Land Multiple Consulting Offers
Complete, step-by-step case interview course.
30,000+ happy customers.
Deloitte case interviews are the most difficult part of the interview process. Deloitte interviews are comprised of case interviews, a group case interview, and behavioral or fit interview questions. You will need to pass every single Deloitte case interview in order to land a job offer.
In this comprehensive article, we’ll cover exactly what to expect in your upcoming Deloitte interview and how to best answer all of the different types of questions, including Deloitte case interviews. We’ll cover in detail:
If you’re looking for a step-by-step shortcut to learn case interviews quickly, enroll in our case interview course. These insider strategies from a former Bain interviewer helped 30,000+ land consulting offers while saving hundreds of hours of prep time.
The Deloitte interview process typically consists of two rounds of interview that include case interviews, a group case interview, and behavioral or fit interview questions. The entire interview process can take anywhere from one week to a few months.
Given its size, Deloitte may have a different interview process depending on the country or the office that you are interviewing for. However, the most common interview process consists of two rounds of interviews following the submission of your Deloitte resume.
There are three important distinctions between your first round Deloitte interview and your final round Deloitte interview.
One, your interviewers will likely be more senior people at Deloitte. This means that the case interviews you receive may be a bit less structured and more qualitative in nature. The case interview may feel more like a discussion where you and the interviewer are discussing your opinions and ideas on a business problem.
Two, there will be more of an emphasis on assessing your fit with the firm. The first round interview is primarily used as a screener to determine whether or not you can solve case interviews effectively and whether or not you have the potential to be a great consultant.
Final round interviews will also continue to assess this, but interviewers will also be determining whether or not you would be a great fit with the office. Are you coachable and easy to work with? Are you collaborative? These are a few of the qualities that interviewers want to see.
Three, your interviewers may read the notes that your interviewers wrote during your Deloitte first round interview. If there was a particular area of the case interview that you struggled with, interviewers may want to test you again on it to make sure that it is not a significant weakness.
A Deloitte case interview, also known as a “case” for short, is a 30 to 60-minute exercise in which you and the interviewer work together to develop a recommendation or answer to a business problem.
These business problems can be anything that real companies face:
Deloitte case interviews simulate what the consulting job will be like by placing you in a hypothetical business situation. Cases simulate real business problems that consulting firms solve for their clients. Many Deloitte case interviews are based on actual projects that interviewers have worked on.
While consulting projects typically last between 3 to 9 months, case interviews condense solving the business problem into just 30 to 45 minutes.
Deloitte case interviews can cover any industry, including retail, consumer packaged goods, financial services, energy, education, healthcare, government, and technology.
They can also cover a wide range of business situations, including entering a new market, launching a new product, acquiring a company, improving profitability, and growing revenues.
Although Deloitte case interviews cover a wide range of industries and business situations, no technical or specialized knowledge is needed. Unless you are interviewing for a consulting firm that specializes in a particular industry or function, cases are designed to be solved by someone that has general business knowledge.
Nailing your Deloitte case interviews is critical to get a job at Deloitte. There is no way to get a Deloitte job offer without passing your case interviews.
Deloitte case interviews assess five different qualities or characteristics: logical and structured thinking, analytical problem solving, business acumen, communication skills, and personality and cultural fit.
1. Logical and structured thinking: Consultants need to be organized and methodical in order to work efficiently.
2. Analytical problem solving: Consultants work with a tremendous amount of data and information in order to develop recommendations to complex problems.
3. Business acumen: A strong business instinct helps consultants make the right decisions and develop the right recommendations.
4. Communication skills: Consultants need strong communication skills to collaborate with teammates and clients effectively.
5. Personality and cultural fit: Consultants spend a lot of time working closely in small teams. Having a personality and attitude that fits with the team makes the whole team work better together.
All of these five qualities can be assessed in just a 30 to 60-minute Deloitte case interview. This is what makes case interviews so effective in assessing consulting candidates.
Deloitte case interviews are candidate-led. You will be in the driver’s seat of the case interview and will be expected to ask the right questions, probe for data, and propose each next step to solve the case.
In a Deloitte case interview, you are not assessed on whether or not you have the correct answer. Instead, Deloitte uses case interviews to assess six different qualities:
Our step-by-step guide to case interviews is presented in the video below. We highly recommend watching that video in its entirety.
On Deloitte's case interview website, they recommend taking five steps to solve a case interview:
1. Understand the issue and ask clarifying questions
The most important part of the case interview is to make sure you understand the business issue and the objective of the case. The quickest way to fail a case interview is to answer or address the wrong business problem.
Therefore, if either the business issue or objective of the case is unclear, make sure to ask clarifying questions.
2. Identify the underlying assumptions
Next, you’ll need to decompose the overall business problem into smaller, more manageable issues. Identify what would need to be true in order for you to recommend a particular course of action.
To do this, it will be helpful to put together a framework, which is a tool that helps you organize your ideas and thoughts into different categories. For a complete guide on how to create tailored and unique frameworks for each case, check out our article on case interview frameworks.
3. Summarize specific issues and findings
Afterwards, you’ll begin investigating different issues or areas of your framework. After investigating each one, it is important that you summarize the key takeaways or insights that you uncovered.
Connect these findings back to the overall business problem and explain how your findings impact your potential recommendation.
4. State your recommendations
Once you have gathered enough evidence and support for your recommendation, you will need to present your recommendation in a clear and concise way.
Start by giving a firm recommendation. Then, provide the three major reasons that support your recommendation. This should summarize most of the important findings from the case.
5. Outline next steps and the expected results or impact
After delivering a recommendation, you should propose potential next steps that you would take if you had more time or data. What would you need to know to further strengthen your recommendation or make you more confident in your answer?
You can also talk about the expected results or impact of your recommendation. This may also have implications on potential next steps, such as analyzing the risks or quantifying the financial benefits.
There are three different types of Deloitte case interviews, one type for each of Deloitte's consulting groups:
The type of case that you get depends on what group you are interviewing with.
For example, If you are interviewing with the Strategy & Operations group, you’ll get a strategy or operations case. You may be asked to determine whether to enter a new market, launch a new product, or make an acquisition.
If you are interviewing with the Technology group, you’ll get a technology or IT case. You may be asked to determine whether to roll out a new IT system, how to assess different technologies, or how to best coordinate an IT transformation.
If you are interviewing with the Human Capital group, you may be asked to determine the optimal organization structure, how to better incentivize employees to perform better, or how to save payroll costs.
Below are practice cases created by Deloitte. We recommend working through these so that you know exactly what to expect in your Deloitte case interview.
For undergraduates:
For advanced degree students:
For more practice, check out our article on 23 MBA consulting casebooks with 700+ free practice cases.
Below are eight of Deloitte's case interview tips to help you improve your case interview performance.
Tip #1: Take notes
While the interviewer is providing you with the case background information, take notes on the most important pieces of information. Pay particularly close attention to the context, company, and case objective.
Tip #2: Make sure you understand the case question
Answering or addressing the wrong business problem is the quickest way to fail a case interview. The most important thing is understanding what the business issue is and what overall question you’ll be expected to answer at the end of the case.
Tip #3: Ask questions
Do not be afraid to ask questions. You will not be penalized for asking questions that are important and relevant to the case.
Great questions to ask include asking for the definition of an unfamiliar term, asking questions that clarify the objective of the issue, and asking questions to strengthen your understanding of the context or company.
Tip #4: After you develop a framework, develop an initial hypothesis
A hypothesis is an educated guess on the answer based on the data and information that you have so far. It helps guide your analysis and keeps you on the right track.
After developing a framework, try to develop a hypothesis to help you decide what area of your framework you should explore first.
Tip #5: Take time to structure your thoughts
When asked a question in a case interview, don’t always start answering immediately. Instead, take the time to process the question and develop an organized and structured way to answer it. It is acceptable to ask the interview for a brief moment to collect your thoughts.
Your answer will likely be much stronger if you give yourself time to think.
Tip #6: Present a clear, logical story for your recommendation
Remember that consultants need to convince clients to follow their proposed recommendations. Being articulate and persuasive are necessary skills for management consultants.
When you deliver your recommendation, try to make it a coherent story. This will make your recommendation easier to follow and more compelling.
Tip #7: Walk the interviewer through your thinking and explain assumptions
You do not get any points for the ideas and thinking that you do not communicate. Therefore, you should make every effort to talk through your thoughts out loud.
Walk the interviewer through what you are thinking. Explain why you have made particular decisions. State your assumptions. This makes it easier for the interviewer to provide feedback or hints to help you out.
Tip #8: Engage the interviewer in a business conversation
Remember that a case interview is a collaborative exercise. You should not be dismissing the feedback and suggestions that the interviewer provides you. They may be trying to help steer the case in the right direction or provide you with hints when you get stuck.
Treat the interviewer as your teammate and turn the case interview into a business conversation.
There are seven steps to preparing for Deloitte case interviews.
1. Understand what a case interview is
The first step in preparing for Deloitte case interviews is to understand exactly what case interviews are.
When you are familiar with what case interviews are, it is important to know what a great Deloitte case interview performance looks like.
Knowing what a great Deloitte case interview performance looks like will facilitate how quickly you learn case interview strategies in the next step.
Before continuing onto the next step, you should be familiar with:
2. Learn the right strategies
Now that you have sufficient background knowledge, the next step in preparing for Deloitte case interviews is to learn the right strategies to build good case interview habits.
It is much more effective to learn the right case strategies the first time than to learn poor strategies and try to correct them later.
The quickest, most efficient way to learn these strategies is to go through our Comprehensive Case Interview Course.
If you prefer reading case interview prep books instead, the three I recommend are:
Hacking the Case Interview provides strategies on exactly what to do and what to say in every step of the case interview. It is a concise and straight to the point guide. I recommend this book as the first book to read for beginners.
Case Interview Secrets teaches core concepts such as the issue tree, drill-down analysis, and a hypothesis driven approach. It illustrates these concepts through stories and anecdotes. If you have read Hacking the Case Interview, I recommend also reading this book to get perspectives from a second author. Check out our full review of Case Interview Secrets.
Case in Point provides a ton of specific and complex frameworks. However, you likely won’t be using many of these in an actual case interview because many of them are overly complex and specific. If you have time, it may be useful to skim through this book. Check out our full review of Case in Point.
At the bare minimum, read either the first or second book. If you have the time, read the first two books so that you can get strategies from two different authors.
Make sure to spend sufficient time learning the right strategies before starting to practice cases. It is ineffective to practice cases if you have no idea what strategies to practice and refine.
Before moving onto the next step, you should at least have strategies for the following parts of a case interview:
3. Practice 3-5 cases by yourself
Once you have learned the right strategies, the next step in Deloitte case interview prep is to practice.
When practicing case interviews, it is usually better to practice with a case interview partner than to practice by yourself. Casing with a partner better simulates the real case interview experience.
However, when you are just starting to practice, I recommend doing the first 3 – 5 cases by yourself.
There are three reasons for this:
4. Practice 5-10 cases with a partner
The next step in preparing for Deloitte case interviews is to case with a partner.
Casing with a partner is the best way to simulate a real case interview. There are many aspects of case interviews that you won’t be able to improve on unless you practice live with a partner.
When practicing cases with a partner, ensure you are spending enough time after cases to deliver feedback.
For a case that takes around 30 – 40 minutes, spend at least 15 – 20 minutes for feedback. Much of your learning and improvement will come from these feedback sessions.
Do not move onto the next step until you have done at least 5 – 10 cases and are beginning to feel comfortable with case interviews.
5. Practice with a former or current consultant
At this point, I highly recommend asking former or current consultants to give you a practice case. This will significantly help you prepare for case interviews.
Doing a mock case with a former or current consultant is highly advantageous because they know exactly how to run cases and give feedback. You’ll receive incredibly helpful feedback that your previous case partners likely missed.
If you feel that you are plateauing with your case partner, that is a sign you should do a mock case interview with a former or current consultant.
You can find former or current consultants among:
I would not ask a consultant that is involved with the consulting recruiting process for a case too prematurely. Although these practice cases are not evaluative, some firms will actually make note of how well you perform during the practice case.
At this point, you will have accumulated a long list of improvement areas from all of the different people you have cased with.
6. Work on your improvement areas
In this step of preparing for Deloitte case interviews, you will work on strengthening and fine-tuning your improvement areas. Examples of common improvement areas include:
Try to focus on improving one thing at a time. This is much more effective than trying to improve everything at once.
For some areas, such as math, it will be better to work independently. For other areas, such as learning to proactively lead the case, it will be better to work with a case partner.
If you are looking for more cases, look at the resources listed in step four. If you are looking for specific drills or practice problems for a particular part of a case interview, check out The Ultimate Case Interview Workbook.
Do not move onto the next step until you have finished working on all of your improvement areas.
7. Stay sharp
If you have progressed this far, congratulations! You have almost finished preparing for Deloitte case interviews.
Once you feel that you have no more improvement areas to work on, the key is to not burn yourself out by doing too many unnecessary cases.
While each case that you do makes you slightly better, there is a point when doing too many cases can create case fatigue right before your interview. Case fatigue can negatively impact your interview performance.
On the other hand, you also don’t want to go weeks without having done a case. You may end up forgetting strategies or become rusty and slow.
Once you have achieved case mastery, I recommend doing no more than 2 cases per week in the weeks leading up to your interview. This ensures that you remain sharp for case interviews, but don’t have case fatigue.
Deloitte is one of the few consulting firms that uses group case interviews in their final round of interviews. They conduct group case interviews because Deloitte’s work culture has a huge emphasis on teamwork and culture fit.
Here’s what to expect:
Group case interviews can be challenging to prepare for because it is difficult to replicate the exact conditions to practice them. However, if you prepare for case interviews well, you will be in a great position to succeed in group case interviews.
Your goal in a group case interview is to add value to the group. There are six different ways that you can add value:
Follow these five tips to shine during your Deloitte group case interview.
Tip #1: Treat your group members as teammates, not competition
The group case interview is not an exercise in which you are competing with others. Interviewers are trying to assess whether you would be a great teammate. Multiple people or even all people in your group can receive job offers.
Therefore, focus on adding value to the group rather than making yourself look better than your teammates.
Tip #2: Don’t speak too much, but don’t speak too little
If you speak too much, this may be seen as being too aggressive or controlling. If you speak too little, you may come off as shy or timid.
If you were to rank all of the members in your group by how much each person spoke, you would want to be roughly in the middle. This would be the perfect balance of speaking and listening.
Tip #3: Don’t interrupt or talk over your group members
Interrupting others when they are speaking is rude and disrespectful. You do not want to be inconsiderate or a jerk. Be nice and respectful to your group members.
Tip #4: Involve other people
If you observe that someone has not spoken much, ask them for their thoughts or opinions. If you notice that someone has been cut off when they were speaking, ask them to finish their thoughts after the person interrupting them has finished what they have to say.
These are easy ways to show interviewers that you are a considerate and helpful teammate.
Tip #5: Speak only if you are adding value to the group
Just because you are speaking a lot during the group case interview does not mean that you are doing well. Interviewers are not assessing you purely on the quantity of what you say. They care more about the quality.
Great teammates know when to speak and when to listen. Therefore, you should speak only if you are adding some kind of value to the group. Interviewers can tell when people are speaking for the sake of getting air time.
For a full guide on group case interviews, check out our consulting group case interview step-by-step guide.
In addition to case interviews, you will likely be asked a few behavioral or fit interview questions. There are ten questions that are most commonly asked.
How to answer: Provide your three biggest reasons why you’re interested in working at Deloitte. You could mention that you loved the people that you have met from Deloitte so far. You can talk about Deloitte’s massive global presence, their expertise in nearly any industry or function, or their professional development opportunities.
2. Why consulting?
How to answer: Again, provide three reasons for why you’re interested in consulting. You could mention the fast career progression opportunities, the learning opportunities to develop soft and hard skills, or the level of impact that you can make right away in consulting.
3. Walk me through your resume.
How to answer: Provide a concise summary of your work experience, starting with the most recent. Focus on emphasizing your most impressive and unique accomplishments. At the end, tie your experiences to why you are interested in consulting and why you would be a great fit for Deloitte.
4. What accomplishment are you most proud of?
How to answer: Choose your most impressive, unique, or memorable accomplishment. Structure your answer by providing information on the situation, the task, the actions you took, and the results of your work. Explain why the accomplishment is so meaningful to you and what qualities that reveals about you as a person.
5. Tell me about something that is not on your resume.
How to answer: This is a great opportunity to highlight an accomplishment that is not related to your professional work experience. Perhaps there is a non-profit that you volunteer at, a side project or business that you work on, or a hobby that you have won awards or recognition for. Select an accomplishment that is impressive and interesting.
6. Tell me about a time when you had to lead a team.
How to answer: If possible, choose a time when you directly managed a person or a team. For this question and the following similar questions, make sure that you structure your answer. Provide information on the situation, the task, the actions you took, and the results of your work. This is known as the STAR method and is the most common way of answering behavioral or fit interview questions.
7. Describe a time when you faced conflict or disagreement.
How to answer: When answering this question, focus on emphasizing the steps you took to resolve the conflict or disagreement. Speak about the interpersonal skills you had to use in order to mediate the situation. Interviewers want to know that you can handle conflict in a constructive way.
8. Give an example of a time when you successfully persuaded someone.
How to answer: Choose a time when you were able to change someone’s mind who originally disagreed with you. Focus on emphasizing the steps that you took to persuade that person and what impact this had on the organization. Interviewers want to know that you are a great communicator and have strong people skills.
9. Tell me about a time when you failed.
How to answer: Choose a time when you failed to meet a deadline or did not meet expectations. You do not want to pick a failure that is too big or embarrassing. Focus on emphasizing what you learned from the experience and how you used that experience to deliver even better results in the next opportunity that you got. Interviewers want to see that you strive to learn from your past failures and are always working to get better.
10. Are there any questions that you have for me?
How to answer: This is a fantastic opportunity to get to know the interviewer on a more personal level. Ask them questions about their experience in consulting. Ask what their favorite case was or what they are looking to do next in their career. The more you can get the interviewer talking about themself, the more likely they will be to have a positive impression of you. People love talking about themselves, so make sure to listen attentively and ask follow-up questions.
For a step-by-step guide on how to best answer all of these questions and more, check out our complete guide on consulting behavioral interview questions.
To prepare for Deloitte case interviews, you can use a variety of different case interview prep books, online courses, and coaching. We'll cover each of these different categories of resources in more detail.
Deloitte Case Interview Prep Books
Case interview prep books are great resources to use because they are fairly inexpensive, only costing $20 to $30. They contain a tremendous amount of information that you can read, digest, and re-read at your own pace.
Based on our comprehensive review of the 12 popular case interview prep books, we ranked nearly all of the case prep books in the market.
The three case interview prep books we recommend using are:
Deloitte Case Interview Courses
Case interview courses are more expensive to use than case interview prep books, but offer more efficient and effective learning. You’ll learn much more quickly from watching someone teach you the material, provide examples, and then walk through practice problems than from reading a book by yourself.
Courses typically cost anywhere between $200 to $400.
If you are looking for a single resource to learn the best Deloitte case interview strategies in the most efficient way possible, enroll in our comprehensive case interview course.
Through 70+ concise video lessons and 20 full-length practice cases based on real interviews from top-tier consulting firms, you’ll learn step-by-step how to crush your Deloitte case interview.
We’ve had students pass their Deloitte first round interview with just a week of preparation, but know that your success depends on the amount of effort you put in and your starting capabilities.
Deloitte Case Interview Coaching
With case interview coaching, you’ll pay anywhere between $100 to $300 for a 40- to 60-minute mock case interview session with a case coach. Typically, case coaches are former consultants or interviewers that have worked at top-tier consulting firms.
Although very expensive, case interview coaching can provide you with high quality feedback that can significantly improve your case interview performance. By working with a case coach, you will be practicing high quality cases with an expert. You’ll get detailed feedback that ordinary case interview partners are not able to provide.
Know that you do not need to purchase case interview coaching to receive a consulting job offer. The vast majority of candidates that receive offers from top firms did not purchase case interview coaching. By purchasing case interview coaching, you are essentially purchasing convenience and learning efficiency.
Case interview coaching is best for those that have already learned as much as they can about case interviews on their own and feel that they have reached a plateau in their learning. For case interview beginners and intermediates, it may be a better use of their money to first purchase a case interview course or case interview prep book before purchasing expensive coaching sessions.
If you do decide to eventually use a case interview coach, consider using our case coaching service.
There is a wide range of quality among coaches, so ensure that you are working with someone that is invested in your development and success. If possible, ask for reviews from previous candidates that your coach has worked with.
Summary of the Best Deloitte Interview Resources
To prepare for Deloitte interviews as well as interviews from other consulting firms, we recommend the following resources:
For help landing consulting interviews
For help passing case interviews
For help passing consulting behavioral & fit interviews