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Oliver Wyman Case Interview: Process, Sample Cases and Prep
How Oliver Wyman's case interview works per its own careers pages, what it says about written and group cases, its six sample cases and a worked practice case.
An Oliver Wyman case interview is a live business problem you solve with a consultant, who Oliver Wyman says you should treat as your client: you structure the problem, ask for data, do the math and end with a recommendation. Oliver Wyman's careers site describes its process as a mix of conversational and case interviews, and its Latin America FAQ spells out the fullest version we found: an online test, a 15-minute fit interview, then two rounds of two case interviews each. Use the official sample cases below to practice, then try our fictional hotel case.
Soreno isn't affiliated with Oliver Wyman. Every process detail here comes from Oliver Wyman's own careers and event pages, read on 1 October 2026, and we flag anything that comes from elsewhere.
What Oliver Wyman says its interviews test
Oliver Wyman's interview preparation page splits interviews into two kinds. Conversational interviews cover your background, interests and career goals, and they're your chance to ask about the firm. Case interviews test how you analyze a problem, often using challenges drawn from real client work.
The page lists six questions the case is meant to answer. Here they are with what we'd do in the room to answer each one:
| Skill Oliver Wyman assesses | What to show the interviewer |
|---|---|
| Approaching an unstructured challenge | Restate the goal, then break it into three or four branches before touching numbers |
| Using data in your analysis | Say what each exhibit means for the client's decision, not only what it shows |
| Thinking creatively | Add one idea the case didn't hand you, such as a pilot or a different customer group |
| Applying common sense | Sanity-check every result ("is a 2-year payback believable for a refit?") |
| Choosing useful questions | Ask for the data that settles your top branch first |
| Communicating your ideas | Lead each summary with the answer, then the number behind it |
The same page's advice starts with "Think of your case interviewer as your client." It says the interviewer wants you to solve the problem and can help, so work together. The page also warns against calculation mistakes and encourages a creative step if you get stuck.
The process, as Oliver Wyman's own pages describe it
The global interview page doesn't say how many rounds there are or how long each interview lasts. Some local pages do, and they don't all match:
| Source | What it says |
|---|---|
| Latin America FAQ (Brazil and Mexico campus recruiting) | Application, then an online test of 26 questions in 50 minutes, in English, covering critical reasoning, problem solving, data sufficiency and integrated reasoning. Then a 15-minute fit interview with "No case resolution required." Then two rounds of case interviews, two per round, each with a case exercise. All stages are "evaluative and eliminatory," and the whole process runs virtually. |
| South Africa Consultant Accelerator Program | Three interviews with consultants and partners "to assess your problem-solving skills, quantitative thinking, and cultural fit." |
| Germany and Austria recruiting events | Lists a case coaching session, by invitation only, to prepare for Oliver Wyman case interviews. |
If you fail the Latin America fit interview, the FAQ says you'll wait a year before reapplying. For practice on that online test's reasoning sections, our logical reasoning practice questions are a reasonable warm-up.
What we couldn't find on any Oliver Wyman page: a global round count, interview lengths outside Latin America, a decision timeline, or a label saying cases are candidate-led or interviewer-led. Ask your recruiter for your office's schedule.
Written cases and group cases: what's official
The Oliver Wyman interview pages linked here don't describe a written case or a case presentation in the job interview process. If your invitation names either format, ask your recruiter for its timing and instructions. The written-case drill later in this guide is our own exercise.
Group work does appear on Oliver Wyman's own pages, but at recruiting events, not in the interview process as described. Athens Connect (27 February 2026) gave teams a two-hour case-solving block, then presentations to a panel of judges. OWn Your Future in Milan (17 to 19 April 2026) scheduled "Group work on case" and presentations to partners. Getting into both events meant passing conversational and case interviews first.
Oliver Wyman's six official practice cases
The interview preparation page links six sample cases. Each one is laid out as numbered questions, and each question comes with hints, the firm's evaluation criteria and a sample answer you reveal after trying. Use that sequence to practice answering follow-up questions. It doesn't establish whether your actual interview will be candidate-led or interviewer-led.
| Case | Level | What it trains |
|---|---|---|
| Urban Grocers | Easy | Cost changes vs added profit from larger trucks, five questions |
| Supermarket Pharmacy | Medium | New in-store business against a two-year payback limit |
| Dairy Farm | Medium | Private equity investment: positioning, profitability, risks |
| Autism Digital Device | Medium | Pricing with cost, value and competitor methods |
| Oil Gas Price Strategy | Medium | Growth strategy with market sizing and payback, six questions |
| Poseidon Water Park | Medium | Estimating a competitor's daily revenue |
Do all six out loud before using anyone else's cases. Then read the evaluation criteria under each question and grade yourself against them, not against the sample answer.
Worked example: should a hotel chain sell coworking desks
This case is ours and fictional, written in the numbered-question style of Oliver Wyman's samples. The company and every number are made up.
Prompt. Kestrel Hotels runs 12 business hotels. Each has four meeting rooms that sit empty most days. The COO wants to convert those four rooms in every hotel into a coworking floor with 60 desks sold as monthly memberships. Kestrel only funds projects that pay back within three years. Should it go ahead?
Question 1: structure the problem. A clean structure has three branches. First, what coworking earns: members, price and running costs. Second, what Kestrel gives up: profit from the meeting rooms it converts. Third, feasibility and risk: fit-out cost, local demand, and whether hotel guests and members mix well. Say you'll start with the first two, because the payback test needs both.
Question 2: what does one coworking floor earn? The interviewer gives you:
- 60 desks, expected 70% occupancy
- Membership price $300 per month
- Running cost (cleaning, coffee, internet) $50 per member per month
- One community manager at $45,000 a year
- Fit-out cost $90,000 per hotel
Members are 60 × 70% = 42. Revenue is 42 × $300 × 12 = $151,200 a year. Running costs are 42 × $50 × 12 = $25,200. Contribution after the manager is $151,200 − $25,200 − $45,000 = $81,000 per hotel per year. Keep one shortcut in mind: each member is worth $250 a month, or $3,000 a year.
Question 3: what does Kestrel give up? Each meeting room books at $600 a day, over 250 business days a year, and earns a 50% margin. The interviewer shows this exhibit:
| Hotel group | Hotels | Meeting-room utilization |
|---|---|---|
| A (suburban) | 4 | 10% |
| B (city fringe) | 5 | 20% |
| C (city center) | 3 | 40% |
At full use, four rooms would earn 4 × 250 × $600 = $600,000 of revenue, or $300,000 of profit. So the profit Kestrel loses per hotel is $300,000 times utilization:
| Group | Lost meeting-room profit | Coworking contribution | Net gain per hotel | Payback on $90,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | $30,000 | $81,000 | $51,000 | 1.8 years |
| B | $60,000 | $81,000 | $21,000 | 4.3 years |
| C | $120,000 | $81,000 | −$39,000 | Never |
Now the trap. Chain-wide, the average utilization is (4 × 10% + 5 × 20% + 3 × 40%) ÷ 12, or about 21.7%. Converting all 12 hotels would cost $1.08 million and add $192,000 a year (4 × $51,000 + 5 × $21,000 − 3 × $39,000), a 5.6-year payback. The full rollout fails Kestrel's test, while Group A passes it easily.
Question 4: how sure are you about Group A? Work out the occupancy it needs. A three-year payback on $90,000 needs $30,000 a year of net gain. Add back the $30,000 of lost room profit and the $45,000 manager, and member margins have to total $105,000 a year, or 35 members at $3,000 each. That's 58% occupancy against the 70% assumed. Group B would need 45 members (75%), and Group C would need 65, more desks than it has.
Question 5: risks and recommendation. Risks to name: suburban demand for coworking may be thinner than city demand, members may crowd the lobby for hotel guests, and events that used the rooms might move to a competitor along with their bedroom bookings. A creative add: members may also spend on the hotel's food and drink, which would improve every row above.
The 30-second answer: "Kestrel shouldn't convert all 12 hotels, because the chain-wide payback is 5.6 years against a three-year limit. It should convert the four suburban hotels, where meeting rooms are used only 10% of the time. They pay back in 1.8 years and still hit the three-year target at 58% occupancy. I'd launch there, track membership for six months, and only then test one city-fringe hotel."
That answer leads with the decision, gives the number behind it and names the next step, which is what Oliver Wyman's tips ask for when they say to tie your findings back to what the client should do.
Using the same case as a written-case drill
If your recruiter tells you there's a written case, you can use the Kestrel material for a presentation exercise. This is our drill, not Oliver Wyman's format. Give yourself 30 minutes with the prompt, the bullet data and the exhibit, and produce three handwritten slides: the answer with the 1.8-year payback, the group table, and risks with next steps. Then present it to a friend who interrupts with questions, and time that too. Most of the skill is choosing the one table that carries the decision.
For more live cases in this style, our case interview examples and market sizing questions cover the profitability, payback and estimation work that shows up across Oliver Wyman's samples. Prepare your conversational interview too, with behavioral interview questions for consulting.
Where Soreno fits
Soreno covers the live case part only. It runs voice mock case interviews where you talk out loud, choose interviewer-led or candidate-led format, and get exhibits, follow-up questions and a rubric-graded report. Its drills cover consulting math, chart interpretation and market sizing. It doesn't simulate written cases, group cases, presentations or online tests, and it has no Oliver Wyman case library.