How to make sure my partner has a good case

Hi there,

I'd suggest having short intro calls - also with case partners talking about the logistics of the session:

- What type of cases and quality

- Interview/er experience

- Availability of a realistic score sheet

Every candidate I know randomly schedules sessions and if it's a bad experience wastes 1-2 hours of prep time. Approach your case partner selection the same way you would select a coach and have a quick 10-minute intro before committing to a full session.

Move along if the experience/ambition does not match or the vibes are off!

All the best,

Florian

Hi there,

Q: How to make sure my partner has a good case?

I would recommend the following:

1. Test a few partners to find some that you consider good. For the first meeting, if you don’t have a way to change the case, stick to the one they propose
2. Once you find a good partner, if they run out of good cases, share contacts and suggest using the resources you considered good for the following meetings

Hope this helps,

Francesco

Hi,

Perhaps you could try to use the messaging system to contact the partner in advance of the meeting and align on expectations, or even jump on a quick alignment call before starting. 

If that is not possible / you find that partners are not receptive to this, then you will have to go through a trial and error process and after 1 or 2 sessions you may find a partner that is better / able to give good feedback. Then you can think about building a specific way of working with that person.

W.r.t to always needing a case ‘that benefits you’, I think this point is not really the right mindset. You can never predict what kind of question you will get in the actual interview. What's more important is to get to a level where it doesnt matter what you are being asked because you have strong fundamentals to tackle anything that comes at you.

All the best!

Hey!

Yes, you raise a very valid point that few candidates ever address. Your partner's skills and the case type they give you do matter a great deal.

In order to succeed at a case interview it's important to acquire an overview of all the main industries and problem types.

Therefore, when practicing solving cases with other candidates, specifically ask for cases on certain industries and problem types you are unfamiliar or have difficulties with rather than solving a random case which is irrelevant to your progress. Communicate it to your potential case partners before scheduling a meeting that you want to cover industry X or an Y problem type. If the candidate doesn't have such a case in the library, move to another candidate.

Draw a table where the columns are main industries (e.g. Metals&Mining, Oil&Gas, Telecom, FMCG&Retail, HORECA, Banking, Aviation, Pharma, Media&Communications)and the lines are the main problem types (e.g. Investment, New Product, Market Entry, M&A, Market Share, Profitability, Customer Experience, Operations) and try to solve a case on each main problem type for every main industry listed in your table.

Hope this helps,
Nick
 

Hi there!

In general, with peer practice, I'd advise you to find 1-3 people who are great at providing feedback and sticking with them throughout your prep rather than constantly trying new people (and wasting time aligning with them). 

Then, what you can do is to align beforehand with these people on the sort of cases that you want and then even send them the casebook that you'd like them to use. 

Once again, focusing on practising with a couple of reliable people only makes this a lot easier to manage.

Best,
Cristian

Hi there,

Honestly, like with anything is a market of lemons.

Start to filter based on profile (# of cases, region, level, etc.). 

Keep the good ones and don't meet again with the bad ones.

It's just part of find anyone good - takes a number of attempts/trials and filtering!

Hi there,

I suggest you focus more on the quality of the feedback than the case. Try and test several partners until you find the ones that really give you great feedback to keep improving.

Best,

Alberto

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Check out my latest case based on a real MBB interview: Sierra Spring

You have to use the messaging system to try to align with the case partner before your session.