ZS Consultant Interview Questions, Process, and Tips

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Great

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: There were 2 case rounds:
1) First was the structured case round (Time : 30 mins) : it was a pharma related case where a company was launching a new drug in the market; The problem had various facets of sales and marketing and basically was a New Product Launch/ Market Entry case. All the information was not revealed at once; more data/charts/numbers were shared at every step with a different task to be done each time. So the case had many parts to it – like to start off with one had to define what all had to be done in order to launch the product/marketing campaign, then in the next step I was asked to compute the market size of the product, its price, which segment to target and the amount of salesforce required (salesforce sizing; this was general data interpretation kind of question). All this was done in a phased manner, where at each step more information was given for the specific question. Involved doing some calculations, interpreting graphs and charts. It wasn’t very hard, all that it required was a logical approach and listing out the possibilities/options to be considered
Tips: Recommended Approach
Round 1: Be hands on. Do the calculations as for market sizing they are looking for a number. For other questions also, listing down your ideas would be a good idea. The questions are not very hard. They want you to think clearly and logically, with some data analysis. Practicing a few market sizing/new product launch/market entry/ pricing cases was helpful. Knowing those frameworks comes a little handy. I went wrong with my calculation a bit, but then corrected myself, so it was okay

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: 2) Second round was an unstructured case round followed by a presentation:
The case was related to a chain of movie theatres (cineplexes) that wanted to expand or increase its revenue. You are asked to think of yourself to be a consultant who needs to come up with a solution and present to the board of a company. We were given 45 minutes to read all the information and make a presentation (on A4 sheets). There was a lot of information thrown like the financial report of a company, mail from one employee to another, market survey data and so on. It is a little hard to read all the information in the given time so one needs to be really quick. Divide your time in two parts: reading the material and creating the presentation. You are then asked to present your work to a panel. They will ask you several questions related to the case, questioning your recommendations and so on. I missed few important numbers that were provided due to the information overload. They then pointed out that there was related information provided, which I then looked through quickly and did some on the spot analysis. So, basically even if you miss out on some data, but manage to figure out the underlying point (or do the right analysis) after being redirected by them, then that would be okay. You need to provide logical explanation for the points you are making, preferably backed by numbers and data (facts and figures) given in the case.
Tips: Allocate some time to read all the material and the remaining to make the presentation. (It was not like the usual cases we get in class. But a real world scenario with the different reports, survey results and so on.) Create a clear structure for your presentation. During the presentation, defend your point with good logic. I made an incorrect recommendation as I had missed some piece of information, but then corrected myself there. So, I feel its better to course correct rather than sticking to the wrong point

Round: HR Interview
Experience: The interviewer had a checklist and was asking regular PI questions, mostly based on prior professional experiences. Was trying to know about my past experience of working in a team – Team player, team leader, any project management experience. Something situation where you did not succeed?

2 rounds of case interviews : Structured approach while solving the cases (if not the exact solution) ; Will make you do the cases then and there ; Also had a case presentation round Final round will be PI and focus on mainly checking your leadership skills

Skills: Leadership Skills
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Recommended Approach
•Candidate should start with understanding the case completely as a lot of information was given and explained. Any relevant Pharmaceutical words used in the case have to be clarified and no assumptions are to be made.
•As the case had lot of information, it was necessary to isolate useful information from the irrelevant information.
•Since the case included numbers and calculations, the calculations should be done correctly at the first time itself (time can be taken to compute the numbers)
•Interpretation of the graphs is extremely important (and there were only few graphs). Pay close attention to X and Y axes and their units
Tips: Keep calm. Do not make the interviewer think that you are tensed.
heavy importance on numbers and interpretation on numbers

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: 40 minutes was given to read the case and make presentation templates in A4 sheets.
Reading the case itself took more than 30 mins.It was such a big case and had humongous data.
Recommended Approach
•Read the case as fast as possible and mark relevant data
•Give importance to data and try to interpret some useful inferences from it
•Making some graphs in the A4 sheet can be helpful
Tips: It is not possible for anyone to understand the case fully in such a short time, Even the interviewer told this. They were more interested in how I presented and communicated. Of course, the interpretation of numbers was important

Skills: 1)communication, Presentation Skills
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: First Case: I said there are three sets of observations that can be made from the data – by looking at the Sales data in isolation, by looking at Incentive plan data alone and by combining the two.Sales Data Analysis - Highlighted a trend (High vs. Low) in sales data across different geographies and rank ordered them - certain geographies were underperforming against the other. He asked me what could be the reason? I said this could be because of varying level of demand (patient profiles) for the drug in different states (targets across states were the same). He then asked me for the solution? I said targets should be set after taking buy-in from sales manager (local knowledge) for particular state. He was not very convinced with this argument (he felt this happens in firms) and then I gave an example of how targets were set by the corporate office in my previous org. Another observation was that out of 15 odd data points, there were only 3 which exceeded the target. Incentive Plan – Bonus payout was split into 4 tiers of performance. Out of this, 2 tiers were giving same % bonus. I highlighted that Combining the two – Made couple of more observations. At the end he asked me what kind of Incentive plan will you suggest for this company. I said that sales data looks normally distributed to me and therefore I will probably recommend a IC plan that is normally distributed. He looked satisfied with this answer ☺Second Case: It took me 5 minutes to just understand what the graph stood for (though I was constantly chatting with the interviewer). But then with Interviewer’s help I made some sense out of it and made a recommendation which offcourse the interviewer didn’t like much ☺. Then he gave me some hints and based on that I changed my recommendation. I think I could have done better here
Tips: ZS interviews are very atypical of what we understand of case interviews. We are use to practicing case interviews in a framework approach. However, in the first case interview, while the emphasis was clearly on testing analytic strength of an individual, the mode was a little different. But if one can apply some framework to it (but don’t force fit please), it’s definitely a plus.

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