Capital One Business Analyst Powerday Case Interview help...
I have my Capital One Business Analyst powerday coming up this Tuesday. It consists of 2 business cases and 1 product interview. They have offered a good amount of prep for the cases, and from what I can tell they are almost all profitability related cases (i.e. what factors should you consider as a fast food franchise owner deciding whether or not to implement a promotion), then additional information is given to you about pricing and you have to solve some sort of weighted average and a break even, and then finally after all of the math you have to give some sort of recommendation. I know it's normally a bad idea to study for one specific type of case, but since I know most of the cases will look like this and I have such little time, what materials/frameworks/prep should I focus on that will help me to excel specifically in this style of case? Thanks for your help!
I've interviewed with CapOne before, their cases can sometimes be a hit or miss.
They begin interviews with a light profitability case similar to the one provided in the mini-case prep. The Food Truck one you cited has been their staple prep case for years now. I've received their "prep email" like four times. They allow you to use a calculator, and because they do so, they expect you to be able to clearly lay out your forumulaic approach. For instance, they may ask you what variable cost to set for a profit of x, or what break-even in units is with non-straightforward numbers. It mostly falls within managerial finance or the standard set of formulas you would expect.
After that, they might ask you for a factors analysis for credit card transaction fraud. Essentially, how do you determine a given transaction is fraudulent for a customer. What are the factors that would be determined? They may also give you a more robust profitability or business situation analysis. For instance, a client is looking to develop a new amusement park in Haateko City (fake), how would you size the market and the potential revenue for the client? Given the costs to develope the amusement park, and the staff/maintenance, what is the breakeven analysis? How would we go about marketing the grand opening?
Their case structure works like this: two hours back-to-back Cases for Round 1, two hours back-to-back cases for Round 2.
This is only partially true. I doubt they would ask about credit card fraud, that doesn't gel with the traditional 2 case, 1 product interview format.
Are you really trying to tell me that the interview I attended was not what Capital One provides in their BA interviews?
I didn't see that question coming and choked quite a bit, so I typed it up since it stuck out to me. Would you rather these candidates be blind sided as I was?
Just finished my summer as a BA there, so I'd like to think I'm decently informed. I had no banking-specific questions in my interviews, and neither did my coworkers. Although what you said is probably true, I don't want OP to think they need in-depth knowledge of credit cards to pass the interviews.
Also Round 1 is one case interview, Round 2 is 2 case interviews + a product interview.
Yep, it's not guaranteed that you will receive a credit card or financial services related case. There are some that could be pulled in that deal with credit cards, auto finance, etc. but its not a sure thing. By and large, and especially at the associate level, I think the more niche credit card cases (such as dealing directly with fraud) have been phased out as it requires/highly benefits from industry knowledge to pass, which is not what the interviewer is looking for.
OP it sounds like you got the general format correct (profit-margin, break-even and weighted average covers 90% of the potential math), with the product case being more of a white space exercise. Oh and you will likely be asked to draw a graph in one of the business cases.
Happy to DM you some additional resources if you want OP, but it sounds like you've gotten a fair bit of good prep work so it's probably nothing new.
Best advice I can give is to remember to take time to collect your thoughts, take advantage of having paper to work out your thoughts/notes on, ask probing questions, and talk through your thought process & calculations (use the calculator, but don't just give the answer, explain the steps you take to get to your answer. The interviewer wants to know and, if you get off track or make a mistake, they will nudge you back in the right direction).
Also for the behavioral question, which will be asked at the start of each interview, the STAR method of answering is always a safe bet.
can you pm me? these were the cases I had last year when I interviewed but I messed up the second one and want to figure out where I went wrong in my approach
Not sure why I got MS. This was literally my experience. Perhaps it differed by the office location or something?
When u hear back from them ab ur powerday if i may ask
About two and a half weeks ago
How long did it take after the first-round digital case study to hear back about the Power Day?
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