【正文】 notepad and a pen to a consulting interview.) You don39。s role. 4. Make no assumptions! As a case interviewee, you should never make any assumptions. You should assume the persona of an actual consultant trying to learn about an assignment. It might seem obvious that there is no preexisting work plan (because if there was, why would this be a case interview?) but you should ask. You should also ask if the pany has encountered a similar problem, or what other panies in the field have done when faced by similar problems. Your interviewer may not release that information but will be impressed that you asked these sensible questions. Some good basic professional questions to ask, which apply to most cases: Has the pany faced this problem (or opportunity) before? Has the firm already done any research into the issue? s a basic answer that should impress your interviewer: One answer to this question is to discount the pany39。s cash flows, tell your interviewer you would use the Capital Asset Pricing Model (or CAPM). (In a nutshell, CAPM says that the proper discount rate to use is the riskfree interest rate adjusted upwards to reflect this particular pany39。s Capital Expenditures (called CapEx for short, this is how much money the pany must invest each year on plants and equipment). The number you get is the pany39。s earnings per share rise, fall, or stay the same?Company A39。s the question: You have 12 balls. All of them are identical except one, which is either heavier or lighter than the rest it is either hollows while the rest are solid, or solid while the rest are hollow. You have a simple twoarmed scale, and are permitted three weightings. Can you identify the odd ball, and determine whether it is hollow or solid? This logic problem is sure to put your analytical ability on display! First, we39。t give into the impulse to simply work with those balls. In this weighing, you39。s sake, we will refer to one side of the scale as Side A, and the other as Side B. Step 1: Weigh 4 balls against 4 others Case A: If, on the first weighing, the balls balance If the balls in our first weighing balance we know the odd ball is one of those not weighed, but we don39。 Gamble and General Mills. To climb to such lofty heights, brand managers (sometimes known as marketing managers) undergo rigorous interviews that often involve case questions. Brand cases vary in breadth and specificity some may be about promotions, some about pricing, others about longterm strategy. takes a look at one type of brand case: the Brand Launch. SAMPLE QUESTION: If our pany were looking to introduce a carpet cleaner to our line of products, how would you go about developing a business plan? In general, interviewers are interested in what kinds of questions you ask, and your understanding of market forces. Here, the interviewer is looking for an answer that describes the process you would use in developing a business plan, not asking for a business plan itself. The interviewer may be pleasantly surprised if you happen to know the size of the carpet cleaner market but they certainly don39。s strengths and weaknesses when it es to this market. Does the pany produce similar products, and therefore have a base of Ramp。s objectives. Because consumer trends are fickle, and technological innovation can quickly transform an industry, brand strategy should in general not be too farsighted. A fiveyear plan is a good, safe way to promise the need for longterm strategy with the pitfalls predicting future strategy inevitably brings. Interviewers may present you with objectives at the start of the case. If they don39。t need to know much more beyond the fact that the United States has about 270 million inhabitants and 25 million businesses), and you shouldn39。re expected to use a pen and notepad to work through your calculations). These guesstimates may also involve elements of creativity and problem solving. For example, when posed the question How much change would you find on the floor of a mall? you might want to ask Is there a fountain in the mall? Let39。t forget that last step!) THE START SMALL APPROACH: You could also start small, and take a town of 27,000 (about one ten thousandth of the population). If you use the same assumption that half the town lives in houses in groups of three, then there are 4,500 houses, plus another 10 percent, then there are really 5,000 houses to worry about. Painted every 10 years, 500 houses are being painted in any given year. If each house has 2,000 square feet of wall, and each gallon of paint covers 100 square feet, then each house needs 20 gallons and so 10,000 gallons of housepaint are sold each year in your typical town. Perhaps 8,000 of those are white. Multiply by 10,000 you have 80 million gallons. Your interviewer may then ask you how you would actually get that number, on the job, if necessary. Use your creativity contacting major paint producers would be smart, putting in a call to HUD39。re four grams short, for example, you39。d already be using fifteen minutes. What does this mean? That Bono and the Edge must go across together. But they can not be the first pair (or one of them will have to transport the flashlight back). Instead, you send Larry and Adam over first, taking two minutes. Adam es back, taking another minute, for a total of three minutes. Bono and the Edge then go over, taking ten minutes, and bringing the total to 13. Larry es back, taking another two minutes, for a total of 15. Adam and Larry go back over, bringing the total time to 17 minutes. Illegal questionsInterviewers are legally barred from asking questions about your religion, color, race, national origin, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, childcare arrangements, or other family plans. Federal and State laws such as The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA,) the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII,) which was amended in 1991, al