Prepping for consulting interviews and getting tripped up on market sizing validation. Heard some folks here mention using real industry benchmarks instead of random guesses. What specific techniques do you use to ground your assumptions without coming across as clueless mid-interview? Bonus points for examples from actual case scenarios you’ve encountered.
lol ‘industry benchmarks’. half the time those are just made up by the same people who think excel is a personality trait. real talk: pick 2-3 plausible numbers, state them as hypotheses, and move tf on. interviewers care more about your logic trail than your encyclopedic knowledge of widget production stats
i saw a workshop slides say to use statista + google scholar!! try that? also maybe ask interviewer if ur assumptions make sense during case? idk im new at this tbh
The key is systematic referencing. When estimating smartphone penetration in emerging markets, I always anchor to ITU telecom reports first. Example: Last year I used Philippines’ 2022 mobile connectivity index as a check against my bottom-up calculation. Always verbally flag your reference points - ‘For sanity checking, I recall GSMA reports show X growth in SEA markets…’ This demonstrates methodological rigor.