Use your industry knowledge as context, not as hidden case data. Make your reasoning clear and separate what the case gives you from what you know from experience.

Relevant experience can improve your judgment, but the interviewer still needs to see how you solve the problem using the information available. Unstated assumptions can send the case in the wrong direction if the fictional client situation differs from your past experience.

You can say, 'In my experience this channel can be margin-sensitive, so I would want to test channel economics here, but I would not assume that is true for this client until we see the data.'

When your experience suggests something useful, label it as a hypothesis and ask whether it is worth testing. That lets you benefit from your background without treating prior industry knowledge as a fact in the case. If useful, this guide on experienced-hire consulting criteria gives more detail.

Use the experience as a hypothesis, not as a fact. That distinction helped me.

My interviewer actually liked relevant industry context when I explained where it came from.

same here, easy detail to overthink.

same here, easy detail to overthink.