首列刘三姐号列车:麦肯锡招聘面试案例分析样题和答案(英文)

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McKiney On line case study
Tostep through this case example, we will give you some information, ask aquestion, and then, when you are ready, give you a sample answer. Wehope that the exercise will give you a sense of the flow of a caseinterview. (Please note, you can stop this exercise and pick up whereyou left off later. Your cookies must be on to use this feature).
Inthis exercise, you will answer a series of questions as the caseunfolds. We provide our recommended answers after each question, withwhich you can compare your own answers. We want to emphasize that mostquestions in a case study do not have a single right answer. In a livecase interview, we are more interested in your explanation of how youarrived at your answer, not just the answer itself. An interviewer canalways assess different but equally valid ways of approaching an issue,and then bring you back to the particular line of inquiry that he or shewants to pursue.
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The case
Question 1
Client Goal: Double the number of recruits while maintaining their quality with minimal increase in resources expended
Ourclient recruits graduating college seniors for entry-level positions inlocations around the world. It currently hires and places 500 graduatesper year but would like to triple in size over the next ten years whilemaintaining quality. Assume that the increase must all come from hiringgraduating seniors. (In an actual case, you may not be given this andother assumptions unless you ask.)
The client's current recruitingbudget is $2 million annually, and while it is in a strong financialposition, it would like to spend as few additional resources as possibleon recruiting. McKinsey is advising the client on what steps it willneed to take in order to meet its growth targets, while staying withinits budget constraints.

Q1: What levers does the organization have at its disposal to achieve its growth goal?
A: Some possible levers are given below. It's terrific if you identified several of these and perhaps some others.
•Attract more applicants at the same cost
oReviewthe list of campuses targeted (e.g., optimize resource allocationacross schools). The review may result in adding certain higherpotential campuses and eliminating other ones that appear to have morelimited potential.
oReview recruiting approach at each campus (e.g., optimize cost-effectiveness of messages and approaches at each school).
•Extendoffers to a higher percentage of applicants while maintaining quality(e.g., reduce the number of people who are turned down who would haveperformed equally well in the job)
•Improve acceptance rates amongofferees (e.g., better communicate the benefits of the job relative toalternatives or improve the attractiveness of the job relative toalternatives)


Question 2
For the remainder of thediscussion we'd like to focus on the two specific levers involvingattracting more applicants at the same cost.
•Review the list ofcampuses targeted (e.g., optimize resource allocation across schools).The review may result in adding certain higher potential campuses andeliminating other ones that appear to have more limited potential.
•Review recruiting approach at each campus (e.g., optimize cost-effectiveness of messages and approaches at each school).
Pleasenote that if you identified different but equally valid levers, theinterviewer would be able to assess them. But for the purpose of thiscase study, we are going to focus on these two levers.

Q2: Howwould you initially approach determining whether the client can increasehiring by adjusting the list of campuses targeted? What sort ofanalysis would you want to conduct and why?
A: You might take the following approach, where we've outlined two avenues of analysis:
•Estimate the hiring potential across schools
oAnalyze the number of hires by school over the last several years
oDevelop a comprehensive list of schools that meet our requirements and a minimum set of standards for recruits
oSurvey seniors at these schools to determine interest in an entry-level position with the client
oConsiderthe size of the graduating class at each school, determine how thatclass might be segmented (e.g., each class could be segmented bydiscipline or segmented based on career interests in response to thesurvey), then calculate the size of each segment
•Estimate the optimal cost-per-hire across schools
oCompare the current cost-per hire across schools
oIdentify opportunities to decrease the cost-per-hire at each school

Helpful Tip
Youmay have a slightly different list. Whatever your approach, we love tosee candidates come at a problem in more than one way, but still addressthe issue as directly and practically as possible. In giving theanswer, it's useful if you are clear about how the results of theanalysis would help to answer the original question posed.

Question 3
Twenty-fivepercent of the annual recruiting budget is spent on candidates (i.e.,attracting, assessing, and getting them to accept). Twenty percent ofhires are categorized as "most expensive" and have an averagecost-per-hire of $2,000.

Q3: What is the average cost-per-hire ofall other candidates? Remember that the client hires 500 students peryear and its annual recruiting budget is $2 million (information that wehope you noted earlier).
A: The answer is $750 per hire (or less than half the cost-per-hire of the "most expensive" candidates).
Amount spent on the less expensive candidates:
25% of $2 million budget = $500,000 spent on candidates
20% of 500 student = 100 students categorized as "most expensive"
100 x $2,000 cost-per-hire = $200,000 spent on "most expensive" hires
$500,000 recruiting budget - $200,000 = $300,000 remaining for all other hires
The number of less expensive candidates:
500 hires - 100 = 400 "other hires"
Cost-per-hire of the less expensive candidates:
$300,000/400 =$750 per hire
Helpful Tip
Whileyou may find that doing a straightforward math problem in the contextof an interview is a bit tougher, you can see that it is just a matterof breaking the problem down. We are looking for both your ability toset the analysis up properly and then to do the math in real time.

Question4
Q:In order to decide whether to reduce costs at the least efficientschools (i.e., those with an average cost per hire of $2,000), what elsewould you want to know?
A: Some of the possible answers are given below.
Basic questions:
•What are the components of costs at these schools (why is it so expensive to recruit there)?
•What opportunities exist to reduce costs?
•How much cost savings would result from implementing each of the opportunities?
•What consequences would implementing each of these opportunities have on recruiting at the least efficient schools?
Questions demonstrating further insight:
•Whyis the cost lower at more efficient schools, and are there bestpractices in resource management that can be applied to the leastefficient schools?
•If we reduce costs at the least efficientschools, what will we do with the cost savings (i.e., what would be thebenefit of spending the money elsewhere vs. where it is currently beingspent)?

Helpful Tip
We would not expect anyone to come up withall of these answers, but we hope some of your answers head in the samedirection as ours. Yours may bring some additional insights. In eithercase, be sure that you can clearly explain how your question will bringyou closer to the right decision.

Question 5
TheMcKinsey team conducts some analysis that indicates that increasingspending on blanket advertising (e.g., advertisements/flyers on campus)does not yield any significant increase in hires.
Q5: Given thatincreased blanket advertising spending seems to be relativelyineffective, and the client doesn't want to increase overall costs, whatmight be some other ideas for increasing the candidate pool on aspecific campus?
A: We are looking for at least a couple of answers like the ones given below:
•Improve/enhancerecruiting messages (e.g., understand target candidate group, refocusmessage on this group, understand competitive dynamic on campus)
•Utilize referrals (e.g., faculty, alumni)
•Come up with creative ways to target specific departments/clubs of the school
•Rethinkadvertising spending - while increasing blanket ad spending doesn'tseem to work, advertising might still be the most efficient andeffective way to increase the number of candidates if it is deployed in amore systematic, targeted way

Helpful Tip
This question is agood one for demonstrating creativity because there's a long list ofpossible ideas. Additional insights into how a given idea would beapproached and how much it would cost are helpful.

Question 6
Forsimplicity's sake, let's say we've conducted market research and foundthat there are two types of people on each campus, A and B.Historically, our client has also used two types of recruiting messagesin its advertising. The first, called "See the World," gets one percentof type A students to apply, but three percent of type B students. Thesecond, called "Pathway to Leadership," gets five percent of Type Astudents to apply, but only two percent of type B students.
The chartbelow lists the breakdown of types A and B students at some of ourmajor campuses, and the message our client is using on campus.


School% of Type A Students% of Type B StudentsRecruiting Message Used on Campus
University 180%20%Pathway to Leadership
University 248%52%See the World
University 370%30%Pathway to Leadership
University 460%40%See the World


Q6: Assuming there's no difference between the costs of each message, what can you tell me from this information?
School% of Type A Students% of Type B StudentsRecruiting Message Used on Campus
University 180%20%Pathway to Leadership
University 248%52%See the World
University 370%30%Pathway to Leadership
University 460%40%See the World

A:According to these numbers, the client should use the "Pathway toLeadership" message across all four universities. The "See the World"message is preferable only if more than 80% of the students at a givenuniversity are of type B.

Helpful Tip
An even more insightfulresponse would mention that the ultimate answer depends on the cost ofeach message, whether the cost increases depending on the number ofstudents at the campus, and how interested we are in students of Type Avs. Type B (e.g., will one type be more likely than the other to get anoffer and to be successful on the job). One could imagine using bothmessages on some campuses if the additional cost were justified by theresulting increase in hires.

Question7
University 4 graduates 1,000 seniors each year.
Q7: How many new candidates might be generated by changing the recruiting message at University 4 to Pathway to Leadership?
A: The answer is 20 candidates (i.e., an increase of over 100%).
Number of each type of student at University 4:
1,000 seniors x 60% = 600 Type A students
1,000 seniors x 40% = 400 Type B students
Candidates attracted be See the World message:
(1% x 600) + (3% x 400) = 18 candidates
Candidates attracted by Pathway to Leadership message:
(5% x 600) + (2% x 400) = 38 candidates
Increase in candidates resulting from change in message:
38 - 18 = 20 more candidates (an increase of over 100%)

Question8
Q8: What sort of next steps should we tell our client we'd like to take based on what we have discussed today?
A:The ability to come to a logical, defensible synthesis based on theinformation available at any point in an engagement is critical to thework we do. Even though we'd consider ourselves to be very early in theoverall project at this point in the case, we do want to be able toshare our current perspective. The ideal answer would include thefollowing points:
FINDINGS
•There appears to be an opportunityto significantly increase total applicants of the same quality that weare getting today at the same or reduced cost:
oIncreasing blanketadvertising is ineffective and costly, but changing the advertisingmessage on some campuses could increase applicants significantly withoutincreasing costs. At one of the campuses we've looked at, University 4,the number of applicants would go up more than 100 percent
oThecost-per-hire varies dramatically from school to school. This suggeststhat there may be opportunities to reduce costs in certain places orreallocate resources more efficiently
NEXT STEPS
•We plan toexplore further ideas for increasing quality applications by changingthe mix of schools, beginning with a more detailed review of theopportunities to reduce costs at certain schools
•After looking atlevers to increase total applicants, we will be analyzing opportunitiesto improve the offer rate (i.e., ensure we're not turning down qualityapplicants) and to increase the acceptance rate
•We will examineadditional methods for attracting more applications from our currentcampuses (e.g., referrals, clubs) in addition to assessing the impact ofimproved messaging on campus