Asian paints case interview tips

Asian paints case study tips
Candidates who are invited to interview participate in three types of interviews: fresher interviews, Experience interviews and case interviews.
These tools help us assess your capabilities and potential in the four areas critical to our daily work: problem solving, achieving, personal impact, and leadership. 
They also give you a better understanding of our work, our people, and ultimately if this is the right career path for you.

Experience interview
If you are invited to interview, we are already impressed by your achievements to date. However, it is not just your accomplishments that are important to us—it is also the skills you've developed along the way.
Our interviewers are trained to examine your past accomplishments in depth, to determine if your skills position you well for a successful career . Be prepared to discuss your most important past experiences in a very detailed way, focusing on your specific role and describing the main actions that were critical to success
Case interview
The most effective way for us to assess your problem-solving skills is to discuss a typical business problem with you, using two different case studies during your interviews.
These broad, two-way discussions demonstrate your ability to creatively approach complex or ambiguous problems in unfamiliar businesses, structure your thinking, and reach sensible conclusions in a short time based on the available facts. These skills are critical to being a successful consultant.
Approaching the case

How you will be evaluated
Because case interviews present problems for which there are no predetermined answers, you will be evaluated more on how you go about dealing with the problem than on the specific answers you come up with.
We will be assessing how you think about problems and whether you can reach a well-supported conclusion. We will also be gauging your ability to prioritize and exercise judgment within a business context.
Your approach to the case and the insights you reach will demonstrate your problem-solving abilities and help us get a sense of your potential.

Tips on doing well in the case interview
How the case interview benefits you
As you work through the business cases during your two interviews, you will understand more about our firm and the kinds of problems we solve. 
Most candidates enjoy the cases and the business issues they raise.

Practicing before a case interview
We recommend that you practice for the case study interviews, especially if you are inexperienced at interactive problem-solving discussions. To help you prepare for your interview, we've put together some practice case studies and the team leader game.

Practice case studies
Learn how to approach a typical case.
These practice case studies will help you understand what to expect in the case interviews. While our interviewers have a good deal of flexibility in creating the cases they use in an interview, the cases we’ve selected are representative of the ones many of our interviewers use.

Things to keep in mind
Most questions in a case study do not have a single right answer
In a live case interview, we are more interested in your explanation of how you arrived at your answer, not just the answer itself
An interviewer can always assess different but equally valid ways of approaching an issue, and then bring you back to the particular line of inquiry that he or she wants to pursue
In a live case interview, there will be far more interaction with the interviewer than this exercise allows; for example, in a live interview you will have the opportunity to ask clarifying questions
Although there is no time limit in this practice exercise, a live case interview would typically be completed in 25-30minutes, depending on how the case evolves

Case interview tips
How to do your best in the case interview

Listen to the problem. Make sure you are answering the question that you have been asked. 

Begin by setting a structure. Think of four to five sub-questions that you need to answer before you can address the overall issue. 

Stay organized. When discussing a specific issue, remember why you are discussing it and where it fits into the overall problem. 

Communicate your train of thought clearly. If you have considered some alternatives and rejected them, tell the interviewer what and why. 

Step back periodically. Summarize what you have learned and what the implications appear to be. 

Ask for additional information when you need it. But make sure that the interviewer knows why you need the information. 

Watch for cues from the interviewer. Any information given to you by an interviewer is meant to help you—listen carefully and follow their lead.

Be comfortable with numbers. You will almost always have to work with numbers in a case. This requires comfort with basic arithmetic and sometimes large quantities. You may also be asked to perform estimations.

Don’t fixate on "cracking the case." It is much more important to demonstrate a logical thought process than to arrive at the solution. 

Use business judgment and common sense. 

Relax and enjoy the process. Think of the interviewer as a teammate in a problem-solving process and the case as a real client problem that you need to explore and then solve. Our clients need pragmatic solutions that they can act on as soon as possible. Always focus on actionable recommendations, even though sometimes they may not be the most elegant solution to the problem.

Some common mistakes

Misunderstanding the question or answering the wrong question.
Proceeding in a haphazard fashion. For example, not identifying the major issues that need to be examined or jumping from one issue to another without outlining your overall approach. 
Asking a barrage of questions without explaining to the interviewer why you need the information.
Force-fitting familiar business frameworks to every case question, whether they are relevant or not, or misapplying a relevant business framework that you do not really understand, rather than simply using common sense.
Failing to synthesize a point of view. Even if you don’t have time to talk through all the key issues, be sure to synthesize a point of view based on where you ended up. 
Not asking for help. Some candidates feel it is inappropriate to ask for help when they are stuck. Whether it is a misunderstanding related to the overall problem, or whether you are struggling with a specific analysis, be sure to ask for help when you need it.