Which case are you actually in? Reading the type from the prompt
Five prompts cover most of the case interviews you will get. Telling them apart in the first ten seconds decides how you spend the next twenty minutes. What each one asks, how they blur, and what stays the same.
- Most case interviews are one of five questions in an industry costume: profits fell, we want to grow, should we enter, what should we charge, should we buy.
- Recognising the type is not so you can deploy a framework. It tells you what the answer has to look like, which changes how you spend the next twenty minutes.
- The types blur constantly and the crossover is usually the interesting part. Follow the case and name the migration out loud.
- Four habits carry all five: narrow before you build, name every bucket then go deep in one, say the arithmetic before doing it, and end with a stand plus a condition.
On this page
Most case interviews you will sit are one of five questions wearing an industry costume. Profits fell. We want to grow. Should we go into this market. What should we charge. Should we buy this company. Add estimation, which shows up as a step inside the other five more often than as a case of its own.
Recognizing which one you are in matters, but not for the reason candidates think. It is not so you can deploy the matching framework, which is the habit that loses points. It is because the type tells you what the answer has to look like, and knowing the shape of the answer from the first ten seconds changes how you spend the next twenty minutes.
The five, and what each one demands
Profits fell. The answer is a cause and a number: this specific thing moved by this much and explains this share of the gap. You get there by narrowing before you build, not by reciting the profit equation. How to find the leak first.
We want to grow. The answer is a ranked stack of sources with rough contributions, inside a constraint you had to ask for. Without a target, a budget and a margin rule, the prompt is unanswerable and saying so is the first point you score. Why the constraint comes first.
Should we enter this market. The answer is yes, no or conditional, backed by four numbers: size, the share you could defend, the margin, and the investment. Attractiveness is table stakes. The case turns on whether this client can win. The four questions in order.
What should we charge. The answer is a price with a method behind it and a volume consequence attached. Cost is the floor, competitors are the anchor, value is the ceiling, and value is only real if you can put a number on it. Choosing the method out loud.
Should we buy this company. The answer is a conditional tied to a price, built on synergies net of integration, with the revenue synergies quoted separately rather than blended in, since those are the ones that need evidence before you count them. Why the premium is the bar.
How many of these are there. Estimation, which is usually a step rather than a case. Tree first, numbers second. The method.
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Telling them apart in ten seconds
The prompt almost always contains the tell, and it is usually the verb.
| The prompt says | You are in | The first thing to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Profits, margins or costs have fallen | Profitability | What happened to revenue, and is the industry down too |
| Wants to grow, expand, increase revenue | Growth | Grow by how much, by when, funded how |
| Considering entering, launching in, expanding into | Market entry | Do we already touch this market in any way |
| Setting a price, repricing | Pricing | What does the buyer pay or lose today |
| Launching a new product | Depends on the decision: pricing if the question is what to charge, growth if it is where to sell it, market entry if the customers are new | Which of those three is being decided |
| Acquiring, merging, considering a bid | M&A | What is it worth standalone and what are we paying |
Two cautions. A prompt that says "grow" but hands you a new country is a market entry case. A prompt that says "should we buy" but the interviewer only wants the market assessed is closer to entry than to M&A. Listen for the decision being made rather than the noun being used.
The types blur, and that is the point
Real cases cross over constantly and the crossover is usually where the interesting part lives.
A profitability case where the cause turns out to be a mix shift becomes a pricing case. A growth case whose top-ranked option is a new country becomes a market entry case. An acquisition case where the synergy is a cost saving becomes a profitability case inside the target. A market entry case cannot be finished without an estimation.
So do not spend the first minute deciding what type it is. Decide what the answer has to look like, then say the buckets and prioritize. If the case migrates, follow it and name the migration out loud: "this started as a growth question but the binding constraint is price, so I want to look at that next." In our experience that reads as control rather than confusion, because it shows you are following the evidence.
What does not change
Whatever the type, the same four things carry the case, and they are the ones worth drilling because they transfer everywhere.
Narrow before you build. Every type has a question that shrinks the search: what happened to revenue, what is the target, do we already touch this market. Ask it before structuring.
Name every bucket, then go deep in one. A lopsided structure with a stated reason beats a symmetrical one in all five types. How to say it word for word.
Say the arithmetic, get a nod, then do it. What you expect the number to mean, one short "shall I run it?", then the number. The buy-in in the middle is the step candidates drop, and it is the one that lets the interviewer redirect you while redirecting is still cheap. Why this is the habit that separates candidates.
End with a stand and a condition. A recommendation, the number behind it, and the one thing that would change your mind. Every type, every time.
Drill this
Five minutes, and it is the cheapest high-value drill in case prep.
- Write or find ten case prompts, one or two lines each. Mix the types deliberately.
- For each one, out loud and within ten seconds: name the type, name the shape the answer has to take, and name the one question you would ask first.
- Do not structure. Do not solve. Stop after the three answers and move to the next prompt.
- Go back through the ten and find the two you hesitated on. Those are the crossovers, and they are worth a full case each.
Ten prompts takes five minutes and trains the reflex that saves you two minutes at the start of every real case.
A note on practicing these
Every case in our library carries a type, including the cases parsed out of a casebook PDF you upload, and the library has a filter for it. That is on purpose. Once you have read one of these guides you want to drill that type deliberately, and hunting for a pricing case you cannot identify would waste the session.
What the card does not give you is the answer. Case titles and descriptions are kept deliberately non-spoilery, so a profitability case will not tell you on the card that the leak is in materials, and a pricing case will not hint at which method wins. You still walk into the conversation cold on everything that matters.
Which means the recognition drill above belongs on prompts, not on cases. Five minutes with ten prompts trains the only part a labelled library cannot.
Frequently asked questions
Are there really only five case types?
Five cover the large majority of what you will be given. You will occasionally meet an operations case, a non-profit objective that is not profit, a public-sector case or a genuinely odd brainteaser. The four habits in the section above carry all of them, which is why they matter more than the taxonomy does.
Does the type change by firm?
The mix does. Firms with a due-diligence or operations practice tend to draw on it, and a pricing specialist will ask pricing questions, but the pattern is reported by candidates rather than published by the firms. What changes more than the type is who drives the case, and that is worth checking per firm on the firm guides.
Should I say the case type out loud?
Naming the shape of the answer is useful. Announcing "this is a profitability case" as a label is not, and it sounds like pattern-matching. Prefer "so what we need to land on is a cause and a number," which says the same thing and shows why.
What if I pick the wrong type?
You will, sometimes, and it costs nothing if you notice out loud and adjust. The interviewer is watching how you handle new information. Quietly forcing the case back into the type you announced is the actual failure.
How do I practice recognizing types quickly?
The ten-prompt drill above. Prompts, not cases: the recognition happens in the first ten seconds and then never again, so a full case spends twenty minutes training something else. Ten prompts a day for a week is enough.
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