Case Interview Questions: The Ones Inside a Real Case

Five case study interview questions that escalate

Deloitte's Recreation Unlimited case, extracted from its page data at usrecruiting.deloitte.com, publishes five questions with a suggested answer under each. The shape of the sequence is more instructive than any individual question.

The first asks for the factors at play, and the firm's own suggested answer is filed under two headings: Internal factors and External factors. That is a firm recommending a structure inside its own hint, which is as close to a sanctioned framework as this corpus gets.

The middle questions narrow. One of them is a calculation with all its inputs given, on whether to improve the website. The last moves off the numbers entirely and asks about workforce and organizational implications, with the suggested answer filed under change management, then talent and organizational structure.

So the arc runs diagnosis, then narrowing, then arithmetic, then implications. A candidate who treats every question as another chance to be broad will be broad at the point where the case wanted a number, and narrow at the point where it wanted the organization.

The published company data lets you compute two things the case does not hand you. Eleven billion dollars of revenue across 200 owned stores is 11,000 over 200, which is 55 million dollars per store. And 32,800 employees across 200 stores is 164 people per store. Recomputed by hand on 30 September 2026.

Both are worth saying out loud early. A 55 million dollar store is a large-format retailer rather than a mall unit, and 164 employees per store tells you the labor base is substantial, which matters later when the case asks about workforce.

The standard shifts between case interview questions

Oliver Wyman's Dairy Farm case at oliverwyman.com prints evaluation criteria beneath each question, and comparing two of them shows the standard moving.

Succinct at the opening. Several factors immediately afterward. Those are different instructions, and a candidate optimizing for one will be marked against the other.

The practical response is to treat each question as its own exercise with its own register. At the opening, narrow and clear. Once data is arriving, wide and fast. Once a number is wanted, precise. Once the close arrives, decisive.

This is also why a single rehearsed style underperforms. A candidate with one register does well on whichever question happens to suit it.

Now the time each question gets. Deloitte's practice tool states "Estimated completion time: 15-20 minutes" for a written case of five questions, which is 15 over 5 up to 20 over 5, so 3 to 4 minutes per question. Accenture's workbook gives 30 to 45 minutes for the spoken case portion, which across five questions is 30 over 5 up to 45 over 5, so 6 to 9 minutes each. Recomputed by hand.

The spoken version gives roughly double the time per question, and it uses all of it, because everything has to be said rather than written.

Six questions a firm says its strategy work answers

One job posting publishes the questions the work itself is about, which is a different and useful list.

Accenture's Stockholm graduate posting, read as JSON through the firm's own Workday system at accenture.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com, names six questions the strategy track helps clients decide, including "Where should we compete?", "How should we grow?" and "What capabilities, investments or operating models are needed to achieve our ambitions?"

The same posting draws the boundary between two kinds of work: "Strategy focuses on defining direction, identifying opportunities for value creation and helping organizations make critical business decisions. Consulting often focuses on turning strategic ambitions into tangible business outcomes and operational execution."

Why that list matters for an interview. A case prompt is a compressed version of one of those questions, and recognizing which one tells you what a good answer has to contain.

1. Where should we compete. The answer names a segment, a geography or a channel, and says which to leave.
2. How should we grow. The answer picks a lever and quantifies it, rather than listing four.
3. What capabilities are needed. The answer names something the client does not have today and says how it gets it.

The third is the one candidates skip most, and it is the one the published Recreation Unlimited case ends on. A digital growth target and a workforce that cannot keep junior staff is a capabilities question wearing a growth question's clothes.

The questions you ask, and the two firms that disagree

Two published positions exist on your clarifying questions, and they are genuinely different.

L.E.K. makes it step four of seven, at lek.com, glossed as "Clarify issues and scope; ask for additional information you need". A whole step, on equal footing with formulating hypotheses.

Deloitte publishes a limit, at deloitte.com: "Ask questions, but don't use them as a crutch. While it's important to ask clarifying questions, avoid relying on them too heavily. We're interested in how you connect the dots when solving the problem."

Its own practice tool takes a softer line inside the dimension it calls "Practical judgement": "Ask clarifying questions or additional questions if you feel you need more information before responding". Same firm, two documents, two temperatures.

Our resolution, and it is ours rather than any firm's: ask a question if the answer would change your structure, and state an assumption otherwise. That gives a test rather than a quota.

Applied to a retail prompt, three questions pass the test and three fail it.

Pass. Is the fall in absolute profit or in margin rate? Are we looking at the last two years or the last five? Is store count stable over the period?

Fail. What is the competitive landscape? How big is the market? What is the customer profile? Each of these is either something you can assume out loud or something that will arrive anyway, and none changes how you branch.

The one question to ask before you structure anything

Among all the questions available, one is worth asking first every time: what does the client consider success here.

Bain's published tips list clarifying the objective before starting among its nine general items. And the reason it comes first is that the objective decides which equation you are writing.

Consider three versions of the same retail prompt. Profit has fallen, and the client wants profit restored to last year's level. Or the client wants profit restored without closing stores. Or the client wants the highest sustainable profit in three years. Those are three different cases with identical facts, and the branches differ in each.

The threshold version of the same question is the one that appears in investment cases, and one published case shows what happens when you skip it. Oliver Wyman's oil and gas case computes a profitable business and refuses the entry, because the payback misses the client's five-year criterion. The arithmetic passed and the answer was no, and a candidate who never asked for the hurdle would have recommended yes.

So the opening question has two forms, and one of them always applies.

• For a diagnosis case. What does the client consider success, and over what period?
• For an investment or entry case. What hurdle does the client apply, and is it breakeven, payback or a return?

Either takes eight seconds and neither reads as a crutch, because both change what you do next.

A bank of consulting interview questions the firms publish

Lists of consulting interview questions circulate by the thousand and almost none of them carries a source. Every item here comes from a firm's own published case or posting, which makes it a real question rather than a plausible one. Five firms are represented, so these are Deloitte interview questions, McKinsey interview questions, Oliver Wyman, Bain and Accenture questions in the only sense anyone can check: the firm printed them.

1. What factors are at play? Deloitte's Recreation Unlimited, question one, with its answer filed internal and external.
2. How would you evaluate this opportunity? Recreation Unlimited, question four, on a website investment with all inputs given.
3. What are the workforce and organizational implications? Recreation Unlimited, question five.
4. What is the operating margin per unit for these two configurations? Deloitte's LeadAuto, which is a weighted average problem.
5. Should the client invest in one of these two assets? Oliver Wyman's Dairy Farm, for a private equity buyer.
6. Should the client open in this location, and can it break even? Bain's Coffee Shop Co.
7. What volume is needed to cover fixed costs, and what share is that? McKinsey's Electro-Light.
8. How many of these exist in this city? Accenture's dry cleaners sizing, and its Back of the Envelope type generally.
9. Where should we compete, and how should we grow? Accenture's Stockholm posting.

Nine questions, all attributable, covering diagnosis, calculation, investment, sizing and strategic direction. That is a more useful bank than forty invented prompts, because each one comes with a published answer or a published criterion beside it.

Where a question earns points

The weights below are ours, read from the grading code in src/lib/grading. No consulting firm publishes a marking scheme of any kind.

Practicing the question, rather than the answer

1. Run ten prompts and only ask questions. Three per prompt, then stop. Score each against the test: would the answer change your structure?
2. Ask the objective question every single time. Ten out of ten, until it is automatic.
3. On investment prompts, ask for the hurdle. One published case turns entirely on it.
4. Work the nine published questions above. Each has a firm's suggested answer or criteria beside it.
5. Change register between questions on purpose. Succinct at the opening, wide when data arrives. Oliver Wyman's own criteria require both.
6. Time yourself at 6 to 9 minutes per question. That is the only published spoken budget available.

Our structure drill scores the branching a question protects, and the market sizing questions page supplies sizing prompts of the kind Accenture calls Back of the Envelope. Both are free and neither needs an account. Neither one answers a clarifying question, which is the half of this skill that needs a person across the table.

For the cases these questions live inside, see case interview examples. For the shapes they take, see case interview types. For the behavioral half of the interview, see case interview fit questions.