What is Biggest Challenge for a New University President?

Case Type: operations strategy; organizational behavior.
Consulting Firm: Bain & Company first round job interview.
Industry Coverage: education; non-profit organization.

Case Interview Question #00304: Suppose you have just been appointed to be the new president of the University of Pennsylvania (or the university the candidate is currently attending) by the Board of Trustees. What do you think the biggest challenge facing you might be? How would you address this challenge?

Note to the Interviewer: The objective of the interviewer should be to take the job candidate through a series of steps and see how she/he can tackle the various levels. The steps can range from identifying a critical issue, to breaking a problem into component parts, to finally identifying one or more solutions.

Step 1: Big picture thinking.

The interviewer lays out the facts and asks the candidate to articulate the critical issues facing the business. “Big picture thinking” requires a focus on the key issues and not a “laundry list” of every problem facing the business. The interviewer then asks why the candidate chose the answer she/he did.

Possible Answer:

The University has several powerful constituencies: undergraduates, graduate students, professors, alumni, government and community. However, the University doesn’t have unlimited resources, and therefore it must prioritize where it spends its dollars. Long term success for the University is driven by figuring out what the most important areas are, and at the same time ensuring that all constituents feel they are being treated fairly.

Step 2: Problem solving logic

The interviewer asks the candidate to lay out all the elements of the problem: What factors should be considered?

Question #2: How should you prioritize your limited resources?

Possible Answer:

Think about what drives the University’s success: reputation, economics, quality of students, quality of research. Understand what “focusing resources” really gets you. Each factor has a different set of implications/impact.

Step 3: Focus on value

The interviewer then lets the candidate choose which avenues to pursue, leaving the discussion open ended: without suggesting focus, the interviewer determines if the candidate is instinctive about which path to choose and then asks why the candidate selected this path.

Question #3: Which opportunity do you think will have the biggest impact?

Possible Answer:

Reputation. If you have a good reputation it can influence other areas. Reputation can be a long term asset. Also, it is probably the hardest to fix once it is broken.

Step 4: Depth and breadth – business intuition After getting the recruit to focus on a key area, the interviewer asks the candidate some probing questions about how (s)he would analyze that area.

Question #4: Okay, so how would you improve the University’s reputation?

Possible Answer:

I would focus on improvement in two areas:
* Promote activities that build reputation
* Eliminate factors that negatively impact reputation

Discussion then continues down both of these paths with specific improvement ideas.

Step 5: Results orientation

The interviewer returns to a key area of discussion, asking the candidate how (s)he would implement his/her solution. The interviewer could pose a tricky or hostile client situation and ask how the candidate would get results in a difficult environment.

Question #5: Well, those seem like pretty sound strategies. How exactly would you implement those ideas?

Possible Answer:

We will need to start with a PR blitz, so I would encourage several articles to be written about “The New University” in the popular press. Also, I would heighten the pressure on professors to publish research articles…..(The answer continues with other implementation ideas).