„I invented teleportation!” Account of experiences from the Vialto Case Interview Day
“Look, I’m not really good at these business issues. My whole life I have designed and repaired machines. I know it wouldn’t suit me, and when the grandchild is on the way, my wife and I have to be ready to help out with the little one whenever it’s needed.” – The gray-haired, incredibly calm gentleman who sat in front of me, was sharing his unusual plans with me in a soft voice, as if he was discussing the schedule of his fishing trip the following week. – “I will be at your service of course, as long as I can, but I would like this to be only about sharing my current expertise. Everything changes so fast these days…And who knows where one is going to be, even in five minutes, right…? Ha-ha-ha…” – This last question in our case is not completely rhetorical as the man who I am talking to claims that he invented the teleportation!
Sometime in the middle of November I saw an event on the Facebook page of the HBCS, the Vialto Case Interview Day. I have to admit, at the time I had no idea what this could be but since the HBCS had been traditionally holding good trainings, I figured it was worth checking out. The description revealed that it was about a case interview training that was organized in cooperation with the above-mentioned consulting firm.
As an enthusiastic university student who occasionally thinks about the word ‘career’, but who still does everything more gladly than having to think about studying, so I took the opportunity and applied to the training. Case interview…hm…I had no clue what it was but it must come handy sometime in the future if one is thinking about consulting – I thought.
A couple of days after the application deadline, I received a positive confirmation and a link to Victor Cheng’s 6-hour video. That name rang a bell somehow…Older, consultant-seedlings talked about him on collegium corridors with a lot of devotion and enthusiasm, frequently approving each other’s praising words when they mentioned the work of this mysterious person.
Then on a night without essay-writing I decided to check this Victor Cheng out…after six hours of watching YouTube at night: “Okay, so this is what a case interview is!”…then I sweetly slept through my morning classes. But it was worth it! Watching his course for the first time, you really learn the basics, in fact, you may even get further. The structure he introduces forms the basis of case interviews that are taught at most places. And what is the difference between a case interview and a case study? The way he demonstrates it: lifting up a 30-page case study with his right hand, then waving a completely empty paper with his left. That is in fact what is available for a case interviewee.
Now, let’s get back to reality from the computer screen. I am eating my breakfast in form of some Fornetti, accompanied with a taurin-free Red Bull (at least the Placebo-effect may awaken me…) at an empty metro station. 7:30 AM, Sunday morning, I am trying to gather all my knowledge about case interviewing, while I am headed to Vialto’s office. After a little traipsing I find the only open door and I walk up to the top floor (top-floor panorama must be a prestige issue for consulting firms: )
I arrive a little late but still before the start. I am happy to see that the number of participants is relatively small and there is one professional for two participants, so I am sure that the training will be high-quality and personalized. After a short introduction, Zsolt Ábrahám briefly outlined the schedule for the day, then after introducing Vialto, he began the short theoretical overview on case interviewing. He partly complements, in certain cases modifies Victor Cheng’s structure so all in all we start practicing with a somewhat deeper and wider knowledge of the process.
First, Zsolt and Vialto’s co-founder and managing director, Csaba Lengyel showed us through a typical profitability case what a case interview looks like in live action. Afterwards began the real fun: case interviews with consultants! I couldn’t overcome my hyperactive-nerdy self and immediately volunteered for the first interview. (As it turned out later, it was a good decision considering the complexity of the second case…M&A…). So as the first one, I received a profitability case. “Ohh, child’s play…I only had to repeat what we heard half an hour before, changing the subjects in the sentences…” – I thought. Until the point when I had to say something. My confidence that dissolved within a moment, was replaced by inexplicable panic. But just a second ago I clearly had the entire process of the interview in my head and now…Now, I don’t even know what my first question should be!
Thinking back, if it had been a real interview situation for my dream job, I would have produced quite surprising symptoms – even though when anyone asks, I tell them that I am emotionally tough like a rock. (But no, I wouldn’t have cried) It is better if someone experiences this feeling first in a practice situation. Andrea Pingitzer – having seen my inertia – started the conversation so I had the chance to slowly find my thoughts and give my best to apply the relevant theory that kept coming back out of nowhere every once in a while. Questioning. Confirming. Structuring. Stating the hypothesis. Questioning again. And so on. By the end, if not with my ordinary composure but feeling definitely more relieved, I drew the conclusion of the case then listened to the feedback. Dani was the next one after me, who as a good rookie got the best of it: he played the role of the CEO’s advisor for an Audi-Mercedes merger. I don’t want to comment it, considering the case, he did very well.
After the first trial, our reward was a pizza for lunch. In the meantime we listened to the stories about a consultant’s life with rapt attention. Foreign knowledge transfer, domestic and international markets were discussed as well as industry-specific problems. Of course, the most interesting ones were the everyday situations. It is important that every client is different and you need to find the common ground with all of them which is often not so simple. It is not enough for a consultant to be an outstanding strategist, in certain cases he needs to just as good of a salesman. As Victor Cheng puts it: “No matter how perfect a solution may be professionally, if the client does not accept it, it is a bad solution.”
Being full from lunch, we formed teams again and started the second round. My interviewer for the afternoon was Áron Nemes whose guiding questions and calm personality helped me a lot both in dissolving the tension and in preparing the case in the best possible way. Here I already felt that I wasn’t as shy as I had been during the first interview and I enjoyed the interview more and more. Although this might have been due to the topic’s specificity and its broader wording, by the end the interview almost turned into a cheerful conversation. As an outsider I felt the same thing in Dani’s case during his second interview.
At the end the whole company got together again and we shared our experiences of the day. It was good to see how everybody highlighted something different that was the most important lesson for him or her. This also shows how different we are, with different skills but all motivated. The biggest lesson for me without any doubt was that we should always ask. If we think we’ve made a mistake, we shouldn’t try to hide it…It will only get us in bigger trouble of which there is no good way out. If we realize our mistakes and do something to correct them, it is certainly a good point not only at a case interview but in other areas of life as well.
I am sure that I will be able to benefit many times in my life from what I learned on that Sunday in December, but if the reader happened to invent the machine for teleportation and didn’t know what to do with it, I’d run to help as a consultant, already experienced in the topic.
Zotán Kovács-Osváth