So I went in for four interviews, and let me tell you, the first three were your typical case interviews, all about profitability and pricing. But that last one, now that was a real doozy! It was a "panel case" interview, and it was downright extraordinary. They handed me a whole mess of sales data, with all the information I needed to calculate profitability - costs, sales, prices, volumes, you name it. And they gave me just two hours to dig through it all, find the problem, and come up with some suggestions for improvement (wanted me to prepare a presentation). Well, let me tell you, I put on my thinking hat and got to work! But I'm warning ya, be careful on your time - and even, prepare yourself with with sample sales data and try to analyze them before you come to the interview. After crunching the numbers every which way, I finally found the problem (it was not only about profitability, but think about also product mix, customer mix, or some other creative ways, etc. try to look in very different angles!), and I came up with some darn good suggestions for how to fix it. Then, I put together a real nice presentation to share my findings with the panel. All in all, it was one heck of a challenge, but I reckon I rose to the occasion!
