Interview others.

One way to start is to interview experienced interviewers. When students start preparing for case interviews, they often ask upperclassmen who have gone through the interview process to give them cases. This is great: you want experienced people to deliver the case in a realistic case and to give you tips. However, take this dialogue one step further: and to switch roles. They might be confused initially, but just go with it. Watching a live interview from someone you know personally (aka not the perfectly delivered interview at the BCG recruiting session) is a great way to learn. You can pick up subtleties that are really easily overlooked when you are the interviewee, such as when to pause, when to ask questions, etc. You can also ask these experienced interviewees to explain their thought process during more difficult parts of the case to get a realistic understanding of how to tackle these challenges.

Additionally, offer to interview your peers when OCR season begins. This allows you to learn about beginner mistakes, which again are hard to notice when you’re in the hot seat yourself. If they do remarkably well at a point you completely tripped on, think about what they did in terms of good structure and thought process that allowed them to smoothly move over that point.

Interviewing others gets you into the mindset of the interviewer, and can help you become more self-critical during your preparations.

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