The Hackett Group Interview Questions and Answers

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I asked him to explain the business model for telecom infrastructure company. He asked me back as to what I think of the sector. I explained my understanding of the sector. He was not very happy with my sector understanding. Then he interrupted me and asked me as to what are the value drivers of this sector which you would like to advise to the PE firm who is looking for a buy-out. I started with more theoretical approach of explaining the revenue drivers, the cost drivers etc. He did not like the approach a whole lot and asked me in desperation “ Given two companies A and B in this sector, how would you value them and decide to chose which one to buy” . I said I would like to do an NPV analysis and tried to structure it by saying that I would calculate the FCF and the discount rate. He gave the revenue number and the capex for the first year. I started to jot them down so as to start with my valuation. I asked for the numbers of second year onwards and he said that he has given enough information for me to make the decision. I was not very sure how to approach ahead. Then with slight frustration, he asked me as to why should they hire me. This was the first time I had the opportunity to present some strengths of mine and I rattled the prepared answer which was a mix of my personal strengths and the fact that I had worked in technology sector and hence could bring in the domain knowledge from the sector into the deals. He asked me why not IT consulting? I explained him the fact that I wanted to get a broader domain experience of how businesses are run while IT consulting would not give me that broad an experience without bad mouthing IT consulting. At this point the interview ended.
Tips: Understanding of some of the key domains help. Though I did build perspective on some of the domains, but clearly missed on this one. I should have done more research on KPMG’s way of interviewing. The SCI arm had recently started in India and this was the first time SCI interviewed. So a good understanding of the interview process would have helped. Please go prepared with some understanding of what kind of case questions would the company ask for. Not every company would be interested in giving cases like the ones given by Mckinsey, BCG etc. Outcome Yes, surprisingly possibly because of IIT brand name on the resume. Seems like the interviewer might have had some bias for that or the fact that the interviewer was frustrated by not being able to spot too many interviewees with good domain understanding.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: I was able to build a personal connect with the interviewer and it helped me become very relaxed especially after the first interview.

Skills: Case Solving Ability, Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)