Case interviews

The main objective of the In-Plant Reliability Data System (IPRDS) was to develop a comprehensive and component-specific data base for PRA and other component reliability-related statistical analysis. Data base personnel visited selected plants and copied all the plant maintenance wor)c requests. They also gathered plant equipment lists and plant drawings and in some cases interviewed plant personnel for Information on component populations and duty cycles. Subsequently, the maintenance records were screened to separate out the cases of corrective maintenance applying to particular components these were reviewed to determine such things as failure modes, severity, and, if possible, failure cause. The data from these reports were encoded into a computerized data base. 

If you are interviewing in certain fields, particularly consulting, financial services, and business development, you may be required to participate in one or more case interviews. In such an interview, you will be presented with a business problem, and asked how you would go about solving it. The goal of the interview is for fhe interviewer to gauge your analytical and problem-solving skills. 

Cases can incorporate numbers and data to var3dng degrees. The interviewer may be interested in testing your ease with numbers and your quantitative abilities. If economic concepfs are whaf fhe company is after (if, for insfance, you are inferviewing wifh a firm in financial services), they may instead deal with profitability or simple financial functions. In general, though, the most critical skills that case interviews... 

An example of the type of question you might hear at an estimation interview is, "How many pieces of luggage are unloaded at LaGuardia Airport each day " To see how you might go about answering this question, and for more sample case interview questions, see Appendix G. 

Business problem cases or "full case" interviews present the candidate with an open-ended business situation. Usually more complex and well developed than shorter estimation cases, these cases have no right answer and test your ability to think through issues to a conclusion that you can defend. 

Get feedback after your interview. No matter what the outcome of the interview, call your interviewer a few days later to get some feedback on how it went. If you re doing more than one case interview in your job search, the feedback will help you figure out what you re doing well and what you can improve. 

As with all types of questions, the best way to handle case study questions is to be prepared. Talk to the counselors at your college career center or speak with a friend who has case interview experience. There are also a number of good books written on the subject. If you feel you need more practice with this type of question, get a copy of one of these titles ... 

Case Interview The Vault Reports Guide to the Case Interview, Mark Asher and Marcy Lerner, Vault.com, 1998. 

Chapters 5 and 6 describe every type of job interview you might experience. One of the most difficult aspects of being interviewed for the first time is not knowing what to expect. If you don t know the difference between an informational interview and a panel interview, or if you ve never even heard of a case interview. Chapters 5 and 6 will guide you through every variety and permutation. Through helpful interview scenarios, you will learn how to put your success stories to work. 

Most case interviews proceed similarly. Your interviewer first sets up the problem. Sometimes, the interviewer will introduce the problem specifically and narrowly, so that your task is clear. Other times, the case will be more open ended, and it will be up to you to introduce greater structure. 

Transaction specific investments are required for the company to be involved in the vegetable industry. Both physical and human investments are required. Case interview showed that guanxi network can influence companies behaviours in terms of transaction specific investments. Most of the companies agreed that they got requests form their buyers regarding investment to improve food quality and safety. The decision will be made depend on the expectation of the future business chance with this buyer. 

Boroughs Questionnaire-Identified Cases " Interview- Confirmed Cases " " ... 

Record keeping is an essential requisite of good market research. In the chemical field, call reports or visit reports are usually written by the interviewer and become part of the report in some cases and certainly should become part of the company or consultant files for future reference. Obviously, the call report serves a valuable purpose in the analysis and writing stage. Some market researchers have also found that cross-referencing call reports over a period of time allows rapid identification of the respondents who have demonstrated the greatest abiUty in forecasting their company needs and/or the needs of their industry. 

Case study 5 provides an example from the offshore oil and gas production industry, and illustrates the fact that in solving a specific practical problem, a practitioner will utilize a wide variety of formal and informal methods. Table 7.1, which describes some of the methods used in the study, includes several techniques discussed in Chapter 4, including interviews, critical incident techniques, walk-throughs and task analysis. 

To gather information about the factors which contributed to the above incident, interviews were held with the workers and their management. Relevant documentation such as standard operating procedures and documentation relating to the incident was also collected. A task analysis (see Case Study 3) of the job of the top floor person was carried out in order to examine the operations involved and the factors which could affect job performance. Two techniques were used for the analysis of this incident, namely variation tree analysis and root cause analysis. 

Testing knowledge acquisition interviews and/or the discussion of case studies can be conducted on a fairly informal, non-threatening basis. Whilst exams, open-book tests and multiple-choice tests are an option, they appear far too stringent within a mentoring context. 

In the case of representation of chiral molecules, the demands of spatial visualisation ability on understanding become critical. Head and Bucat (2002) have reported the outcomes from interviews with students and lecturers in relation to tasks such as that shown in Fig. 1.11. 

Soil properties A Soil texture (sand, silt, clay), organic matter/carbon content, and pH Stones, roots, and hardpans must be largely absent to allow representative sampling of soil profile Soil properties should appear uniform over test site Soil texture data should be available at time of site selection. Soil properties must match study purpose. This can be realistic use conditions, realistic worst-case or worst-case in terms of agrochemical mobility and persistence Must ensure that the majority of samples can be taken from the deepest sampling horizon. Information about sub-soils can be obtained from soil maps, test coring and on-site interviews... 

Williams, J. B. W., Hyler, S. E., Spitzer, R. L. (1982). Reliability in the DSM-IIl field trials Interview versus case summary. Archives of General Psychiatry, 39, 1275-1278. 

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