unstructured problem solving zs

Hacking the Case Interview

ZS Associates interviews consist of case interviews, a written case interview, and behavioral or fit interview questions. There are typically three rounds of interviews that candidates must go through before being extended an offer.

• First round : 30-minute phone screen with a recruiter. The interview will be focused on behavioral or fit interview questions.
• Second round : Two 30-minute interviews. One interview will be focused on a case interview while the other is focused on behavioral or fit interview questions.
• Third round : Three 30- to 40-minute interviews and a 45-minute written case interview. For the 30- to 40-minute interviews, two will be focused on case interviews while the third will be focused on behavioral or fit interview questions.

If you have an upcoming ZS associates interview or are expecting to interview with them, we have you covered. In this article, we’ll cover:  

• The 6 steps to solving any ZS Associates case interview
• ZS Associates case interview examples
• How to ace the ZS Associates written case interview
• The 10 most common ZS behavioral or fit interview questions
• Recommended ZS Associates case interview resources

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 6 Steps to Solve Any ZS Associates Case Interview

Acing your case interviews is the single most important factor that determines whether or not you will receive a consulting job offer from ZS Associates.

A case interview is a special type of interview that nearly every single consulting firm uses. ZS Associates case interviews simulate what the consulting job will be like by placing you in a hypothetical business situation in which you are asked to solve a business problem.

ZS case interviews, also known as case study interviews, are all 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.

According to ZS Associates previous career website, they look for the following six core skills:

• Excellent critical thinking and problem-solving
• Desire to innovate and transform organizations
• Client service orientation
• Emotional intelligence, empathy, and adaptability
• Orientation to quality and creating positive impact
• Strong communication skills and ability to persuade

There are also three core values that ZS Associates lives by, according to  ZS' career page :

• Treat people right : treating other people with respect and dignity and creating a welcoming work environment that installs a sense of belonging
• Get it right : prioritizing finding the right answer and delivering quality work
• Do the right thing : holding people to high ethical standards and approaching work with integrity

Follow these six steps to solve any ZS case interview or case study interview:

1. Understand the case

The case will begin with the interviewer giving you the case information. While the interviewer is speaking, make sure that you are taking meticulous notes on the most important pieces of information. Focus on understanding the context of the situation, the company, and the objective of the case.

2. Verify the objective

Understanding the business problem and objective of the case is the most important part of the case interview. Not addressing the right business question is the quickest way to fail a case interview.

Make sure that you ask clarifying questions to better understand the business situation and problem. Then, confirm that you understand the case objective with the interviewer. This ensures that you start the case on the right track.

3. Create a framework

Develop a framework to help you tackle the business problem. A framework is a tool that helps you structure and break down complex problems into smaller, more manageable components. With a framework, you’ll be brainstorming different ideas and organizing them 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 .

Afterwards, walk the interviewer through your framework. They may ask a few questions or provide some feedback to you.

4. Develop a hypothesis

After creating a framework, you should develop a hypothesis. A hypothesis is an educated guess on the answer based on the data and information that you have so far.

Your hypothesis does not need to be correct. You’ll be continuously testing and refining your hypothesis throughout the case. The purpose of having a hypothesis is to guide your analysis and ensure that you are spending your time answering the right questions.

5. Test your hypothesis

The majority of the case will be spent testing your hypothesis.

After stating your hypothesis, it is up to you to lead the direction of the case. Depending on the context of the case, you may want to ask for data to do some analysis. You may also want to explore qualitative questions that you have. As you uncover more information, your hypothesis will likely have to change. 

Sometimes, your hypothesis will be completely wrong and you’ll need to develop a completely new hypothesis to test. Other times, your hypothesis may be on the right track, but you’ll need to refine or narrow it down further.

Throughout the rest of the case, you’ll be answering a mix of quantitative and qualitative questions. Make sure that after each question, you explain how your answer impacts your hypothesis or answer to the case.

6. Deliver a recommendation

In the last step of the case interview, you’ll present your recommendation and provide the major reasons that support it. You do not need to recap everything that you have done in the case, so focus on summarizing only the facts that are most important.

It is also good practice to include potential next steps that you would take if you had more time or data. These can be areas of your framework that you did not have time to explore yet or lingering questions that you do not have great answers for.

ZS Associates Case Interview Examples

Example #1: Disposable Diapers

Proctor & Gamble (P&G) is an American consumer goods company that specializes in personal health, consumer health, and personal care and hygiene. One of its most revolutionary products is the company’s disposable Pampers Premium diaper.

Kimberly Clark has also entered the disposable diaper market and has been constantly improving and marketing its own brand, Huggies. What can P&G do in response to maintain Pampers’ market share?

Example #2: Entry Level Car Model

Our client is a multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Japan. They are the fourth largest automaker in Japan. Our client currently offers two car models, a mid-level car and a high-end car.

They are considering introducing an entry level car in the United States that they already sell in other countries. However, the United States market is different from that of other countries because there are numerous entry level cars available. How would you decide whether or not our client should introduce its entry level car model?

Example #3: Financial Software

Our client is a software and information technology based in San Francisco, California. Their software allows individuals and businesses to receive payments over the Internet. Our client provides the technical systems, fraud prevention, and banking infrastructure needed to operate online payment systems.

We have been hired to help them determine how they can increase the number of people using the online bill pay feature. What would you recommend?

Example #4: Luxury Watchmaker

Tissot is a Swiss watchmaker that manufacturers watches in the $300 to $3,000 price range. They sell watches through three distribution channels: department stores, specialty watch stores, and online through its own website.

Online purchases of Tissot watches have increased drastically over the past year to the point that sales from department stores and specialty watch stores has decreased dramatically. Owners of these two types of stores have begun to voice their objection to online sales. What can Tissot do to resolve this sales channel conflict?

Example #5: Party Goods

Your client is a leading American manufacturer and distributor of party goods. They sell everyday products and seasonal goods. Recently, major customers have complained to management stating that prices of your client’s products are too high.

Your client is looking to decrease prices to keep their existing customers. To be able to do this, they would need to significantly reduce its cost structure. How would you look for opportunities to cut costs?

Example #6: Patient Analytics Software

Your client is Healthcare Co., a software and information technology startup. They operate a software as a service (SaaS) business in which software is licensed to customers on a subscription basis. Healthcare Co. hosts the software on their own servers and customers access the software through a web browser.

Your client has developed an innovative software solution for hospitals that would enable hospitals to better track patient outcomes and use advanced analytics to recommend treatments. You have been hired to help them determine how to maximize revenue. How would you go about this?

For more practice, check out our article on 23 MBA consulting casebooks with 700+ free practice cases .

How to Ace the ZS Associates Written Case Interview

Here’s how the ZS Associates written case interview works:

• You’ll be taken to a meeting room and given either a packet of 8 - 10 slides or a laptop that has all of the case information. You may also be given a list of 4 - 5 questions
• You’ll have 45 minutes to read through the slides, answer the given questions or develop a recommendation, and create PowerPoint slides
• At the end of the 45 minutes, you’ll present to the interviewer and have a discussion

Follow the steps below to perform well on the written case interview.

1. Understand the business problem and objective

The first step in completing a written case interview is to understand what the objective is. What is the primary business question you are trying to answer with the data and information provided?

2. Read the list of major questions

Your written case interview may provide you with a list of 4 - 5 key questions that you will be expected to address or answer. Read through these questions first since these will be the questions that you will want to prioritize.

3. Skim the materials

Next, flip through the information packet that is provided to see what information is available. Identify what data you have and what data you do not have.

The goal in this step is not to read and analyze every slide. That would take too much time. Instead, by seeing what information exists, you will be able to better prioritize what you spend your time reading and analyzing.

4. Create a framework

Before you begin reading and analyzing the information in the slides in more detail, you should create a basic framework to help guide your analysis. The list of key questions will help set the foundation of your framework.

5. Read and analyze the material 

Afterwards, read and analyze the information that is relevant to each area of your framework. As you begin answering questions and drawing insights, make sure to write a one or two sentence summary. This will make it easier to decide on a recommendation later.

6. Create your slides

Once you have a recommendation, it is time to start filling in your slides. Write your executive summary first and make sure that it tells a clear and logical story that leads to your ultimate recommendation. 

Then, write the headlines for your slides. Make sure the headlines summarize the key point of each slide. If the interviewer were to only read the headlines of your slides, they should be able to understand your entire presentation.

Afterwards, fill in the content for that slide to support the headline.

7. Prepare for potential questions

If you have any time remaining, brainstorm potential questions the interviewer may ask you during your presentation. They may want to know how you performed your analysis or how you reached your conclusions.

Preparing for these potential questions will help your presentation go much more smoothly. You will also feel much more confident while presenting.

For a full guide on written case interviews, check out our consulting written case interview step-by-step guide .

The 10 Most Common ZS Behavioral or Fit Interview Questions

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. 

For more help, check out our complete guide on consulting behavioral interview questions .

1. Why are you interested in working at ZS Associates?

How to answer: Have at least three reasons why you’re interested in working at ZS Associates. You could mention that you loved the people that you have met from ZS Associates so far. You can talk about ZS Associate’s massive global presence and expertise in consulting, software, and technology. You can speak to how ZS Associates provides strategy and implementation, so you can see the impact of your work. Finally, you can talk about their fantastic company culture.

2. Why do you want to work in consulting?

How to answer: Again, have three reasons why you’re interested in consulting. You could mention the fast career growth opportunity, the opportunity to develop soft and hard skills, or the level of impact that you can make by working with large companies on their most challenging issues.

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.

4. What is your proudest achievement?

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.

5. What is something that you are proud of 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. Choose something that is impressive and interesting.

6. Tell me about a time when you led 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 questions, make sure that you structure your answer. Structure your answer by providing 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 commonly used to answer behavioral or fit interview questions.

7. Give an example of a time when you faced conflict or a disagreement.

How to answer: When answering this question, focus on emphasizing the steps you took to resolve the conflict or disagreement. Speak to the interpersonal skills you had to use in order to mediate the situation. Interviewers want to know that you are a great mediator and that you can handle conflict in a constructive way.

8. Tell me about a time when you had to persuade someone.

How to answer: Choose a time when you were able to change someone’s mind. Focus on emphasizing the steps that you took to persuade that person and what impact and results this had. Interviewers want to know that you are a great communicator and a good people person.

9. Describe a time when you failed.

How to answer: Choose a time when you failed to meet a deadline or did not meet expectations. 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 don’t get discouraged from failure and that you treat those experiences as learning opportunities.

10. What questions do you have for me?

How to answer: This is a great opportunity to get to know the interviewer on a more personal level. Ask them questions about their experience in consulting or their career. Express genuine interest in what they have to show and ask follow-up questions. The more you can get the interviewer talking about themself, the more likely they will have a positive impression of you.

Recommended ZS Associates Case Interview Resources

Here are the resources we recommend to learn the most robust, effective case interview strategies in the least time-consuming way:

• Comprehensive Case Interview Course (our #1 recommendation): The only resource you need. Whether you have no business background, rusty math skills, or are short on time, this step-by-step course will transform you into a top 1% caser that lands multiple consulting offers.
• Hacking the Case Interview Book   (available on Amazon): Perfect for beginners that are short on time. Transform yourself from a stressed-out case interview newbie to a confident intermediate in under a week. Some readers finish this book in a day and can already tackle tough cases.
• The Ultimate Case Interview Workbook (available on Amazon): Perfect for intermediates struggling with frameworks, case math, or generating business insights. No need to find a case partner – these drills, practice problems, and full-length cases can all be done by yourself.
• Case Interview Coaching : Personalized, one-on-one coaching with former consulting interviewers
• Behavioral & Fit Interview Course : Be prepared for 98% of behavioral and fit questions in just a few hours. We'll teach you exactly how to draft answers that will impress your interviewer
• Resume Review & Editing : Transform your resume into one that will get you multiple interviews

Land Multiple Consulting Offers

Complete, step-by-step case interview course. 30,000+ happy customers.

ZS Associates Case Interview 2024: Format, Samples & Guide

The ZS Associates case interview takes place in  the last round of the company’s recruitment procedure . It is the most important component to decide whether a candidate is hired by ZS Associates. 

In this article, we will discover the details of the ZS Associates case interview, from its format to question types and tips to pass. 

Table of Contents

What is ZS case interview?

Zs case interview is the last test to become an zs consultant.

The ZS case interview is the screening interview of ZS Associates, where candidates must solve business problems (or cases). The interview evaluates whether candidates possess the capabilities and qualities to become a ZS consultant.

ZS case interviews are candidate-led , requiring the candidate to lead and manage every step of the case-solving process, including structuring the issue, developing frameworks, requesting data, synthesizing findings, and providing solutions. The interviewer just presents the topic, instead of asking questions concerning the case.

Before getting to the case interview, you must pass the initial screening rounds, which include resume screening and aptitude test.

In the resume round, you’ll of course need a consulting resume, just like what you’d need for McKinsey, and a cover letter, then submit it on ZS’s website.

The aptitude test concerns numerical, verbal, and logical reasoning questions. It’s quite similar to McKinsey’s problem solving test before it was retired and replaced by the problem solving game.

These tests should take around 90 minutes. After taking the tests, you’ll join a video-based screening interview.

ZS cases are split into a written case and an oral case

The written case comes first, then after finishing it, you move on to the oral case.

In the written case, you will be provided with 5 to 6 graphs and charts depicting a business scenario and 4 to 8 questions based on the charts. This case is often 10 to 15 pages long and has a time limit of 30 to 45 minutes.

If you can’t answer all of the questions in the case, you should at least go through them and establish a logical approach to the case. It would be helpful in the next part. 

After the written case study, you will have a discussion with a recruiter about one or more business-related cases for around 30 minutes.

You need to present your approach to the case by asking relevant questions and finding out the root causes of the problems as well as the solutions. So, quite typical of consulting case interviews.

You may also be asked to discuss the written case study. This is the chance for you to present how you plan to approach and solve the incomplete questions (if any).

As with any case interview, how you approach the problem is more important than how accurate or complete your answers are . As long as you have a logical rationale for your approach, you can still pass the interview even if you haven’t answered every question in the case. 

ZS looks for those with achieving & analytical mindset

Just like all management consulting firms, ZS looks for those who want to make an impact. The main value ZS will look for are:

Outstanding academic achievement: Your GPA and school prestige. Your best bet? 4.0 at Harvard! But jokes aside, a 3.6 GPA should be good. Below that? Try to make focus points in other parts of your resume. This article might help!

Analytical ability: The ability to create a thorough, data-driven, insightful analysis and define the root cause and solutions to difficult problems. You show this in the case interview via constructing issue trees, answer guesstimate questions, etc.

Demonstrated leadership : The ability to inspire and motivate others. Consultants won’t simply look for “leaders” who just tell their subordinates what to do, but a guiding beacon, even for their superiors (very much like telling your boss what to do, but, think of it as inspiring ideas to them).

Collaborative approach : The ability to exchange facts and insights and effectively interact with people from various backgrounds and cultures. You’ll meet people hailing from mathematics, engineering, accounting, psychology, so play your collab cards right

Intellectual curiosity : The ability to actively and continuously seek and expand knowledge. To do this, start reading sơm business papers, and make sure you can absorb them 

ZS case interview questions

ZS focuses on 3 types of questions: chart insight, framework/issue true, and market sizing & guesstimate questions.

Chart questions are the core of the written case

The written case will present you with 5-6 charts and graphs, and your job is to answer some questions based on the charts. Bar charts, line graphs, pie charts, and scatter plots are the most common occurrences.

Here’s a bar chart question you might face:

Issue tree questions are staples of case interviews (of course)

Framework/issue tree questions are commonly used in ZS Associates’ oral case interviews, well, just like in any case interview from any consulting firm. For these questions, candidates are often asked to find the causes and solutions for a business problem.

Here’s a very simple issue tree, so you can get the idea:

You can also check out this dedicated article on issue tree to know more! It’s so popular in consulting that I believe this should be the first thing to understand when starting with case interviews.

Market-sizing & guesstimate questions are also present in oral cases

Another case interview staple! Of course ZS will test your ability to quantify something using logic and analytics. And remember, what your answer is isn’t important, but how you get to that answer. 

Here’s some example of market sizing questions:

How many mobile phones are sold in the USA in 2022?

If you open a plant shop, how much money can your monthly profit be?

What is the size of the watch market in Portugal?

Guesstimate questions are similar, just lacking the business stuff, like:

How many steps does one take to walk across Los Angeles?

How much air is needed to fill a hundred balloons?

How many cyclists are living in New York City at the moment?

These questions will test your ability in mental math, logical thinking, problem-solving, and background knowledge. When dealing with these questions, you should set up a work frame including structural steps and related questions.

It could be complicated at first, but anyone can answer market-sizing & guesstimate questions after practicing with the right approaches. To know more about those techniques, here’s a dedicated article on market-sizing & guesstimate questions!

And don’t forget the fit interview

Some may say fit interviews don’t matter, but I believe they set the tone for the later interviews, so you’d better make a damn good first impression. ZS will ask you some behavioral and typical HR questions, and everything should take some 30 minutes.

ZS actually lists some important questions on the website so you can prepare prior to the interview. Let’s check some of them out.

Q1: Tell us details about your challenges, goals, and the actions you’ve taken to meet the moment

These questions are competency-based. Using the STAR approach should be your best bet (framework, guys). Here’s how you go:

Situation : Start with the settings of your challenge

Task : Then move to what you needed to do to overcome the challenge

Action : Demonstrate specifically the steps you took to solve the problems. Be clear about the rationales behind your actions.

Result : Conclude with the outcomes of your efforts to show how result-driven and competent you are

Q2: Demonstrate that you are curious and a constant learner who can take on a variety of challenges

For this one, talk about some of your learning experiences. Maybe, when you took charge of a role you’d never been in before, or when you tried to pursue a challenging interest. The important thing is, show your eagerness to learn.

Q3: Show your capacity to leverage analytics and technology to bring innovative solutions to complex problems

ZS is quite a tech-savvy firm, so you should show how tech-savvy you are. Prepare yourself with both knowledge and experience in tech and business. If you haven’t had any practical experience, focus on your technical skills.

And I tell you what, if you don’t know where to start, start with ChatGPT. It’s AI at your disposal. Use it in some tasks like writing reports, train it to get better at those tasks. It may be small, but it’s a whole new world. 

Besides, it’s free. Why wait?

Q4: Talk about your experiences working with others and collaborating with teams, especially under challenging circumstances

Approach these questions the same way you do with the first types but concentrate on your teamwork. Emphasize your contributions to group work experiences and how the final results reflect your efforts. 

How to prepare for ZS case interview

Careful preparation is a must to ace ZS’ case. You can tackle each aspect of the interview step by step.

Start from getting used to candidate-led cases, then further out with business intuition, consulting math, fundamentals & frameworks of case interview, then finally conduct mock interviews.

Step 1: Get used to the candidate-led case interview, and written case interview

Examine examples of candidate-led case interviews to familiarize yourself with the case flow and how to interact with the interviewer.

You can also get familiar with more case interview samples and all instantly-effective tricks for case interviews with our Case Interview E2E Secret Program. Also, here’s our free video of a case interview example with an explanation and expert comments.

Step 2: Develop business intuition

Having business intuition significantly improves your performance in case interviews. Working on intuition is a gradual process that takes practice every day. You can improve your business intuition in two ways:

Written sources: Read business papers daily (Bloomberg is recommended). You can also find articles on McKinsey, Bain, and BCG’s websites. But be careful! The important thing is not your page count, but what you absorbed from them

First-hand experience and observations: Don't just do things like a machine; find out what the seniors are doing, why they did what they did, and how it has affected the organization. Everything is a learning process, and it’s up to you to squeeze out every bit of knowledge and experience

Step 3: Practice consulting math

Mental math is as consulting as MECE. Consultants work with quantitative data in just about every minute.

It is just takes too long to whip out a calculator every time they need to calculate something, and you’re definitely not impressing clients with that. That’s why interviewers place such high emphasis on mental math skills of interviewees. 

To improve your math, you can:

Train your head : Apply mental calculations on any daily occasion unless an EXACT answer is required

Start small : Use a piece of scratch paper, give yourself some margins of error (5% is a good start); once you get used to it, remove the paper and narrow down the margin of error.

Establish a routine : Spare time for daily practice and get better each day, just like exercise. You’ll never notice the little changes, but they stack up HARD, and when you realize it, you’re probably doing math thrice as fast

Step 4: Learn to read graphs & charts

The written case is charts galore, so you should at least grasp the purposes of each chart and develop your own approach to them.

Start easy, from bar, pie charts, then moving one to more advanced stuff like mixed charts or scatter plots (I myself would also suggest candlestick charts), you’ll get the hang of it in no time.

Step 5: Learn the fundamentals and frameworks of case interview

ZS case interviews (or any other case interview) are based on the fundamentals - using hypotheses and issue trees, the MECE principle, and the frameworks. So, knowing them is extremely important and you should practice the fundamentals until you are comfortable.

A common mistake candidates make during their case interviews is to go straight for the frameworks. Frameworks require extensive adaptation to match actual cases. To customize appropriately, you must understand the fundamental knowledge first.

To know more about case interviews, here’s a dedicated article .

Step 6: Conduct mock case interview

Mock interviews are a great way to simulate the actual case interview session. You should examine your cases in great depth during the mock case interview. Record your session, replay, note the comments, and look for ways to improve.

Find a former consultant to help you with your practice - they are the ideal people; they've been there, they’ll know what a candidate must be. Through their feedback, you can improve on what needs to be improved and boost your chance of getting an offer.

Techniques to approach problems in ZS Associates case interviews can be hard to master at first tries, hence the importance of practice. To be a competitive candidate for the company, you should spend time training with quality study materials. For a complete guide, covering everything you need, check out our Case Interview Program !

We can also help you connect with consulting coaches (all former consultants!) for a more personalized feedback. Book your mock case interview session with us now !

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The scoring mechanism in the McKinsey Digital Assessment

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Why ZS Associates - the Inside Scoop

• Last Updated September, 2022

Former ZS Associates consultant

Interested in a fast-growth consulting firm that is strong in the life sciences and expanding to other industries? If so, ZS Associates could be the firm for you.

In this article, we’ll discuss:

• What types of consulting work ZS Associates does.
• The inside scoop about the work and culture from a former ZS Associates consultant.
• Why you might want to work at ZS Associates and how to answer the “Why ZS Associates?” interview question.

Let’s get started!

What is ZS Associates? A Journey from Academia to Global Consulting

Andris Zoltners and Prabhakant (Prabha) Sinha, while studying at the University of Massachusetts, were researching the knapsack problem, an optimization methodology involving getting as much gear as possible in a knapsack while adhering to space and weight constraints. The knapsack approach is typically used in planning meals for astronauts and the US military. But Andris and Prabha realized it could also be used in solving sales force sizing and resource allocation problems for industries.

The Ph.D. classmates became college professors at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. In 1983, they started helping companies to improve the efficiency of their sales force using their proven territory mapping software.

ZS Associates started strong, helping eight of the 10 largest pharmaceutical companies in the world align territories and resize their sales forces in its first 3 years. The company grew exponentially, having worked with 49 of the 50 largest drugmakers in healthcare and 17 of the 20 largest medical device makers by 2011.

With strong focus and expertise in the healthcare and life sciences space, ZS has helped pharma and biotech clients make strategic decisions across their diverse needs ranging from drug development through commercialization with the analytics and technology to enable it.

Recently, ZS has further expanded its expertise and offerings and has ventured into high-tech, financial services, and beyond.

Nail the case & fit interview with strategies from former MBB Interviewers that have helped 89.6% of our clients pass the case interview.

ZS Helps Clients to Solve Sales, Marketing, & Strategic Problems

ZS Associates focuses on serving clients across diverse industries & services including:

• Pharmaceutical and Biotech: Forming the core of ZS’s work, the company has expertise in various therapeutic areas like oncology, cell & gene therapy, and rare diseases. ZS helps pharmaceutical companies across the research and commercialization lifecycles including projects related to sales, marketing, healthcare ecosystem, digital health, and patient & consumer health.
• Health Plans: ZS helps clients move towards value-based care and attain their acquisition and retention goals with projects focused on customer experience, sales effectiveness and compensation, and consumer & operations strategy.
• Medical Technology: ZS’s dedicated MedTech consulting team brings forth extensive experience at tackling product launch, pricing and marketing strategy & transformation, and sales effectiveness across cardiovascular, diagnostics, surgical robotics, and digital technologies.
• Consumer Goods: With customers at the heart of all strategies, ZS Associates helps clients gather customer insights to build their portfolio and marketing strategy, promotions and marketing mix, and brand & messaging using advanced analytics and artificial intelligence.
• Financial Services: ZS has ventured into various aspects of the financial world with projects for insurance, banking and credit, wealth, retirement and asset management industries. The company helps clients make business decisions related to sales and customer experience.
• High-Tech and Telecommunications: Digital transformation has changed the high-tech and telecommunication industry. ZS Associates helps with sales effectiveness and key accounts strategy.
• Industrials and Business Services: ZS helps clients across various industries like agriculture and food, energy, and chemicals with go-to-market and commercial organizational models, sales effectiveness, and marketing strategy.
• Private Equity: ZS advises clients on sales and key accounts strategies to build strong revenue growth and market share throughout their investment lifecycle.
• Retail: ZS Associates leverages AI-enabled proprietary technology to solve business problems around merchandising, store operations, and logistics & supply chain.
• Travel & Hospitality: ZS helps clients with revenue growth and marketing projects to drive bottom-line impact using analytics.

With clients across the globe, ZS has offices in 35 locations helping clients with various business needs like:

• Strategy & Advisory
• AI & Analytics
• Digital & Technology
• Life Sciences R&D & Medical
• Portfolio & Pipeline
• Value & Access

This list gives you an idea of the industries and types of work ZS Associates deals with. Let’s see how projects are dealt with and what it’s like to work at ZS.

“Why ZS Associates?” - Interesting & Challenging Work

As a part of the primary market research team, I helped find actionable customer and marketing insights using highly unstructured and scattered data. Here’s an example of one of many interesting projects I worked on to understand what type of work you could expect at ZS Associates.

ZS Associates Case Example: Effective Drug Marketing

• Problem: Our client, a key player in the oncology space, had been marketing their combination therapy across different tumor types in different ways. They approached ZS to streamline their marketing efforts without impacting their market share.
• Approach: We suggested the client to run a multi-phase study involving stakeholders from various business units dealing with different tumor types to facilitate knowledge sharing. We began with the consolidation of insights on effective marketing messages, which helped us redesign the marketing materials. Then, we interviewed oncologists and patients to get a holistic feedback on the updated materials. Finally, we ended with a tracking study to measure the impact of the revamped marketing strategy on the overall product perceptions and market share.
• Analysis: Based on the overall research, we found that the best way to streamline the marketing efforts would be to leverage the familiarity and usage of the drug in one prominent tumor market and use it as a backbone of the marketing efforts in other markets. Success in one important market would establish credibility.
• Recommendation: Marketing materials were revamped, keeping the narrative similar to that used in skin cancer where the client’s product had the highest market share. This significantly decreased the investment in training the sales team and streamlined updates to the marketing strategy across platforms.

This was just one of many case examples where I thoroughly enjoyed my work and relished the impact that we created for our clients.

Projects at ZS  Associates are usually aimed at solving unstructured problems which required deep analytics to be done within tight delivery timelines. Let’s see how these challenges make work more interesting and help build skills that will help you throughout your career.

• Unstructured Problem Solving: Consultants often face unstructured problems at ZS Associates. In the drug marketing case example above, the client knew that their marketing spend on oncology products was high and its value was still unclear to clients. The first step is to figure out the exact problem before suggesting solutions. This helps you to develop a knack for thinking through various aspects of the problem and making the most of whatever data and resources you have at your disposal.
• Deep-dive Analytics: Projects at ZS seek to answer highly complex problems. This required us to immerse ourselves in multiple datasets (like data from surveys, interviews, and patient records). These data sets can be complex and include both quantitative and qualitative information. Connecting the dots helped us tease out insights about the products’ marketing and sales performance. Thus, we could provide the best recommendations in a quick and informed manner. This provides a competitive edge to our clients. By working on this type of case, you’ll develop the mindset of seeing the bigger picture rather than bits and pieces of information.
• Effective Communication: As consultants, we deal with senior management across ZS and the client side. This requires juggling between providing the required and essential information, but in a concise and engaging manner. This makes you better at communicating insights effectively.

“Why ZS Associates?” - Continuous Learning Process

Let’s look at how the role evolves as you progress in your professional journey at ZS.

Back in 2016, when I started working at ZS as an Associate, I worked on day-to-day tasks like performing analysis, creating presentations, and sending daily progress updates to the broader team and clients. I wondered what impact we were creating. As I moved on to become an Associate Consultant, I started managing team members and project timelines. Further, as a Consultant, my involvement with the clients increased significantly in terms of understanding their pain points and discussing possible solutions.

At ZS, promotions happen in steps, but learning is continuous. With so many talented individuals working on challenging projects, there are a lot of great things to assimilate from the environment.

Learning at ZS Associates is immersive and natural with a strong feedback culture.

• Prompt & actionable feedback: At ZS, I’ve always gotten feedback at the right time and in a way that would help me identify the key areas for improvement.
• Effective brainstorming: At ZS everyone’s opinion matters and that makes the brainstorming sessions effective. From an associate to a principal, hearing thoughts from everyone helps in creating impactful work for the client, and also gaining various perspectives.
• Knowledge sharing: Expertise isn’t localized at ZS, rather people proactively help each other out. People are just an email or message away, and willing to discuss unique client problems and share their expert advice.

“Why ZS Associates?” - People as the Backbone of ZS

People form the core of the positive working experience at ZS. Working long hours on solving complex client problems is possible due to the collaborative and supportive environment at ZS. People across levels contribute to projects in different ways, but the impact is always collective.

“Treat people right, get it right, do the right thing” – ZSers live by this mantra and that helps create an energetic and collaborative environment to work in. Being featured in “Great Place to Work” for multiple years is a testimony of how ZS’s culture is all about its people.

When I was a part of ZS, I always felt comfortable with how I was treated, and that brought in me a sense of belonging. Whether it is a small thing like getting appreciated after a good presentation or as critical as my promotion. At ZS, the focus on people’s welfare and development is immense.

• Supportive Team: My team at ZS was supportive and they helped me sail through various hurdles in both my professional as well as personal life. Whether it is the support provided on a bad day or a project that needs people to be up and working at 4 a.m., I’ve seen it all and appreciated it.
• Getting me Ready for the Future: The leadership body at ZS Associates has a strong focus on helping individuals grow irrespective of their future goals and aspirations. They were always attentive to what we had to say and acted in a way that was best for us.
• Friends for Life: At ZS, I’ve known and made friends for life and I feel that is a big feat. It shows how strongly knit teams are at ZS. The colleagues-turned-friends were fun to work and with them, it was always “Work hard, party harder.”
• How to answer “Why ZS Associates?”

For any consulting firm, apart from the analytical and critical thinking ability, understanding the company fit is critical when selecting candidates. We have already seen how ZS provides a mentally stimulating, cohesive, and fun-filled work environment which are strong enough reasons of choosing ZS as a career option.

When people  ask me if they should join ZS Associates, my answer is:

“ZS gave me an opportunity to kickstart my career with a steep learning curve. I started as an associate working on a single operations-heavy project and was promoted to associate consultant, where I handled multiple strategic projects and clients. My 5-year journey at ZS taught me a lot of things on the way.

Managing tight deadlines, analytically heavy projects, or multiple stakeholders, ZS gave me a crash course in handling real-world problems. My long-term interest in marketing and psychology was nurtured well with my projects focused on understanding product perception, and assessment of marketing strategies.

The positive experience and extensive exposure were made possible due to the collaborative work culture and great mentorship. With a strong focus on the well-being and growth of the team members, my journey at ZS was paved as per my aspirations and life goals. With such an experience, even the 60+ work hours per week weren’t bothersome.

Being a ZSer was a life-changing experience for me and I would highly recommend ZS Associates to someone who is aspiring to get into consulting.”

Now that you know ZS Associates from someone who has been a part of the organization, I hope you’ll consider applying.

If you are about to interview at ZS Associates, hopefully this article would also help you to frame your answer to “Why ZS Associates?” Do remember, there is no right or wrong answer and the key is for both parties to find the best match.

All the best!

– – – – –

In this article, we’ve covered:

• What does ZS Associates do?
• Why one should join ZS Associates?

Still have questions?

If you have more questions about ZS Associates, leave them in the comments below. One of My Consulting Offer’s coaches will answer them.

Other people prepping for interviews at ZS Associates found the following pages helpful:

• ZS Associates Case Interview
• Our Ultimate Guide to Case Interview Prep

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Thanks for turning to My Consulting Offer for advice on what makes ZS the right fit and how to crack the interview. My Consulting Offer has helped almost 85% of the people we’ve worked with to get a job in management consulting. We want you to be successful in your consulting interviews too. For example, here is how Helen was able to get her offer from ZS Associates .

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3 Top Strategies to Master the Case Interview in Under a Week

We are sharing our powerful strategies to pass the case interview even if you have no business background, zero casing experience, or only have a week to prepare.

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ZS Associates Interview Experience for Business Technology Solutions Associate (On-Campus)

• ZS Associates Interview Experience for Business Technology Solution Associate | On-Campus
• ZS Business Technology Solution Associate (BTA) Interview Experience | On-Campus Hiring
• ZS Associates Interview Experience for Business Technology Analyst | On-Campus
• ZS Associates Interview Experience (Business Technology Analyst - On Campus)
• ZS Associates Interview Experience for FTE Business Technology Analyst | On-Campus 2020 (Virtual)
• DXC Technology Interview Experience For Associate Professional (On-Campus)
• ZS Associates Interview Experience for Data Science Associate
• ZS Associates Interview Experience for BTSA (On-Campus)
• ZS Associates Interview Experience For BTSA (On-Campus)
• Dxc Technology Interview Experience for Associate Professionals
• ZS Associates Interview Experience for BTSA | On-Campus 2021
• ZS Associates Interview Experience for BTSA (On-Campus) 2022
• ZS Associates through Campus Beats 2022 Interview Experience for BTSA
• ZS Associate Interview Experience ( BTA Role - On Campus )

There were two phases in the Interview Process:

First Phase: Platform- Talview

Second Phase: Technical interview- Monjin Platform

Round 1(Aptitude): This is a basic aptitude round consisting of 45 questions to be completed in  40 minutes. Questions were on the topics:

• Quantitative Analysis                  
• Verbal Ability                          
• Data Interpretation  
• Logical Reasoning                          
• Computer fundamentals            
• Just try to be quick and attempt as many as you can, give timed mock tests. 
• Do not leave any question unmarked since it has no negative marking.

Round 2(PSDD – Problem Solving Deep Dive ): This round included a small case study related to some business scenario where you are required to answer 8-10 MCQ questions based on the case study in around 30 Minutes. You cannot go back to the previous question in this round.

Round 3(Video Interview): This will be a video interview round where you are supposed to record your answer for about 3 Mins each for 2 questions. The questions are scenarios based and there might be some guesstimates but their probability is low.

Tip: Before speaking, compose your answer thoroughly and try to include various aspects of the solution. Give this with a calm mind and try to speak fluently without any pauses.

Note – All Rounds are elimination round.

The second phase is a technical online interview conducted by Monjin Platform. The duration of the interview is 30 mins. Questions were on the topics:

• SQL – We had to write the SQL queries in the chatbox.                         
• DBMS – Concepts of keys, DBMS vs RDBMS                                                  
• About ZS Associates
• Logical Reasoning Puzzles- Like complete the pattern, or find the missing number

Tip: Prepare your SQL basics and some of the advanced topics

The interviewer may ask you to write queries so revise concepts of aliasing and optimizations you can employ in your queries. 

Questions that I was asked were:

• Concept of aliasing, concatenation, clauses, joins 

Final Interview: EBI+FIT round- Zoom Platform

• In this round, you will get an opportunity to meet a ZS leader. 
• In this round, the ZS leader will ask you questions to know whether you are a right fit for this company or not. 
• They check your thinking and the way you deal with a problem in your life and how structured you are while problem-solving. 
• For me, in this interview, I was asked situational-based questions.

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Unstructured Case Interviews – How to Prepare for Untraditional Cases

Unstructured and non-traditional cases are becoming increasingly common in case interviews, particularly among top-tier firms and MBB. The longstanding practices of conventional business problems with standardized solution protocols are seeing a fresh infusion of more unorthodox cases that require non-traditional approaches to solve them.

There are multiple reasons speculated for this shift:

• Preparation material for traditional cases is now widely available, enabling candidates to prepare extensively. As a result, candidates' innate skills are often overshadowed by their ability to follow a pre-learned process . By incorporating non-traditional cases, consulting companies can maintain an element of surprise and better assess candidates' true capabilities.
• Non-traditional cases encourage candidates to bring out their innate creativity and think laterally yet in a structured manner. Those who excel in such cases are not only more likely to succeed in interviews but also in their consulting roles, making these cases a better performance indicator.
• Non-traditional cases enable consulting firms to accommodate a diverse range of candidates with different backgrounds. An effective consultant does not have to be only an engineer or a finance expert. These cases can be tailored to focus on the unique skills that make a good consultant , rather than those that can be learned on the job.

As unstructured and non-traditional cases become more prevalent , it is crucial for candidates to adapt to this new format for maximizing their chances of success . In this article, we will first understand what these cases are, followed by tips to perform better in such cases, and key practices to incorporate in your preparation for them.

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• 1. Why is it so Important to Know Unstructured Cases?
• 2. What Are Unstructured and Non-Traditional Case Interviews?
• The Situation
• The Problem
• The Analysis
• The Solution
• 3. Key Interview Tips
• Embrace the Case
• Ask a Lot of Questions
• Stay Grounded and Leverage First-Principle Thinking
• Put Yourself into the Problem
• Don't Worry About the Solution
• Maintain Your Structure
• 4. Key Preparation Tips
• Devise Your Own Frameworks
• Practice, but ...
• Be Aware of Pitfalls
• 5. Conclusion
• 5. About the Author

Unstructured and non-traditional cases are becoming increasingly common in case interviews, particularly among top-tier firms and MBB . The longstanding practices of conventional business problems with standardized solution protocols are seeing a fresh infusion of more unorthodox cases that require non-traditional approaches to solve them.

• Non-traditional cases enable consulting firms to accommodate a diverse range of candidates with different backgrounds. An effective consultant does not have to be only an engineer or a finance expert. These cases can be tailored to focus on the unique skills that make a good consultant, rather than those that can be learned on the job.

As unstructured and non-traditional cases become more prevalent , it is crucial for candidates to adapt to this new format for maximizing their chances of success. In this article, we will first understand what these cases are, followed by tips to perform better in such cases , and key practices to incorporate in your preparation for them.

Further along in your preparation, if you are interested in mastering unstructured and non-traditional cases, I am pleased to offer personalized coaching through a variety of non-traditional cases featured in consulting interviews.

Unstructured case interviews deviate from traditional structured interviews by presenting candidates with open-ended, ambiguous, or unconventional problems . The focus is on evaluating a candidate's ability to think creatively, adapt to unexpected situations, and navigate through uncertainty . Such cases are often made up of small, familiar elements of traditional cases wrapped up in a new package. A case can be unstructured or non-traditional in one or more of the following parameters :

This is the most common form of non-traditionalism seen in interview cases, where the situation in the case does not conform to traditional knowledge and experience. In traditional cases, the situation bears elements that are commonly known and observed in the world around us , such as a conventional business like a power company, a known business model like food delivery, or a familiar city or country. Having a known or traditional situation allows candidates to assume certain baseline facts about the case from the get-go.

However, a non-traditional situation can surprise candidates and throw them off-balance. Without a common understanding of the situation, candidates must first build a basic understanding before moving to their hypotheses. Here are a few examples of non-traditional situations in cases:

• A company is planning to start burial and cremation services in outer space.
• A mining company has found a dinosaur in one of their open-pit mines.
• A country in the Middle East has developed an underwater city and wants to pioneer underwater tourism that offers tourists the opportunity to experience life beneath the sea for an extended period.

This is the next most common non-traditional parameter in a case, where the problem posed in the case prompt may not be a typical business issue such as declining profitability, increasing revenue, reducing costs, or entering a new market . Instead, these cases may present unique and unconventional problems that require a more creative and out-of-the-box approach. Some examples of non-traditional problems include:

• Designing a customer experience for a newly invented teleportation service.
• Developing a marketing strategy for a product that can read people's minds.
• A country experiencing a decline in the number of medals & trophies won by its professional athletes on the world stage.
• A Middle Eastern country pioneering underwater tourism wants to attract tourists to their underwater city while ensuring visitor safety and marine ecosystem conservation.

In a traditional case, the analysis generally follows a systematic and rational route . In unstructured and non-traditional cases, the analysis may not follow standard frameworks and methodologies. Candidates must think on their feet and tap into their first-principle abilities to develop a customized approach on-the-fly for the problem at hand. There is no fixed recipe for this. Note that even a traditional situation and problem can have a non-traditional analysis. Here are some examples of non-traditional analyses :

• A restaurant faces declining sales, but there is no change in food quality, service quality, or nearby competition. The analysis could involve the candidate assuming the role of the customer and going through the customer's journey, starting from restaurant discovery to completing the meal. The candidate should ask questions at each point of the journey to better understand potential issues that may not be uncovered using traditional revenue-decline analyses.
• A shipping company is unable to convert its shipping tender bids with the same success rate as before, but there is no change in service, competition, or any technical parameter related to shipping. The analysis could involve the candidate assuming the role of the tender document itself and going through the tender's journey from issuance by the customer to processing by the shipping company and being evaluated by the customer for selection.
• For the Middle Eastern country developing underwater city tourism, they need to devise marketing strategies, safety protocols, and environmental conservation measures to make their venture successful and sustainable. The candidate could assume the roles of an expert (if possible) and/or a lay-person tourist and go through the journey offered by the underwater city. This would uncover various aspects of the tourism strategy that would otherwise be elusive.

In a traditional case, the solution to the case is rather standard. Say, profit is declining – it is likely the problem lies with a specific cost category. Or, say, revenue is declining – the problem lies in the competitor’s newly launched product . Client wants to enter a new market – would be either a yes or a no. In most cases, a conventional analysis will lead to a conventional answer.

In non-traditional cases, the solution or the specific answer to the case may not be obvious or conventional. It often requires a deeper understanding of the unique situation and problem at hand. Most often, a non-traditional or unstructured analysis will lead to a non-traditional solution as well. Here are some examples that illustrate the distinctive nature of the solutions in non-traditional cases:

• A tech company notices a decline in employee productivity and an increase in turnover. Despite offering competitive salaries and benefits , they struggle to retain top talent. After a thorough investigation, it is revealed that the company's open office layout is causing high levels of noise and distractions, making it difficult for employees to focus on their tasks. Additionally, the lack of private spaces for meetings and quiet work leads to frustration among employees . By redesigning the office space to include a mix of open and private areas, as well as soundproofing solutions , the company can create a more conducive work environment that addresses the root cause of declining productivity and high turnover.
• A small grocery store in a rural area experiences declining sales, even though the local population remains stable, and no new competitors have entered the market . After conducting a detailed analysis, it is discovered that the decline in sales is due to the fact that the grocery store's opening hours are not aligned with the work schedules of the local population, many of whom work in nearby cities and commute long hours. By adjusting the store's opening hours to better accommodate the residents' schedules, such as opening earlier in the morning or staying open later in the evening, the store can effectively address the underlying issue and potentially increase sales.
• For the Middle Eastern country developing underwater city tourism – upon investigating the challenges faced by the country, it is discovered that the primary barrier to attracting tourists is the perception that the underwater city experience is too complex and requires extensive preparation. To address this concern, the company can develop and offer comprehensive "all-inclusive" packages that simplify the process for tourists. These packages could include pre-trip training sessions, specialized underwater accommodations, and guided tours with marine experts. By streamlining the experience and providing all necessary services in one package, the company can reduce the perceived complexity and make the underwater city more appealing to potential visitors.

When faced with unstructured and non-traditional cases, you should keep the following tips in mind to excel during the interview:

If you find yourself faced with a non-traditional case, the initial step is to recognize and accept its unorthodox nature . Embracing this fact can instantly alleviate any unease and foster a mindset conducive to tackling the case effectively. Be aware that flexibility and adaptability in your thought process are crucial in navigating such situations. Relying on rigid, cookie-cutter frameworks will only lead to frustration and confusion . No case is more or less unorthodox than you deem it to be. If you are mentally inflexible and solely prepared for orthodox cases, be ready to face surprise, disorientation, and instability – potentially all at once.

In unorthodox cases, it's crucial to ask a lot of questions to get a better understanding of the situation, even if some questions might seem basic or trivial. With the lack of a common knowledge baseline, asking questions can help fill in gaps and ensure that you are working with accurate information. Instead of hesitating and assuming things incorrectly, it is better to ask even the stupidest of questions .

Often, unorthodox cases can be solved using basic, first-principle thinking instead of trying to force-fit a pre-set framework. By focusing on fundamental principles and "dumb" approaches , you can uncover solutions that might be missed through more complex methodologies. In one of Dr. House episodes (S02E10) – the diagnosis is eluding everyone until Dr. House asks his team to actually "look" at the blood sample instead of just running it through test machines and diagnosing based off the machine readings. By doing it the "dumb" way, the team was instantly able to see the infection that was causing all the problems – an infection that the machine wasn’t programmed to detect.

Often, trying to assume the role of someone in the case is very helpful. Usual suspects are the customer, the product/object, or the staff. Depends on what problem you are trying to solve. For revenue decline – best to impersonate the customer . For operational efficiency issues – both the product and the staff roles can be helpful. As you assume a role, you go through their journey while investigating and discovering clues to help you solve the client’s problem.

Unorthodox cases are best approached with a sense of enjoyment and curiosity . Instead of treating the case as an examination and rushing toward a solution or analysis, you should allow yourself to explore the case, flowing along with its natural progression. When you take this approach – you will often start seeing the case from a very different angle and get more ideas to crack the case .

Despite the unorthodox and unstructured nature of these cases, maintaining a structured approach and clear communication is essential , as it is one of the key aspects being evaluated by the interviewer. It is easy to get sidetracked or lost in unstructured cases, but maintaining structure can help you stay on track and present their thoughts in a coherent manner . It is still important to organize your thoughts and communicate them in a logical, structured way to make it easy for the interviewer to follow your analysis.

To excel in both orthodox and unorthodox case interviews, you may think about the following preparation tips : 

  Work on Core Casing Skills

Instead of getting lost in memorizing frameworks, focus on understanding the underlying principles and how they can be applied to solve problems. This means knowing "how" frameworks are drawn-up, “how” they are explained to the interviewer and "how" they can help in solving the client’s problem. Memorizing the profitability framework , for example, will not be helpful if you don't know how to implement it effectively in a case.

With enough preparation and rigor, you'll start forming your own frameworks . Spend time reviewing your previous cases, thinking about how they could be solved more effectively. Revisiting cases after a few days or weeks can provide fresh insights and help you develop unique frameworks that are more adaptable to a wider range of problems, including unorthodox cases.

Preparation without practice is incomplete, but practicing with other candidates may only expose you to standard cases, since they are preparing for the interviews themselves. To enhance your exposure to unorthodox cases , try to create one yourself. Try and adapt standard cases by adding unorthodox elements and use them in your practice sessions when assuming the role of the interviewer. Observing your partner's approach as they tackle the unorthodox case from the interviewer's perspective can provide valuable insights into the dos and don'ts of solving such cases, accelerating your learning and awareness.

The fluid nature of unorthodox cases allows interviewers to maneuver the case in order to exploit your weaknesses . For example, if you struggle with maintaining structure, unorthodox cases may lead you into convoluted arguments , leaving you feeling lost. Or for example, if you have difficulty asking clarifying questions, you may make incorrect assumptions that will negatively impact your performance. Identifying your weak points (such as adaptive frame working, lateral thinking, brainstorming etc.) can be very helpful as a first step. Once discovered, you should work on sealing these gaps in your casing skills and hence avoid falling into the common traps of unorthodox cases. A good coach can be vital in identifying the gaps in your casing skills for unorthodox cases – providing you targeted and action-oriented focus areas for improvement.

In conclusion, successfully navigating unorthodox case interviews requires a combination of adaptability, curiosity, and strong analytical skills . By focusing on core casing skills, developing personalized frameworks, practicing with adapted cases, and addressing individual weaknesses, you can improve your performance in these challenging scenarios . Embracing the unique nature of unorthodox cases and maintaining a structured approach can help you demonstrate your ability to think creatively, adapt to unexpected situations, and excel in the ever-evolving world of non-traditional cases .

BCG Dubai Project Leader | I will transform your thinking about Consulting Interviews

• Professional Experience: BCG, Opera Solutions
• Languages: English,
• Location: United Arab Emirates

Agrim is an interview coach, former BCG Project Leader, and Solutions Analyst at Opera Solutions. He is a Specialist in PEI / Fit / Unorthodox Cases / CV / Market Sizing. Agrim helped a lot of candidates to land offers from McKinsey, BCG, and Bain. He is an expert in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia / Dubai / Qatar / Abu Dhabi / Oman / Kuwait). As a consultant, Agrim worked as a Project Leader at BCG for four years. Before that, he was a Solutions Analyst for Opera Solutions for two years. 

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Zs associates business technology solutions associate (btsa).

This year ZS Associates has introduced a new role of BTSA whose full form is Business Technology Solutions Associate. We have updated our page with the latest ZS Associates BTSA test pattern information for 2023.

This information will help you understand about the role, exam pattern, and syllabus for ZS Associates, which can be useful for exam preparation.

Go through the page in detail to learn more about the BTSA test pattern.

ZS Associates Business Technology Solutions Associate Basic Info

Syllabus for btsa test, numerical ability, critical thinking, analytical ability and problem solving, verbal ability, unstructured problem solving, zs associate btsa 2023 test pattern.

This online test is a critical assessment that evaluates your analytical and logical thinking skills.

This online test is first round of ZS Associate selection process and it consist of 6 sections namely:

• Numerical ability
• Analytical ability and Problem solving
• Verbal ability

No. of Questions: 59 Time Duration: 52 minutes

BTSA Online Test Pattern Details 2023

Zs associates numerical ability curriculum 2023:-.

Here below you will get ZS Associates Numerical ability curriculum that will help you in preparation.

Important Topics-

• Permutation and Combinations
• HCF and LCM
• Probability
• Speed Time and Distance
• Profit and Loss
• Mixture & Allegations
• Percentages
• Number system
• Time and Work
• Ratio & Proportions

ZS Associates Quants

Numerical Ability Section Analysis Total Number of Questions - 8 Questions Time Allotted for Online test - 8 Minutes Negative Marking - No Adaptive/Non-Adaptive Test - Non-adaptive

ZS Associates Curriculum of Critical Thinking Section: -

Here below you will get the ZS Associates critical thinking curriculum that will help you in preparation.

Important Topics include-

• Selection Decision Tables

Critical thinking Section Analysis

• Total Number of Questions - 8 Questions
• Time Allotted for Online Test - 12 Minutes
• Negative Marking - No
• Adaptive/Non-Adaptive Test - Non-Adaptive

ZS Associates Curriculum of Analytical Ability and Problem Solving Section: -

Here below you will get the ZS Associates analytical ability and problem solving curriculum that will help you in preparation.

Important Topics includes-

• Arrangement
• Venn Diagram
• Coding Decoding
• Blood Relations
• Distance & Direction
• Seating Arrangement
• Number Series
• Visual Reasoning

ZS Associates Logical

Analytical Ability and Problem Solving Section Analysis

• Time Allotted for Online Test - 8 Minutes

ZS Associates Curriculum of Verbal Ability Section: -

The curriculum for ZS Associates English Topics 2023  includes-

• Contextual Vocabulary
• Error Identification
• Sentence Improvement & Construction
• Subject-Verb Agreement
• Tenses & Articles
• Preposition & Conjunctions
• Speech & Voices
• Inferential and Literal Comprehension
• Comprehension ordering

ZS Associates English

Verbal Ability Section Analysis

• Total No of Questions: 8 Ques
• Total Time for Test: 5 Mins Shared With Other Sections

ZS Associates Curriculum of Unstructured Problem Solving Section: -

Here below you will get to know ZS Associates Unstructured Problem Solving topics that will help you in exam 2023.

ZS Associates Unstructured Problem Solving

Unstructured Problem Solving Section Analysis

• Total No of Questions: 2 Ques
• Total Time for Test: 14 Mins

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September 2, 2023

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How to master the seven-step problem-solving process

In this episode of the McKinsey Podcast , Simon London speaks with Charles Conn, CEO of venture-capital firm Oxford Sciences Innovation, and McKinsey senior partner Hugo Sarrazin about the complexities of different problem-solving strategies.

Podcast transcript

Simon London: Hello, and welcome to this episode of the McKinsey Podcast , with me, Simon London. What’s the number-one skill you need to succeed professionally? Salesmanship, perhaps? Or a facility with statistics? Or maybe the ability to communicate crisply and clearly? Many would argue that at the very top of the list comes problem solving: that is, the ability to think through and come up with an optimal course of action to address any complex challenge—in business, in public policy, or indeed in life.

Looked at this way, it’s no surprise that McKinsey takes problem solving very seriously, testing for it during the recruiting process and then honing it, in McKinsey consultants, through immersion in a structured seven-step method. To discuss the art of problem solving, I sat down in California with McKinsey senior partner Hugo Sarrazin and also with Charles Conn. Charles is a former McKinsey partner, entrepreneur, executive, and coauthor of the book Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything [John Wiley & Sons, 2018].

Charles and Hugo, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being here.

Hugo Sarrazin: Our pleasure.

Charles Conn: It’s terrific to be here.

Simon London: Problem solving is a really interesting piece of terminology. It could mean so many different things. I have a son who’s a teenage climber. They talk about solving problems. Climbing is problem solving. Charles, when you talk about problem solving, what are you talking about?

Charles Conn: For me, problem solving is the answer to the question “What should I do?” It’s interesting when there’s uncertainty and complexity, and when it’s meaningful because there are consequences. Your son’s climbing is a perfect example. There are consequences, and it’s complicated, and there’s uncertainty—can he make that grab? I think we can apply that same frame almost at any level. You can think about questions like “What town would I like to live in?” or “Should I put solar panels on my roof?”

You might think that’s a funny thing to apply problem solving to, but in my mind it’s not fundamentally different from business problem solving, which answers the question “What should my strategy be?” Or problem solving at the policy level: “How do we combat climate change?” “Should I support the local school bond?” I think these are all part and parcel of the same type of question, “What should I do?”

I’m a big fan of structured problem solving. By following steps, we can more clearly understand what problem it is we’re solving, what are the components of the problem that we’re solving, which components are the most important ones for us to pay attention to, which analytic techniques we should apply to those, and how we can synthesize what we’ve learned back into a compelling story. That’s all it is, at its heart.

I think sometimes when people think about seven steps, they assume that there’s a rigidity to this. That’s not it at all. It’s actually to give you the scope for creativity, which often doesn’t exist when your problem solving is muddled.

Simon London: You were just talking about the seven-step process. That’s what’s written down in the book, but it’s a very McKinsey process as well. Without getting too deep into the weeds, let’s go through the steps, one by one. You were just talking about problem definition as being a particularly important thing to get right first. That’s the first step. Hugo, tell us about that.

Hugo Sarrazin: It is surprising how often people jump past this step and make a bunch of assumptions. The most powerful thing is to step back and ask the basic questions—“What are we trying to solve? What are the constraints that exist? What are the dependencies?” Let’s make those explicit and really push the thinking and defining. At McKinsey, we spend an enormous amount of time in writing that little statement, and the statement, if you’re a logic purist, is great. You debate. “Is it an ‘or’? Is it an ‘and’? What’s the action verb?” Because all these specific words help you get to the heart of what matters.

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Simon London: So this is a concise problem statement.

Hugo Sarrazin: Yeah. It’s not like “Can we grow in Japan?” That’s interesting, but it is “What, specifically, are we trying to uncover in the growth of a product in Japan? Or a segment in Japan? Or a channel in Japan?” When you spend an enormous amount of time, in the first meeting of the different stakeholders, debating this and having different people put forward what they think the problem definition is, you realize that people have completely different views of why they’re here. That, to me, is the most important step.

Charles Conn: I would agree with that. For me, the problem context is critical. When we understand “What are the forces acting upon your decision maker? How quickly is the answer needed? With what precision is the answer needed? Are there areas that are off limits or areas where we would particularly like to find our solution? Is the decision maker open to exploring other areas?” then you not only become more efficient, and move toward what we call the critical path in problem solving, but you also make it so much more likely that you’re not going to waste your time or your decision maker’s time.

How often do especially bright young people run off with half of the idea about what the problem is and start collecting data and start building models—only to discover that they’ve really gone off half-cocked.

Hugo Sarrazin: Yeah.

Charles Conn: And in the wrong direction.

Simon London: OK. So step one—and there is a real art and a structure to it—is define the problem. Step two, Charles?

Charles Conn: My favorite step is step two, which is to use logic trees to disaggregate the problem. Every problem we’re solving has some complexity and some uncertainty in it. The only way that we can really get our team working on the problem is to take the problem apart into logical pieces.

What we find, of course, is that the way to disaggregate the problem often gives you an insight into the answer to the problem quite quickly. I love to do two or three different cuts at it, each one giving a bit of a different insight into what might be going wrong. By doing sensible disaggregations, using logic trees, we can figure out which parts of the problem we should be looking at, and we can assign those different parts to team members.

Simon London: What’s a good example of a logic tree on a sort of ratable problem?

Charles Conn: Maybe the easiest one is the classic profit tree. Almost in every business that I would take a look at, I would start with a profit or return-on-assets tree. In its simplest form, you have the components of revenue, which are price and quantity, and the components of cost, which are cost and quantity. Each of those can be broken out. Cost can be broken into variable cost and fixed cost. The components of price can be broken into what your pricing scheme is. That simple tree often provides insight into what’s going on in a business or what the difference is between that business and the competitors.

If we add the leg, which is “What’s the asset base or investment element?”—so profit divided by assets—then we can ask the question “Is the business using its investments sensibly?” whether that’s in stores or in manufacturing or in transportation assets. I hope we can see just how simple this is, even though we’re describing it in words.

When I went to work with Gordon Moore at the Moore Foundation, the problem that he asked us to look at was “How can we save Pacific salmon?” Now, that sounds like an impossible question, but it was amenable to precisely the same type of disaggregation and allowed us to organize what became a 15-year effort to improve the likelihood of good outcomes for Pacific salmon.

Simon London: Now, is there a danger that your logic tree can be impossibly large? This, I think, brings us onto the third step in the process, which is that you have to prioritize.

Charles Conn: Absolutely. The third step, which we also emphasize, along with good problem definition, is rigorous prioritization—we ask the questions “How important is this lever or this branch of the tree in the overall outcome that we seek to achieve? How much can I move that lever?” Obviously, we try and focus our efforts on ones that have a big impact on the problem and the ones that we have the ability to change. With salmon, ocean conditions turned out to be a big lever, but not one that we could adjust. We focused our attention on fish habitats and fish-harvesting practices, which were big levers that we could affect.

People spend a lot of time arguing about branches that are either not important or that none of us can change. We see it in the public square. When we deal with questions at the policy level—“Should you support the death penalty?” “How do we affect climate change?” “How can we uncover the causes and address homelessness?”—it’s even more important that we’re focusing on levers that are big and movable.

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Simon London: Let’s move swiftly on to step four. You’ve defined your problem, you disaggregate it, you prioritize where you want to analyze—what you want to really look at hard. Then you got to the work plan. Now, what does that mean in practice?

Hugo Sarrazin: Depending on what you’ve prioritized, there are many things you could do. It could be breaking the work among the team members so that people have a clear piece of the work to do. It could be defining the specific analyses that need to get done and executed, and being clear on time lines. There’s always a level-one answer, there’s a level-two answer, there’s a level-three answer. Without being too flippant, I can solve any problem during a good dinner with wine. It won’t have a whole lot of backing.

Simon London: Not going to have a lot of depth to it.

Hugo Sarrazin: No, but it may be useful as a starting point. If the stakes are not that high, that could be OK. If it’s really high stakes, you may need level three and have the whole model validated in three different ways. You need to find a work plan that reflects the level of precision, the time frame you have, and the stakeholders you need to bring along in the exercise.

Charles Conn: I love the way you’ve described that, because, again, some people think of problem solving as a linear thing, but of course what’s critical is that it’s iterative. As you say, you can solve the problem in one day or even one hour.

Charles Conn: We encourage our teams everywhere to do that. We call it the one-day answer or the one-hour answer. In work planning, we’re always iterating. Every time you see a 50-page work plan that stretches out to three months, you know it’s wrong. It will be outmoded very quickly by that learning process that you described. Iterative problem solving is a critical part of this. Sometimes, people think work planning sounds dull, but it isn’t. It’s how we know what’s expected of us and when we need to deliver it and how we’re progressing toward the answer. It’s also the place where we can deal with biases. Bias is a feature of every human decision-making process. If we design our team interactions intelligently, we can avoid the worst sort of biases.

Simon London: Here we’re talking about cognitive biases primarily, right? It’s not that I’m biased against you because of your accent or something. These are the cognitive biases that behavioral sciences have shown we all carry around, things like anchoring, overoptimism—these kinds of things.

Both: Yeah.

Charles Conn: Availability bias is the one that I’m always alert to. You think you’ve seen the problem before, and therefore what’s available is your previous conception of it—and we have to be most careful about that. In any human setting, we also have to be careful about biases that are based on hierarchies, sometimes called sunflower bias. I’m sure, Hugo, with your teams, you make sure that the youngest team members speak first. Not the oldest team members, because it’s easy for people to look at who’s senior and alter their own creative approaches.

Hugo Sarrazin: It’s helpful, at that moment—if someone is asserting a point of view—to ask the question “This was true in what context?” You’re trying to apply something that worked in one context to a different one. That can be deadly if the context has changed, and that’s why organizations struggle to change. You promote all these people because they did something that worked well in the past, and then there’s a disruption in the industry, and they keep doing what got them promoted even though the context has changed.

Simon London: Right. Right.

Hugo Sarrazin: So it’s the same thing in problem solving.

Charles Conn: And it’s why diversity in our teams is so important. It’s one of the best things about the world that we’re in now. We’re likely to have people from different socioeconomic, ethnic, and national backgrounds, each of whom sees problems from a slightly different perspective. It is therefore much more likely that the team will uncover a truly creative and clever approach to problem solving.

Simon London: Let’s move on to step five. You’ve done your work plan. Now you’ve actually got to do the analysis. The thing that strikes me here is that the range of tools that we have at our disposal now, of course, is just huge, particularly with advances in computation, advanced analytics. There’s so many things that you can apply here. Just talk about the analysis stage. How do you pick the right tools?

Charles Conn: For me, the most important thing is that we start with simple heuristics and explanatory statistics before we go off and use the big-gun tools. We need to understand the shape and scope of our problem before we start applying these massive and complex analytical approaches.

Simon London: Would you agree with that?

Hugo Sarrazin: I agree. I think there are so many wonderful heuristics. You need to start there before you go deep into the modeling exercise. There’s an interesting dynamic that’s happening, though. In some cases, for some types of problems, it is even better to set yourself up to maximize your learning. Your problem-solving methodology is test and learn, test and learn, test and learn, and iterate. That is a heuristic in itself, the A/B testing that is used in many parts of the world. So that’s a problem-solving methodology. It’s nothing different. It just uses technology and feedback loops in a fast way. The other one is exploratory data analysis. When you’re dealing with a large-scale problem, and there’s so much data, I can get to the heuristics that Charles was talking about through very clever visualization of data.

You test with your data. You need to set up an environment to do so, but don’t get caught up in neural-network modeling immediately. You’re testing, you’re checking—“Is the data right? Is it sound? Does it make sense?”—before you launch too far.

Simon London: You do hear these ideas—that if you have a big enough data set and enough algorithms, they’re going to find things that you just wouldn’t have spotted, find solutions that maybe you wouldn’t have thought of. Does machine learning sort of revolutionize the problem-solving process? Or are these actually just other tools in the toolbox for structured problem solving?

Charles Conn: It can be revolutionary. There are some areas in which the pattern recognition of large data sets and good algorithms can help us see things that we otherwise couldn’t see. But I do think it’s terribly important we don’t think that this particular technique is a substitute for superb problem solving, starting with good problem definition. Many people use machine learning without understanding algorithms that themselves can have biases built into them. Just as 20 years ago, when we were doing statistical analysis, we knew that we needed good model definition, we still need a good understanding of our algorithms and really good problem definition before we launch off into big data sets and unknown algorithms.

Simon London: Step six. You’ve done your analysis.

Charles Conn: I take six and seven together, and this is the place where young problem solvers often make a mistake. They’ve got their analysis, and they assume that’s the answer, and of course it isn’t the answer. The ability to synthesize the pieces that came out of the analysis and begin to weave those into a story that helps people answer the question “What should I do?” This is back to where we started. If we can’t synthesize, and we can’t tell a story, then our decision maker can’t find the answer to “What should I do?”

Simon London: But, again, these final steps are about motivating people to action, right?

Charles Conn: Yeah.

Simon London: I am slightly torn about the nomenclature of problem solving because it’s on paper, right? Until you motivate people to action, you actually haven’t solved anything.

Charles Conn: I love this question because I think decision-making theory, without a bias to action, is a waste of time. Everything in how I approach this is to help people take action that makes the world better.

Simon London: Hence, these are absolutely critical steps. If you don’t do this well, you’ve just got a bunch of analysis.

Charles Conn: We end up in exactly the same place where we started, which is people speaking across each other, past each other in the public square, rather than actually working together, shoulder to shoulder, to crack these important problems.

Simon London: In the real world, we have a lot of uncertainty—arguably, increasing uncertainty. How do good problem solvers deal with that?

Hugo Sarrazin: At every step of the process. In the problem definition, when you’re defining the context, you need to understand those sources of uncertainty and whether they’re important or not important. It becomes important in the definition of the tree.

You need to think carefully about the branches of the tree that are more certain and less certain as you define them. They don’t have equal weight just because they’ve got equal space on the page. Then, when you’re prioritizing, your prioritization approach may put more emphasis on things that have low probability but huge impact—or, vice versa, may put a lot of priority on things that are very likely and, hopefully, have a reasonable impact. You can introduce that along the way. When you come back to the synthesis, you just need to be nuanced about what you’re understanding, the likelihood.

Often, people lack humility in the way they make their recommendations: “This is the answer.” They’re very precise, and I think we would all be well-served to say, “This is a likely answer under the following sets of conditions” and then make the level of uncertainty clearer, if that is appropriate. It doesn’t mean you’re always in the gray zone; it doesn’t mean you don’t have a point of view. It just means that you can be explicit about the certainty of your answer when you make that recommendation.

Simon London: So it sounds like there is an underlying principle: “Acknowledge and embrace the uncertainty. Don’t pretend that it isn’t there. Be very clear about what the uncertainties are up front, and then build that into every step of the process.”

Hugo Sarrazin: Every step of the process.

Simon London: Yeah. We have just walked through a particular structured methodology for problem solving. But, of course, this is not the only structured methodology for problem solving. One that is also very well-known is design thinking, which comes at things very differently. So, Hugo, I know you have worked with a lot of designers. Just give us a very quick summary. Design thinking—what is it, and how does it relate?

Hugo Sarrazin: It starts with an incredible amount of empathy for the user and uses that to define the problem. It does pause and go out in the wild and spend an enormous amount of time seeing how people interact with objects, seeing the experience they’re getting, seeing the pain points or joy—and uses that to infer and define the problem.

Simon London: Problem definition, but out in the world.

Hugo Sarrazin: With an enormous amount of empathy. There’s a huge emphasis on empathy. Traditional, more classic problem solving is you define the problem based on an understanding of the situation. This one almost presupposes that we don’t know the problem until we go see it. The second thing is you need to come up with multiple scenarios or answers or ideas or concepts, and there’s a lot of divergent thinking initially. That’s slightly different, versus the prioritization, but not for long. Eventually, you need to kind of say, “OK, I’m going to converge again.” Then you go and you bring things back to the customer and get feedback and iterate. Then you rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. There’s a lot of tactile building, along the way, of prototypes and things like that. It’s very iterative.

Simon London: So, Charles, are these complements or are these alternatives?

Charles Conn: I think they’re entirely complementary, and I think Hugo’s description is perfect. When we do problem definition well in classic problem solving, we are demonstrating the kind of empathy, at the very beginning of our problem, that design thinking asks us to approach. When we ideate—and that’s very similar to the disaggregation, prioritization, and work-planning steps—we do precisely the same thing, and often we use contrasting teams, so that we do have divergent thinking. The best teams allow divergent thinking to bump them off whatever their initial biases in problem solving are. For me, design thinking gives us a constant reminder of creativity, empathy, and the tactile nature of problem solving, but it’s absolutely complementary, not alternative.

Simon London: I think, in a world of cross-functional teams, an interesting question is do people with design-thinking backgrounds really work well together with classical problem solvers? How do you make that chemistry happen?

Hugo Sarrazin: Yeah, it is not easy when people have spent an enormous amount of time seeped in design thinking or user-centric design, whichever word you want to use. If the person who’s applying classic problem-solving methodology is very rigid and mechanical in the way they’re doing it, there could be an enormous amount of tension. If there’s not clarity in the role and not clarity in the process, I think having the two together can be, sometimes, problematic.

The second thing that happens often is that the artifacts the two methodologies try to gravitate toward can be different. Classic problem solving often gravitates toward a model; design thinking migrates toward a prototype. Rather than writing a big deck with all my supporting evidence, they’ll bring an example, a thing, and that feels different. Then you spend your time differently to achieve those two end products, so that’s another source of friction.

Now, I still think it can be an incredibly powerful thing to have the two—if there are the right people with the right mind-set, if there is a team that is explicit about the roles, if we’re clear about the kind of outcomes we are attempting to bring forward. There’s an enormous amount of collaborativeness and respect.

Simon London: But they have to respect each other’s methodology and be prepared to flex, maybe, a little bit, in how this process is going to work.

Hugo Sarrazin: Absolutely.

Simon London: The other area where, it strikes me, there could be a little bit of a different sort of friction is this whole concept of the day-one answer, which is what we were just talking about in classical problem solving. Now, you know that this is probably not going to be your final answer, but that’s how you begin to structure the problem. Whereas I would imagine your design thinkers—no, they’re going off to do their ethnographic research and get out into the field, potentially for a long time, before they come back with at least an initial hypothesis.

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Hugo Sarrazin: That is a great callout, and that’s another difference. Designers typically will like to soak into the situation and avoid converging too quickly. There’s optionality and exploring different options. There’s a strong belief that keeps the solution space wide enough that you can come up with more radical ideas. If there’s a large design team or many designers on the team, and you come on Friday and say, “What’s our week-one answer?” they’re going to struggle. They’re not going to be comfortable, naturally, to give that answer. It doesn’t mean they don’t have an answer; it’s just not where they are in their thinking process.

Simon London: I think we are, sadly, out of time for today. But Charles and Hugo, thank you so much.

Charles Conn: It was a pleasure to be here, Simon.

Hugo Sarrazin: It was a pleasure. Thank you.

Simon London: And thanks, as always, to you, our listeners, for tuning into this episode of the McKinsey Podcast . If you want to learn more about problem solving, you can find the book, Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything , online or order it through your local bookstore. To learn more about McKinsey, you can of course find us at McKinsey.com.

Charles Conn is CEO of Oxford Sciences Innovation and an alumnus of McKinsey’s Sydney office. Hugo Sarrazin is a senior partner in the Silicon Valley office, where Simon London, a member of McKinsey Publishing, is also based.

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• Business Management & Operations
• Management, Leadership, & Organizational Behavior

Structured Problem vs Unstructured Problems - Explained

What are structured and unstructured problems?

Written by Jason Gordon

Updated at April 22nd, 2024

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What is a Structured Problem and an Unstructured Problem?

Organizational decisions can be further categorized based upon the nature of the problem faced.  

What are Structured Problems?  

Structured problems are routine in nature. They commonly occur in a similar or recognizable way within the organization. In this way, structured problems are easily understood by the organization.

What are Unstructured Problems ?

Unstructured problems are novel and infrequent in nature. These types of problems may be difficult to recognize upon initial occurrence. Further, they may require specific analysis and research to fully understand.

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