Case Interview Coaching: Make the Most out of Your Coaching Sessions
Need help preparing for your case interview? A case interview coaching could be perfect for you if you're aiming for a successful start in your consulting career. Increase your chances of landing your dream job offer at McKinsey, BCG, Bain or other top consulting firms and prepare yourself to the best of your ability. The competition is fierce, so the key to standing out is investing in preparation.
But what exactly should you know about case interview coaching? How do you choose the right coach and coaching package for you? How can you make the most out of your coaching sessions? In this comprehensive article, we'll answer all these questions for you. Let's dive in! 💙💚
Table of Contents
- What You Should Know About Case Interview Coaching
- What exactly Is Case Interview Coaching And What Does a Coaching Session Include?
- Which Type Of Coaching Is Right For Me?
- Why Should I Spend Money On a Coach When I Can Practice With Other Candidates?
- Is Case Interview Coaching Always Necessary?
- When is the Right Time to Do Coaching Sessions?
- Customer Testimonials
- Leonie - Offers from McKinsey and BCG
- Lorenzo - Offer from Bain
- 6 Steps to a Successful Coaching Match
- Step 1: Understand the Basics of Case Interview Preparation 🫴
- Step 2: Assess Your Situation 🤔
- Step 3: Choose the Right Coaches 🤝
- Step 4: Schedule Your First Coaching Session and Develop a Plan with Your Coach 🫶
- Step 5: Take Detailed Notes During and Especially After Each Coaching Session ✍️
- Step 6: Put Your Feedback into Practice ⛹️
- Conclusion
What You Should Know About Case Interview Coaching
The wide range of resources available for case preparation can quickly become overwhelming. The following questions and their corresponding answers will help you gain an overview and structure your expectations and needs.
What exactly Is Case Interview Coaching And What Does a Coaching Session Include?
Case interview coaching with former consultants helps you prepare for your job interview in consulting. Together, you can simulate the real interview situation, consisting of a personal fit interview and the case interview. You'll receive valuable feedback to improve your performance. A single session usually lasts 60 minutes and can be conducted via PrepLounge directly or through video call providers like Google Meet, Zoom, or Teams.
Before the session, you'll discuss with your coach what needs you have and where you stand in your preparation. The specifics of the coaching session for the case interview depend on you and your progress. The session will be tailored to your needs. When you book your coaching on PrepLounge, our coaches are verified by us, and you can rely on their information and skills.
Which Type Of Coaching Is Right For Me?
On PrepLounge, we offer various coaching options:
a) Premium+Coaching is our most cost-effective combination of a premium membership and a coaching session. Here, you get the premium membership for a year and can also book a coaching session with our handpicked "Premium+Coaching" experts.
👉 Check out the Premium+Coaching package now
b) Expert Packages: Meet with your favorite coach for multiple sessions. Many coaches enhance their packages with additional materials - so it's worth taking a look at the included materials.
Some of our best coaches offer their own coaching packages. This is a sensible investment since they have the most experience and have helped hundreds of candidates secure their dream job offers. By focusing on one coach, you'll receive significant discounts and can adjust the pace gradually. However, make sure to supplement your coaching sessions by practicing with suitable case partners through appointments on our meeting board.
👉 Check out our coaching packages now
c) CoachingPlus: The all-in-one package for your case interview preparation
The CoachingPlus package is our all-in-one preparation package if you have a limited budget. It offers a combination of multiple coaching sessions and a 6-month premium membership, giving you access to the most important preparation materials on PrepLounge.
You can choose from a list of over 50 different coaches. All CoachingPlus experts are experienced management consultants at top firms. They can also advise you on creating your CV, for example.
👉 Check out CoachingPlus now
Why Should I Spend Money On a Coach When I Can Practice With Other Candidates?
Through our years of experience helping candidates secure their dream jobs in consulting, we are confident that both suitable case partners and experienced coaches can help you significantly increase your chances of success. Case partners help you achieve quantity in your training, while coaches can assist you better with quality. Our coaches Francesco and Hagen explain this vividly:
As for many other activities, a coach for consulting interviews can help you to faster achieve the results you want to get, which means you can get to your top-level performance in a lower amount of time AND increase the likelihood of getting into your desired company. There are several reasons for that, including as main ones the following:
- More experience. 💡 A good partner may have done tens of cases. A great coach has hundreds or thousands of cases and coaching sessions under his/her belt, a network of current consultants to help with networking, and has gone through most of the consulting prep material out there. This means that you will work with someone with exponentially more experience. This means that in the end you can get to your desired results 10X faster or more than working without a coach. As an example, when I help with coaching, I not only provide the best cases based on an experience of 1400+ coaching sessions, but also a network of hundreds of current consultants worldwide to help you with referrals, constant support after the class and a selection of the best prep material for free, to boost your preparation in the minimum possible amount of time.
- Teaching skills. 🤓 A good partner can provide challenging cases. But are you really looking for a partner just to get a well-delivered case? The goal when doing cases should not be to do cases per se but to improve. And for that, you need someone who is able not only to deliver a case but also to teach you how to get better. A great coach can help you to spot your mistakes and teach you the exact steps to improve for each of them. When I help with coaching, I usually provide a 2-page minimum feedback report, detailing all the mistakes you are doing and the specific ways you can correct them, plus providing the material to start to work on the different areas.
- Stronger commitment. 💪 It is clear that coaching requires an investment while good partners are usually free. Although it may sound counterintuitive, putting money in your learning is one of the best ways to self-commit to success. Once you have invested in something, studies show you have a lot more commitment to deliver your maximum results, at the bare minimum to justify your investment. I have experimented this first-hand with my own investment: at the beginning of this year I committed $1000 in a coaching program for self-improvement. Although the program overall was good, it also required a lot of work from my side. I can guarantee you I would have never gone through the whole amount of work required if the course was free. But since I paid for it, and thus committed, I put effort to deliver the maximum I could from the program. And in this way, I got the results I wanted. Of course, you want to invest wisely when choosing a coach – I would recommend you carefully select your choice based on the success rate and reviews.
The most successful people in the world - from Warren Buffet to Michael Jordan - had coaches helping them to achieve their goals. The reason is simple: investing in the stock market can give you an 8% return in one year. Investing in yourself can give you a 10X return in one year. And getting a great coach is one of the easiest ways to invest in yourself, whatever part of your life you want to improve.
Working with an experienced coach who has years of experience in consulting, interviewing, and coaching will improve your interview preparation in two ways: it will increase the overall quality of your preparation and accelerate your preparation process.
- First, the quality of your preparation will be enhanced by their balanced feedback, based on years of experience in consulting and interviewing. An experienced coach uses their own real-life case studies and has a keen sense of relevant personal fit questions, so you will be confronted with scenarios that closely resemble actual interviews. This precise guidance will help you refine your answers effectively.
- Secondly, the speed of your preparation will benefit greatly from the comprehensive and constructive feedback of an experienced coach and from the time saved by not having to switch roles as with peer preparation. This means that you can work with them on specific areas without having to go through entire case studies, as is often the case when preparing with peers. They will also track your progress closely and adjust the approach to accelerate your learning curve and focus on what is really important for improvement.
Investing in an experienced coach will ensure that your preparation is not only thorough but also strategically tailored, maximizing your chances of succeeding in the highly competitive field of strategy consulting.
Is Case Interview Coaching Always Necessary?
Certainly, there are examples of candidates who have received offers even without case interview coaching, sometimes without any preparation at all. However, consider how many candidates fail their interviews due to lack of preparation and have to wait one to two years before they can reapply.
From our candidates, we know that they don't regret investing in coaching because the costs of coaching have more than paid off after receiving their job offers. Coaching pays off. If you receive a job offer as a top consultant, you can repay the investment with your salary within the first week of work!
Coaching is necessary to assess your preparation level, master the personal fit part of the interview, and perfect your skills before the interview. One of our candidates says:
"After my first round at BCG and before the final round, I had four sessions with a case interview coach and then received my offer. I would say it was definitely worth it because it was the small, final touches that helped me get the offer."
The costs of case interview coaching are even tax-deductible in Germany. If you are from another country, we recommend contacting a tax advisor to clarify how this is handled in your country.
When is the Right Time to Do Coaching Sessions?
As so often, it depends. Some candidates prefer to prepare mostly on their own and only check if they are on the right track through a few scattered sessions. Others prefer intensive coaching throughout the entire case interview preparation process to receive continuous feedback and work on their weaknesses in a targeted way.
Based on our experience, we recommend starting your entire case interview preparation no later than four to six weeks before your actual first interview and scheduling your coaching sessions between three and one week before the actual interview. This time frame allows you to consolidate what you have learned, clarify specific questions, and improve your performance under pressure.
Who could tell you more about this than candidates that already got an offer? 🚀 Have a look at two reviews by candidates below:
Leonie - Offers from McKinsey and BCG
"I practiced very intensively with Sharona and booked 10 sessions with her. I must say, it was a very valuable experience for my professional development. She tailored the cases to my needs, allowing me to see my improvement from session to session. She always took the time to discuss my concerns and questions and provided me with very helpful feedback.
One of the aspects I appreciated the most was Sharona's ability to break down complex consulting concepts into tangible and actionable steps. This allowed me to build strategies and apply them to real-life examples with this approach. This practical approach significantly accelerated my learning and skills development. I highly recommend her to anyone looking to enter consulting! THANK YOU :)"
"The session with Francesco was impressive; thanks to his advice I managed to receive an offer from Bain!
I would strongly recommend it to everyone tackling an interviewing round with a 1st or 2nd tier management consulting firm!
Among the key highlights of the session, I would underline:
- The "technical" preparation. Francesco provides detailed feedback on each of the key areas of the case (initial questions, structure, ability to drive the case, calculations and conclusions).
He is using the REAL evaluation method that MBB firms are using and that you will have to face in the interview - The "tactical" side of the session with him is something that provides very high added value. He covers all the behavioral parts such as tone, voice, eyesight, type of questions asked, appearance, conversational ability, and behavior under pressure. Many people think that the "behavioral" part is just a preplanned-mechanic answer to the classical set of 10 questions. After landing an MBB offer I can personally tell you that it is not like this at all... and I can't stress enough how this behavioral part is constantly overlooked by candidates.
In the sessions with him, I received a complete feedback about main points of improvement to succeed - The "choice". Landing an offer is the main aim of the candidates, but what to choose in case of multiple offers? Which aspects are to be kept in mind?
Which are the eventual "exits" and post-consulting perspectives?
I am not a neo-graduate from university and I think that the session with him was really interesting for discussing about negotiation of offers, exit strategies or alternatives to consulting.
To sum up, I would strongly recommend a session with Francesco for boosting your preparation before an interview and increasing your chances to get an offer!"
6 Steps to a Successful Coaching Match
By following the steps below, you can ensure that nothing goes wrong in choosing a coach. The time you take in making your selection will help you prepare efficiently and work with the right expert to accelerate your preparation!
