Maersk Management Consulting's Top 5 Tips for Your First Case Interview

Entering the world of consulting for the first time can feel overwhelming, even if you have spent a bordering-on-absurd amount of time at consulting career fairs and your studies have demanded an ungodly amount of case-solving of you. And if you have not done either of those, the pursuit of a career in consulting can come off as downright intimidating when you have to get past the guard dog known as Case Interview. You know the one. Odds are you would not have found this article if you did not.

Interviewing for a position with Maersk Management Consulting consists of two rounds of case interviews. As a result, we have been through the scenario numerous times. Trust us when we say: the case interview is far from as stressful an experience as it can come off – if you do your homework, that is. Actually, it serves you just as much as it serves us. The purpose of the case interview is to simulate real-world problems and how you can solve these if you end up working with us. It is a way for you to get to know who we are and the role you are applying for, while allowing us to understand who you are and how your approach to problem-solving can add to?the collective problem-solving-brainpower in our team.

The nervousness ahead of the interview is a loyal hitchhiker on most candidates' shoulders. Naturally. But there are a few things you can do to get it to slightly loosen its grip on you. Beyond the basic preparation for interviews, such as trying to develop an understanding of the company’s strategy and formulating the questions tickling the back of our minds, we asked a couple of our interviewers what their top 5 tips for acing the case interview would be.

Practice makes perfect

It’s an awfully worn-out cliché, but we cannot stress it enough: preparation is key. If you take one thing from this article, it should be that.

You can read a ton of books on the subject, but nothing beats practical experience. Make sure to brush up on simple math and solve enough cases at home. Only you can determine how many "enough" is, but generally speaking, the more cases you solve in preparation, the better you do in the interview. And most importantly, grab ahold of your friends and family and practice the scenario again and again until you are borderline sick of it.?

Choose the timing wisely

While we have a fixed process for how the rounds of interviews are to take place, we are pretty flexible regarding when. ?Make use of our adaptable scheduling and take the opportunity to show up as your best self. If you are in a different time zone, there is absolutely no need to be heroic and join us at night – unless you’re super-efficient at night, in which case: feel free.?

Keep structure in mind

One of the most important factors in doing well in a case interview is the question of whether you can create and maintain a structure. It is a double-edged sword, though; sometimes your structure hits a roadblock that it cannot get past. Therefore, you must also be agile and open to creating new structures throughout the case.

While we absolutely recommend searching out resources on the topic, do not get too attached to a book's helpful “tips and tricks”. An interviewer will know when you are force-fitting a generic structure to a non-generic problem.

Walk the interviewer through your thinking process

Communicate your thought process while you are solving the case. This is key for us to understand the way you think – in other words, how your way of thinking can strengthen our team's collective problem-solving. Bringing the interviewer into your train of thought also comes with the additional benefit that when you are knee-deep in a problem you cannot see your way out of, they can guide you in the right direction because they know exactly what happened before that point.

Be yourself and have fun

While it might sound generic and superficial, it is one of the most important parts of the case interview. Remember, our goal is not to “test” but to “discover”. The purpose of the interview is to look beyond your resumé and see the whole of you – with all your special strengths, potential, and quirks that make you a good addition to our team.

And leaving you with a final, unofficial tip: feel free to ask questions not only during the interview but also in advance. All our consultants are happy to help if you need a piece of advice for your preparation. We have all been there and know what it is like to prepare for the first, daunting case interview.

Learn more about the opportunities in MMC and our application process on Maersk Management Consulting - Apply for a job | Maersk