Any tips to project yourself as organised and strutured as possible in the stressful environment of a case interview?

Hi there,

A case interview can definitely be stressful, but projecting a structured and organized approach will help you stay composed and impress your interviewer. Here are a few key strategies:

1. Structuring Your Approach from the Start
    •    Pause Before You Start:  This is probably the most important step! Take a deep breath and clarify your approach before diving in. Communicate your plan to the interviewer to show structured thinking.
    •    Segment the Problem: Break the case into clear steps—e.g., clarifying the problem, outlining a framework, performing calculations, and drawing insights.
    •    Use Headings & Labels: When writing down your structure, use clear section headers (e.g., “Revenue Breakdown” or “Cost Components”) to keep your notes easy to follow.

2. Keeping Your Calculation Sheet Neat & Efficient

Since you’ll be doing a lot of calculations, organization is key. Here’s how to keep your sheet structured:
    •    Use Clear Sections: Divide your sheet into sections (e.g., assumptions, formulas, intermediate steps, final answer) - for me a table usually helps.
    •    Label Everything: Write down units ($, %, millions, etc.) and clearly define what each number represents.
    •    Keep Numbers in a Column Format: This makes it easier to double-check your math.
    •    Box or Underline Key Results: This helps the interviewer quickly follow your logic.
    •    Write Legibly: Under pressure, it’s easy to scribble—take an extra second to keep it readable.

3. Keep calm
    •    Speak Your Thought Process: Even if you’re calculating, briefly explain your logic so the interviewer follows along.
    •    Check for Sanity: Before stating your final number, take a step back and ask, “Does this result make sense?”
    •    Practice Under Pressure: Simulate case conditions by timing yourself and doing calculations while speaking aloud.

Since this is your first in-person case, try to enjoy the process! Ultimately the interviewer is looking for someone that they want to be working with! 

Feel free to reach out if you have any further questions. Happy to help with this!

Best,

Evelina 

Hello there!

I believe that more than project to your interviewer that you are organized, a well  structured session is important for you to actually solve for the problem.  
First of all, do the structure before putting the numbers on it. That can be an equation, a table, a venn diagram, you name it - whatever makes the problem defined in a way that you can just plug the numbers in it after confirming your rationale with the interviewer.

That’s my suggestion to you :)

If you want to have the guidance from a professional coach to make sure you’ll ace the interview, feel free to reach out. I offer a 20min free alignment session and will be happy to help you in this challenge!

Best,

Mari

Hey there, 

Getting nervous is completely normal! A lot of us (myself included) get more than just "slightly" nervous :-) 

But on organization of calculations, you can create a process and system to help you where you can tear a piece of paper and have this separate to the rest of your notes - and then use that piece for raw calculations.. Then transfer important numbers and final numbers to your main "booklet" so you can keep your notes and information clean without mixing it up with arithmetic operations. 

Happy to explain the implementation of this in more detail if you'd like!

All the best

Hi there. 

Would generally follow the formula: 

1. Tell the interviewer what you are going to do it and why

2. Do it 

3. Tell them the "so what"

For example, if they ask you to calculate profitability across geographies for 2020 - 2025. 

 1. "First I am going to calculate their revenues for 2020 - 2025 and their cost for 2020 - 2025 for the US market. Revenue minus cost will give me their profits. Once I am done with the US market which is their largest one, I am going to replicate the same analysis for Europe and Japan." 

2. Walk them through the math step by step (making sure they know where you are at in your process) 

3. "Having calculates their profits across markets from 2020 - 2025 what stands out is that the profit margin of 7% in the US is the lowest indicating we might have a less favorable product mix in the US vs. Europe which has a margin of 9%. Moreover we see that the US margin has decreased as we have grown in the US. Again, potentially caused by outsized growth in less profitable segments" 

Hope that helps. 

Let me know, if I can help in any way. 

Good luck! 

-Andreas

1. Explain the equation

2. Explain the assumptions

3. Do the math

4. Connect the result with the problem you are trying to solve

Hi there,

Q: How would you organise your calculation sheet to keep it looking neat, structured and efficient, even under pressure?

I usually recommend the following for keeping good notes (not just for math, but in general):

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

FIRST PAGE

I would suggest dividing the first page into 4 parts as follows:

• Top-left: client name/type
• Bottom left: initial information
• Top right: objectives
• Bottom right: structure

Landscape format generally works better. Sometimes, you may need to go back and forth as you gather information, objective 1, additional information, objective 2, etc.

The vertical line should ideally be closer to the left border, and the horizontal line closer to the top border, to allow more space for the structure.

FOLLOWING PAGES

After the first page, you can structure it as follows:

• Top-left: question asked
• Bottom left: structure to answer
• Top right: question asked
• Bottom right: structure to answer

The vertical line can now be positioned in the middle, ensuring that the left and right sections have an equal amount of space.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You can further improve your notes as follows:

• Ask the interviewer to repeat in case you missed information.
• Do a recap after the prompt. This ensures you took notes correctly; the interviewer will correct you if you repeat something wrong.
• Use abbreviations. Eg, for revenues use R, for costs use C, for increase use ⬆, etc.
• Write down essential information only. You won’t have time to write down everything; therefore, you should focus on key info only. If you have a client that produces steel with four plants with a revenue problem, your notes could be something as Steel producer, R ⬇, 4 plants.
• Keep a separate sheet for math if you tend to be disorganized when performing calculations.

Hope this helps,

Francesco

Hi there, 

I would do the following: 

1. Turn the calculation sheet sideways - That gives you a bit more horizontal space to work with for various calculations

2. Give your calculations headings - You need to remember where you calculated what in case you need a number for another calculation

3. Have a master sheet and a messy sheet - The master sheet is for noting down the results (appropriately labelled), the messy sheet is for the actual calcs

Most importantly, take your time! Nothing worse than rushing a calc and then getting it wrong. You will spend more time if you have to do it again and get more nervous in the process. 

Best, 
Sebastian