What are some partner level interview cases?
What are some partner level interview cases?
There is no such thing as a ‘partner level’ case. Case interviews by partners are at the same difficulty level as the first round. However there are some nuances to note here
- Partners do not have to stick to the standard case format - for example, they often go deeper into one type of question like structuring or quant depending on what they want to see
- When not following a pre-made case, partners often give cases based on real work they are currently undertaking or have undertaken in the past
- Partner rounds seem more stressful because of the pressure candidates put on themselves and not because they are more challenging
What makes the partner round tough is the uncertainty of what can come up and not the difficulty level of the cases. Stick to what you have practiced and always be present in the case being asked and you will be fine.
Best,
Udayan
Hi there,
final partner interviews vary depending on company, region, office and the individual partner of course. However, it is not uncommon that partners won't go through a case exercise with the candidate again but rather test their suitability in terms of business competence, team fit and perceived presentability to clients.
At the partner stage, candidates will have gone through a series of successful case interviews already. Partners still need to “validate” this pre-selection. While some might like to do brain teasers or small cases, they also tend to favor talking about the industry/functional area they are active in. They try to see how the candidate is able to engage with those topics and often even try to sell the candidate on the firm during the final round.
When preparing for such interviews, it makes sense to research the interview partners up front (if their names are provided) and check what recent publications and/or conference contributions they might have. It is also good to know about the main trends and drivers in their respective industry/functional areas. Other than that, everything you did to prepare for the previous rounds still holds true.
Hope that provides additional perspective.
Hi!
There are no significant differences between first- and second-round case typologies.
Best,
Anto
All of them. What changes between rounds is the person interviewing you, not the case difficulty.
It would be nonsense to have different difficulty levels. Consulting firms would rather start with the toughest round and skip the easiest ones.
You don't have multiple rounds because they go from easy to difficult. You have multiple rounds because consulting firms look for performance consistency.
Hi there,
I assume that by partner level interview cases you are referring to round 2 cases. In practice, there are no round 1 or round 2 cases. It's all the same type of cases. What they rather want to check from round 1 to round 2 is your ability to consistently perform well under pressure and to improve on the feedback provided to you after round 1.
Hope this helps! And good luck!
All of them.
You should go in expecting anything and everything! Learn to be flexible and adaptable and solve any case that comes your way.
A better question would be "what is different about partner interviews?"
Lets see the differences:
- Partners have a much longer consulting experience in life. They have seen many more real cases. They have conducted many more interviews. Thus, they can maneuver the interview much more flexibly compared to junior interviewers such as EMs.
- Partners can give cases that are based on their real-life projects. Hence the cases may not follow traditional trajectories, may not have traditional structuring requirements, and may appear non-standard.
- Partners can also dig deeper into specific areas of cases where they want to test the candidate.
- Partners can also create a stress-interview situation to push the candidates
- Partners are also more testy on personals/fit since that helps in testing the character of the candidates.
- Partner rounds generally have a higher-bar since they are the decision making rounds. The case may be the same, the capabilities may be the same, but the candidates need to up their game in order to go through.
In order to prepare for partner-cases - there is not special case library as such. You just need to keep doing what you do best and keep improving. Better to take advice from a coach to nail down that final 5% improvement.