Dear Northwestern Student #34872:

We thank you for your interest in XYZ Consulting Corp., Inc. You are clearly a bright and talented individual. However, we have decided to pursue other candidates at this time.

As you have asked for feedback, you should know that your academic qualifications are excellent. We’ve never seen such high test scores and GPAs. But what distinguished our hires was their performance in the case study interviews.

We like to stress that there is no right answer and that we value creativity in case studies. On the other hand, we do expect all our interviewees to come to the same conclusion.

And while we appreciate diverse perspectives, the conclusion we were looking for was to cut costs by $1.8 billion, whereas you recommended improving the product by providing additional features, which was way off base.

Neither the CEO nor stockholders would have appreciated this recommendation.

We also use the case study to evaluate your logical thinking. In this case, the logical method of solving the problem is to maximize profits by cutting costs.

This is a simple mathematical calculation that involves only numbers.

You on the other hand, seemed to think you had to factor in the effect that cutting jobs and employee benefits would have on manufacturing towns.

You also kept suggesting the company take other actions, such as improve its image by scaling back carbon emissions despite your interviewer giving you repeated cues that this was not the answer.

Societal and environmental effects are what, in the business world, we call externalities, and you should not concern yourself with them because they do not factor into Profit = Revenue – Cost.

We wish you the best of luck in your job search and future endeavors.

But we thought we should suggest that you look into non-business careers, which we feel might be a better fit for your personality.

What clued us into this, particularly, was your response when we asked the obligatory question of why you want to work for XYZ. You expressed abnormal amounts of interest in our pro bono work.

The people we hire, on the other hand, typically tell us it’s all about the money.

This tells us they care deeply about profit maximization and can relate with our clients on an intimate level. May we suggest you look into kindergarten teaching?

Best,

Joe Smith

Recruiter, Human Services

XYZ Consulting Corp., Inc.