“Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you’ve told them” – so said Winston Churchill
Churchill was a born management consultant.
We’ll start with the 1st section of Winston Churchill’s quote – that you need to “tell them what you’re going to tell them” (aka, upfront structure). If you don’t remember anything else from this article, remember that.
Why the need to structure answers upfront?
-It eliminates interviewer confusion
-It shows your ability to give organized responses to complicated questions
-It highlights your ability to prioritize select issues
Here are hypothetical weak and strong responses to a case study problem:
Question: What areas would you explore to better understand increased the reasons behind employee turnover at Bank of Mordor?
Weak answer: I think you want to investigate salaries relative to its competitors. Higher salaries can be a big reason why employees want to leave the bank to work elsewhere. Salaries and potentially benefits. Lack of sufficient benefits – things like health insurance and retirement plans. And of course, you’d want to take a look at lifestyle problems. Have the employees been working a lot harder lately, and if so, what’s been driving the longer hours?
Strong reply: There are 3 areas I’d look into to understand the causes of increased employee turnover. The first would be Bank of Narnia salaries relative to local competitors. Are their base salaries higher, lower, about the same? What about bonuses, any not-so-obvious compensation benefits, and so forth? The 2nd area would be benefits relative to competitors. The big ones would include retirement (such as 401K contributions) and health insurance. Finally, I’d look at lifestyle and how it compares past to present. Have the employees been working much longer hours?
The weak reply completely lacks upfront structure. The answer confuses the interviewer and wanders from one key area to another.
The strong response provides a very clear roadmap in the very first sentence. It then sticks to this roadmap (“There are 3 areas”) throughout the answer, using anchoring words like “first”, “second”, and “finally”.
Now to the last piece of Churchill’s quote – “tell them what you’ve told them” (aka, the conclusion).
This is a necessary skill to display in consulting case studies for these reasons:
-It highlights your ability to synthesize large amounts of information
-It highlights your ability to identify the critical takeaways
-It offers a clean, comprehensive wrap-up to a long answer
I’ll use the hypothetical answer above to demonstrate how you can make the already strong response even better:
Strong response: There are 3 areas I’d like to investigate to better understand the causes of higher employee turnover. The first would be Bank of Narnia salaries relative to local competitors. Are there base salaries higher, lower, comparable? What about bonuses, any not-so-obvious compensation measures, and so forth? The second area would be benefits relative to competitors. The big ones would include retirement (401K contributions) and health insurance. Finally, I’d look at employee lifestyle and how it compares past to present. Have the employees been working longer hours recently? By looking at salaries, benefits, and recent lifestyle changes, we’ll be able to figure out the biggest causes of employee turnover.
The conclusion shows your clear comprehension of the problem (“causal factors that can drive employees to quit…”) and reinforces the 3 areas that are the meat of the solution.
Some final suggestions:
-It’s a good idea to take time before tough questions to plan your response. Only the rarest of interviewers can build a sophisticated response on the fly
-This recommendation also works with quantitative questions. Here, you should give a brief roadmap for the steps you’ll take (“upfront structure”), and provide takeaways from the result (eg, “45% annual turnover is incredibly high – the next thing I’d do is see how that compares to key competitors and our own historic trends”)
