they want to understand how and why you arrived at a specific answer more than they care about what answer you arrived at. Interestingly, the same can be said for the personal interview...they don't care about the end result as much as what you specifically did to drive an issue forward (i.e. the process).

I was also told to add more specifics and more detail to my answers. The particular case involved an online video retailer that sold streaming movies through the internet. I would be asked about how to increase revenue and would say, "we could explore alternative revenue streams or charge for advertising on our website." A better answer would be to detail the exact types of advertising we should be seeking...for example, we are an internet movie distributor...people who watch movies may also play video games or may enjoy staying at home so we should look to target advertising towards these groups. The end message is be as specific as possible and try to make your suggestions applicable to the SPECIFIC case that you were given.

Think outside of the box a little bit. At the end of the case, you will probably be asked for a recommendation of some sort. In this particular case that I did, I recommended that we not invest in a particular company because it wasn't profitable. I was then asked what kinds of things I could think about to help make the company more profitable...it is here when you can try to really show some creativity beyond just the standard P=(R-C)x V framework.

As an aside, the consultant that I have been paired with was actually a student in the mini-MBA class that I taught this summer...kind of a small world when you think about it.