Your Accenture case interview performance will determine if you remaining a candidate or becoming a consultant. It's that simple. Case interviews are typically based on a project that the consulting firm has actually worked on. So the cases are a fairly good way to test and see who will be the best potential consultants. Accenture in general, is known for its specialty in technology. Accenture is considered to be a leader in the technology consulting field.
Accenture interview Tips
To get ready for your Accenture interview, here are a few tips:
Start early. The season for firm recruiting will come quicker than you think! If you’re in school, there is probably information available about their recruiting timeline. Make sure and work backwards. Start your case interview prep early enough to keep you ahead of the game. Get behind, and it's really hard to catch up and still do well in your interview, without expert coaching.
Start Early
Ideally, start watching case interview prep videos at least six months before your first case interview. This will give you enough time to assimilate what you're learning.
Case Math
As much as many don't like it, math is a central part of the case interview. Often, mistakes in calculations can be the difference between getting an offer or not. Remember, consulting firms recruit from the best schools in the country, and have ample applicants. They can afford to only take the best of the best! So if you’ve made mental math mistakes in practice cases, you know that being corrected by your interviewers can cause you to become flustered and disrupt your flow. Practice your mental math until you're super confident in it!
Don't Be Cookie Cutter
It's super important in the Accenture interview to be original. Your interviewer does not want to see you try to fit your case prompt into a framework that you've memorized. It doesn't matter which ones you've learned, they all don't fit! What we mean by that is that rarely does a case prompt follow any one framework exactly. You should create a custom framework to test a theory based on what you think could potentially be the root cause of the client’s problem. So you can take parts of memorized frameworks, to apply what is relevant. Be creative and solve the case!
Porter’s Five Forces, SWOT analysis, or any other cookie-cutter case interview frameworks and fine. But those structures that you learned or memorized fall short in exactly matching the case that you'll be given. Firms do that intentionally to see how you can actually problem solve in the moment. In fact, using a canned structure may immediately cause you to be eliminated as a potential candidate during a case interview.
There is so much more to cover when it comes to an Accenture interview. For more, take a look at our Case Interview: Complete Prep Guide.