If you are a rambler, you might find this tip helpful.

TL;DR - If you go on tangents, don't forget to re-baseline for your listener.

If you find in the middle of a case interview (or even a behavioral interview) that you have thought outloud a little more than you would like, don’t forget to use the section summary to bring everything back home.

For example: You run through a lot of pain points, maybe changing as you go along. You might say:

• Just to summarize, I discussed 3 main pain points…

• Thanks for being patient as I thought outloud a bit, just to clarify, in the end, I highlighted…

• I explored a lot of possibilities, I just want to highlight the three most important…

Partner Help

As you work with partners, make sure you let them know it is crucial to point out when they lose you.

Proactively Avoid

For all case interviews, get in the habit of summarizing at the end of each section. For example:

• Users: Just to summarize, I discussed 3 users: A, B and C. In the end, I believe A is better for X reason.

• Pain Points: I listed a number of pain points, in the end, we have 4 core pains to prioritize between.

• Solutions: In summary, I have shared three ideas going from least to most complex. They are A, B and C.

Using A Visual Aid

If you are interviewing at Meta or using that style of interview, don’t forget to share your list of highlights before you explain in detail. If you forget, after you finish storytelling (or rambling) and you go to show your list, tell the interviewer that this is the summarized, highlighted list of what you just discussed. If you don’t provide a transition explanation, you may lose them.

Summary

When communicating during a case interview, you sometimes need to summarize more than normal. You are thinking out loud and need to brainstorm to some degree, but you also have a listener who needs a clean presentation to give you a high score and recommend you with a “Strong Hire” rating.