28 Case Interview Examples for Consulting Interview Prep (2024)
- Last Updated January, 2024
Former McKinsey Engagement Manager
Practice is the key to passing your consulting interviews. To practice, you’ll need some examples of case interview questions and answers to work with.
We’ve got links to loads of them below.
In addition, we have:
Get ready to dive deep into structuring your analysis of business problems, identifying the key issues, and recommending solutions!
Keep reading to find out how to use case interview examples to ace your case.
You’ll need to practice dozens of case interview examples to get good enough to receive an offer from one of the top consulting firms. This is not something you can cram the night before an interview.
Start as soon as possible.
Some people think that the best way to improve their chances of passing a case interview is by reading as many cases interview examples as they can.
It’s not.
This is like reading about how to play tennis but never picking up a racket. To get better at tennis, for example, you need to actually pick up a ball and be active. The same applies to your interview preparation.
Stop and think at each step in the case interview question. Come up with your own answer and say it out loud. Practice driving each part of the case interview example yourself.
After you’ve developed your answer, compare it to the suggested answer for the case.
What did you get right?
How did your answer and the case interview example answer differ?
Are there things you miss consistently across multiple case interview examples?
The answers to these case interview examples can look simple when you just read through them, but it’s not easy to come up with all the key aspects of the solution on your own.
Nail the case & fit interview with strategies from former MBB Interviewers that have helped 89.6% of our clients pass the case interview.
3. Find Partners to Practice Case Interviews with.
Teamwork is an important part of consulting work, so get ready for it now. Find a case interview practice partner, preferably someone else who’s applying to jobs in the management consulting industry because they’ll know more about what recruiters are looking for.
Practicing cases with a partner provides the opportunity to get feedback from someone else on what you’re doing well and what you need to improve. Additionally, you’ll learn a lot by watching how your partner solves sample case studies.
Look for aspects of their approach that are effective as well as what they could do better. Working with a partner will make your consulting interview practice feel more real.
Similar to how you need a tennis partner to feel what is like to play tennis, you need a case partner to experience what a case interview is like.
In our article on Case Interview Prep, we discussed the 4 parts of the case interview: the opening, structure, analysis, and conclusion. As you practice with consulting case interview examples, practice each of these 4 parts to ensure you’re strong at them all.
You were drawn to consulting as a career because you loved the idea of solving complex business problems with smart, passionate teammates. But one thing that can happen as you spend hours practicing how to answer case interview examples is that it can practice too much and become a case interview zombie.
A case zombie is someone who’s grown tired of casing from doing too much of it. Their answers feel rehearsed, not conversational.
They may seem bored, not engaged in solving the problem. They’ll be less creative in their solutions. They certainly won’t pass the airport test!
Avoid becoming a case zombie by practicing smarter, not harder.
In the following case interview example, Davis Nguyen, founder of My Consulting Offer solves McKinsey’s SuperSoda case. The video is broken into 4 parts of the case interview.
Remember, don’t just watch the video. Stop the video and provide your own answer before listening to Davis’s answer to the case question.
The opening is a great point to ask “dumb” questions because, at this point, you’re not expected to know much about the client and their business.
Here your goal is to understand the client, their business, and what a successful project will look like.
Don’t shy away from asking for clarification on things that will help you better understand the business problem and solve it. For example, if you don’t know how life insurance works and the case is about life insurance, then ask.
After ensuring you understand the client and their problem, the next thing to ask about is key metrics of success.
For example, the client may want to find new avenues for growth. Are they looking for a 5% increase in revenue or to double their business?
Finding out what success looks like in the client’s eyes will ensure you work to deliver a solution that meets their expectations, not one that’s underwhelming.
After you find out what success looks like, ask further probing questions to better understand the client, their business, and any constraints on solving the case.
Examples of relevant questions about the client might include the geography they operate in or the sector of their industry they are strongest in.
Examples of relevant questions about their business might include what products or services are most profitable or most important to their customers.
Examples of relevant questions about the problem might include whether there are any costs that can’t be cut or what the maximum amount the client is able to invest in developing a new product.
Asking these types of questions up front will give you a better context for solving the client’s problem and make it more likely that you will solve the case interview.
You’ll need a framework to make sure your analysis covers all key aspects of the consulting case.
You can use one of the many standard Case Interview Frameworks we’ve outlined, but top interviewees develop their own framework for analyzing the case interview question.
Their frameworks may include pieces of one or more of the standard frameworks but are tailored to the particular business problem they’re discussing.
Good frameworks are hypothesis-driven, that is to say they can be tested similar to the science experiment, so that the answer is either a “yes” or “no.” For example, examining your bank account to see, “if I have $400 for a ticket” is an example.
Second, good frameworks cover all topics relevant to the answer. For example, if the client is opening up a new hotel in a foreign country, checking out the existing competition should be part of the framework.
As you study more about interactive case interviews and practice them you’ll develop a sense for what factors are relevant or not relevant to the case at hand.
Finally, a good structure will be MECE or mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive.
This means the framework will break down the market or population being analyzed into segments that include every part of the whole (collectively exhaustive), and each segment of the market or member of the population will show up in one and only one category without overlap (mutually exclusive).
For example, if you divide the target market for a retail product into segments by age, these segments would be MECE:
The categories 15-25, 20-30, 27-35 would not be MECE because people could be counted twice.
In the analysis phase of your case interview example, you’ll ask questions to get the information you need to solve the client’s business problem. Your questions will likely lead you to one of the 4 types of analysis that are common in consulting interviews: market sizing, brainstorming, quantitative reasoning (case math), or reading exhibits.
No matter which of these types of analysis comes up, there’s a 4-step method that ensures you can crack the case.
This 4-step method is:
The data you ask for will depend on the case interview question you’re solving. For example, if the question is about profitability, you’ll need to know about the client’s finances: dig into revenues and costs.
Once you have the data, you need to interpret it. What does it mean with regard to the problem you’re trying to solve?
For example, if you find that the client’s revenues are flat while their costs have been rising, you’ll know that the problem is in the cost structure and that you’ll need to examine costs more closely.
Next, provide insight. As you examine costs further, you’ll find out why they’ve grown faster than revenues.
This insight will naturally lead to the next steps. What does the client need to do to get costs under control and fix their profitability problem?
You may need to go through this 4-step method a couple of times, focusing on different aspects of the client’s business problem.
Once you’ve examined and developed insight into all key aspects of the problem, your next step will be to conclude the interview with a recommendation for the client.
At this point, you’ve hopefully cracked the case and are ready to present your recommendations to the client (your interviewer).
The best way to do this is to use the 5R approach:
While most candidates will address their recommendations and possibly the reasons for their recommendations, few will hit all these points.
In particular, outlining risks and further ways you can help the client will differentiate you from other candidates and help you to advance to the second round of interviews or get the offer.
Now that you’re familiar with how you should use case interview examples and what differentiates an average answer from an exceptional one, you need sample questions to practice with.
Below, we provide links to dozens to help you hone your business problem-solving skills.
Disconsa – Help a not-for-profit develop better financial-service offerings for remote Mexican communities.
Electro-Light – Help a beverage manufacturer prepare for a new product launch.
GlobalPharm – Help a pharmaceutical industry client manage with its merger and acquisitions strategy.
Transforming a National Education System – Help a country’s education ministry develop a new strategy for educating the country’s children.
Climate Challenge – Help a global consumer goods company reduce its environmental impact.
Driving Revenue Growth at a Healthcare Company – Help a medical devices and services company to increase revenues following an acquisition. (The same one that is highlighted above in our example)
Coffee Shop Co. – Help a friend decide whether they should open a coffee shop.
FashionCo. – Help a fashion company understand why its revenues have been going down.
Private Equitas – Help a private equity company maximize its investment in a portfolio company.
Footloose – Help a footwear company improve their market share in the boots category.
Recreation Unlimited – Help a global apparel and sportswear company improve its digital customer experience and its revenue.
Agency V – Help a large federal agency recover from a front-page scandal that sparked investigations and congressional hearings.
Federal Benefits Provider – Help a federal agency that provides benefits to millions of U.S. citizens prepare for a major expansion of its mandate.
Promotion Planning – Help a national grocery and drug store chain improve its product promotion strategy.
Modernizing a Hotel’s Loyalty Platform – Help simplify and modernize the platform, providing customers with immediate access to their data.
Green Energy – Help an energy company transition to net zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Nonprofit Impact – Help a community organization respond to client needs during the pandemic.
Love at First Byte – Help a data management client comply with new regulations.
Prioritizing Ethics and Integrity – Help a software company leverage data analytics to comply with regulations.
Sustainability – Help drive sustainability for an auto manufacturer.
IT integration strategy – Driving merger integration by linking technology systems.
We have more on how to Accenture Case Interviews in our article.
Ice Cream Corporation – Help the president of Ice Cream Corporation grow profits.
Wumbleworld – Help a China-based theme park operator identify the reasons for declining profits and develop options for reversing the trend.
Aqualine – Help a manufacturer of small power boats determine why its sales growth has slowed and identify opportunities to boost sales.
Theater chain – Help a large theater chain identify revenue growth opportunities.
Need more case interview examples? Here are links to MBA case books compiled by INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, Darden, and several other business schools.
Still have questions?
If you still have questions on case interview examples, leave them in the comments below. We’ll ask our My Consulting Offer coaches and get back to you with answers.
We have tons of other articles to help you get an offer from one of the top consulting firms. Check out our pages on:
Thanks for turning to My Consulting Offer for advice on case study interview prep. My Consulting Offer has helped almost 89.6% of the people we’ve worked with get a job with top management consulting like Bain, BCG and McKinsey. For example, here is how Conor was able to get his BCG offer after previously failing.
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Nail the case & fit interview with strategies from former MBB Interviewers that have helped 89.6% of our clients pass the case interview.
We are sharing our powerful strategies to pass the case interview even if you have no business background, zero casing experience, or only have a week to prepare.