I'm her age. This is essentially a case question straight out of a consulting book. I'm out of practice for it. Way out of practice. Meanwhile, I'm scared stiff of applying for jobs because my entire class has gone crazy about how to behave, what to say, what is the right answer to questions like this. I know I'm not perfect already. I know I have work to do to get better. and the bAck of the evenvelop question is one of my weak points. And I know it.

First thing I discovered though from helping other people on other sorts of collaborative projects on the web:

Get paper for this stuff if you are out of practice, and ask to wait for an aswer while you write it down, and if you forget something, as to repeat. Always good to write somehting down- shows you are listening. She didn't.

Be a little more wild with your answer. Not over the top. But just a little. I got that last night from someone at McKinsey. Was talkign to a class of mine about the history of business. Someone asked. Don't be too much though.

And reach out about your humanness. Not everyone is perfect. If your weak point is Back of the envelope stuff, then it is your weak point.

Speaking of which, since I am taking my time (becuase I can't freak out any more, I just can't) How do I brush up on those questions? And that way of thinking. I'm good on the creative side with large data sets and how to sort out problems, but not on the calculations side...which sucks.