How to pwn the case interview

It's that time of year - interview time. The following is a succinct summary of how to beat the well known consulting adversary, the case interview.

Before the interview

• Don't wear a tie. Everyone knows consultants don't wear ties.
• Bring two coffees up to the interview with a receipt; ask the interviewer to charge it in.
• Refuse the pens offered to you and use the fake Montblanc pen you bought in Bangkok. Use red ink because it shows you have class.
• Make sure you take a mocked-up business card just like the firm's cards, with the subtext ‘Prince of Strategy’ under your name.
• Don't give your name. When asked your name, feign surprise that they don't know. At this point, flick your mocked-up card at them, aiming for the face, and inform your interviewer that you’re the Prince of Strategy.
• When asked if you're interviewing elsewhere, don’t use stereotypes to describe those firms. Be more creative! E.g. ‘X firm has great resource sector clients, which are unfortunately full of very ugly, smelly men’ or ‘I heard Y firm’s hors d’oeuvres they serve in meetings are often stale’ or even ‘Z firm is full of horse manure eating goats’.
• Use 'consultant' to describe all your former jobs. E.g. waitress = customer experience consultant, pizza delivery driver = QSR logistics consultant.
• Find a way to let them know that you didn't take the job at Goldman Sachs. Pronounce it ‘Golmansax’.
• Ask the interviewer why they didn't go to a better business school.
• Use a joking mispronunciation of the firm’s name – it shows you are confident, witty and comfortable in the presence of awesome power. Common mispronunciations are: Bains & Co, McBain, Mickey K’s, Baker & McKinsey & Co., Boston CG or BCV.
• Be clear that you’re only interviewing here because the markets are haywire, and that as soon as they right themselves, you’re outta there and into a REAL finance job.

The case interview

• Say ZING!' every time you think you nailed something. (Including the handshake greeting.)
• Focus on revenues. Costs are for losers!
• For consumer foods cases, make sure you make a reference to Porter’s Five Sauces. The Five Sauces are ketchup, mustard, Tabasco, HP and Worcestershire. Some commentary you can provide is that some theorists have hypothesised about a sixth sauce, but say that you do not believe that oyster sauce counts as it’s only for Asians.
• Forget the 4 Ps of marketing… it’s all about the 5 Ps, or better, 6 Ps. And screw the 3 Cs… how ‘bout the 5 Cs: cash, cars, champagne, chicks and Cubans! Offer the interviewer one or more of the 5 Cs.
• A quick way of multiplying two two-digit numbers (say AB * CD) is to round each two digit down to the first digit (A * C), and then just pick the biggest one.
• When given a coloured chart, ignore the yellow bit. It's a trick.
• Take an envelope. Also take an HP-12C to demonstrate your financial nous; carefully transcribe numbers from the 12C to the back of the envelope.
• Use some glim-glam buzzwords of the day to impress them. For extra points on the bravado front, couple them with suggestive innuendo, starting with the words ‘well, how’d you/how about I…!’ It will startle them into accepting any of your other recommendations because they’ll be so palatable by comparison.
  
• All manufacturing problems can be solved with Vaseline.
• Claim that you invented ‘Six Sigmas’, with the ‘s’ on the end. Show them a picture of half a dozen baby swans as an example of the Six Sigmas.
• Refer to Michael Porter as ‘Michael’ constantly. E.g., ‘Michael says that the best way to solve profitability problems is to look at the value chain.’ If asked about who Michael is, ridicule them for not knowing the King of Strategy. Take the opportunity to mention that you're the Prince of Strategy (again). Flick another card at their face.
• Offer to sell the interviewer a CDO or CDO-squared every minute or so, gradually lowering your prices.
• Quantify everything. At the end of the interview, tell the interviewer the number of times they said 'leverage', 'granularity' or 'high-level'.
• Insist that you ‘pwned’ the case once it is over. For example, ‘Well, I totally pwned that one. What next?’

Chit-chat and wrapping up

• Firms are very conscious of diversity. Address this and display your wit by telling your favourite joke about someone of an ethnic, gender, religious and other minority. E.g. ‘A Muslim Arab female walks into a queer brothel…’ – the interviewer is sure to remember you with this classic.
• Suggest that the reason so many people come to this firm from other firms is not from personal preference, but because they couldn't hack the up-or-out in the other firms.
• When it comes to asking questions about the firm during the interview, be sure to make it clear you're in it for the money and ask about the salary. Look like you smelled something bad when they respond. Repeat the question in full as if you didn't hear the answer.
• Smile! You pwned it.