Only one month for my first Interview at MBB

Hi Marianna,

Q: What do you think is the best way to organize my prep in the most efficient way?

I would recommend the following:

1. Define a calendar for your preparation. Identify how many hours you have before your interview and allocate a time slot for preparation in your calendar for each day, working on the points below. Many candidates need 100+ hours to be ready before the interview starting from zero so you can keep that as a benchmark.
2. Start reading good MBA Consulting Casebooks – you can find several for free online (INSEAD is a good one to start). Read the cases and try to apply your structure to solve them. Whenever you see there is something missing, upgrade your structure with the new insights. Try to read a new case per day – in this way you will absorb better the information with constant learning.
3. After the first 5-10 cases in books/casebooks and basic theory, start to practice live. PrepLounge can be helpful to connect with other candidates for that. There is a relevant part of the interview score that is based on your communication, which you cannot practice at all if you read cases only.
4. Keep track of your mistakes and see which ones you are repeating. This is super-important, as otherwise you may do a ton of cases without fixing the real issues. If you find common mistakes, try to identify the reason for them (feedback from experienced partners would be particularly useful for this). Be sure to focus on both the behavioral part and the case part during the mocks. The case part should also cover market sizing, math and graph analysis.
5. Before the interviews, be sure to prepare your questions for the interviewer  – a great way to show you prepared in advance and to connect with the interviewer for a good final impression. Ideally, try to get information on who they are and study their profile to have good questions to ask.

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If you have to do tests as well, you can find some material to prepare below - full disclosure – I am the author ;)

▶ BCG Online Case Software Simulation

▶ McKinsey Solve Game Video Simulation

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If you want to spend a few hours only instead of 100+ and cover everything mentioned above, I developed a program precisely for that. 

I can also share with you real questions for your target office (I have a db with 1.500+ questions asked in 60+ offices you won't find anywhere else - you can check on my profile if I cover your particular office).

You can check the program at the following link to learn more:

▶ GYM Program

If you have any questions please feel free to PM me.

Best,

Francesco

One month is not a lot of time. You'll need to dedicate most of your free time to this (but beware of burnout). 

You should start by getting familiar with what a case interview is. Go to the resources section in this website, and you have a lot of material in there, including frameworks, relevant concepts and tutorial videos. You should at least skim through those. 

Going through Victor Cheng's videos and book (Case Interview Secrets) is also a good primer, with one MAJOR CAVEAT. Case interviews are not about knowing a few frameworks. Having a structured approach is not the same as having a framework. As such, you can look at frameworks, they are good food for thought when considering your own structure, but they are a fundamentally wrong way to approach cases (or at least not the best one, as it actually is more labor intensive and has lower probability of success). You need to think about what are the questions that need to answered in order to make a sound decision, not the “investigation areas” you need to explore.

You should do the above quickly - your first 2 to 3 days, and then quickly jump into doing a few cases on your own. Target the best cases in the library here. There are some MBA case books out there, but look for the ones with real cases and beware of the recommended answers (if it is quantitative, they are usually correct, but often wrong in coming up with structured approaches).

Also please do a fair ammount of market sizing exercises, as these will necessary cross your way!

After a couple more days on the above, you are ready to move on to live cases. You can use the peer case practice in Preplounge, but even better is to network a bit and find someone who was actually succesful at getting into consulting (ideally who's been on the recruiting side) to give you a few cases.

Finally, the real accelerator here is (good) coaching. Please understand I am not trying to sell my services here, but telling you what is the fastest and most efficient way to get ready. But having someone to guide who knows this stuff is definitely a good accelerator. People who were successful in passing the interviews don't necessarily know how to give you highly actionable advice nor what a recruiter is looking for. Having said this, please note that what you need is a coaching session, not (just) an interview simulation. These are different things (validate what you're getting before you book a session).

I hope this helps. Good luck with your preparation!

Hi Marianna,

Congrats on the interview!

Genuinely, the best way to prepare in a short amount of time is coaching. I can't recommend it enough. You can read/case for 10 hours and try to teach yourself, or have 1-2 hours coaching to the same effect.

That said, if you're going it alone, Preplounge has a crash course as does casecoach. Additionally, you need to get a lot of cases under your belt! Pair up with others here and try to get a case in every day or two!

Congratulations on getting the interview! The first thing is don’t panic - a month is a long time to get prepared! 

In terms of what to do: 

1. Become comfortable using frameworks. 

What I mean by this is I’d recommend learning three frameworks with will cover most cases: profitability, business situations (eg new market entry, new products); and capacity change (eg mergers, opening a new factory). I have a crib sheet which I’m happy to share if helpful.

Once you’re comfortable with these, practice cases where you address general business issues. Learn how to draw on the buckets you’ve learnt to inform your thinking of how to answer the question.

Then when you’re comfortable with that, drop the frameworks all together and practice more non traditional cases (eg non profit, government). You’ll realize that you’ve learnt how to create structured thinking without having to parrot off frameworks. 

2. Brush up on your mental maths. Get to grips with your 12 times table, multiplying and dividing big numbers, calculating percentages.

3. Brush up on reading charts - lots of these are in cases, or look at publications which have charts like the economist and practice drawing insights from them.

4. Get ready to answer the PEI questions. Have two answers prepared to demonstrate each of times you’ve led, times you’ve had disagreements with people, times you’ve gone above and beyond what’s expected of you, and times you’ve faced big changes in your work. 

Let me know if I can help, and good luck! 

Hello,

Congratulations on getting an interview! First, familiarize yourself with what a case interview involves. I would start by looking over some classic case prep books (e.g. Case in Point, Case Interview Secrets) to get a sense of what case interviews look like. You could also try finding some videos of experts solving cases on youtube or company websites. 

Next, the most crucial aspect of your prep will be practice. Don't just read cases by yourself, but practice them live in mock-interview format with others. Given that you don't have a ton of time, it will be critical to get lots of good practice in, get feedback, and iterate on it. Working with a coach is a good idea, but friends or family can help you run cases too. PrepLounge has a platform to help you find case partners here too, which is very helpful.

Finally, you should also do this familiarization + preparation + practice process with the behavioral component of the interview. Read up on the common behavioral questions asked and what firms are looking for, workshop your answers to them, and practice them in mock-interview format with others.

Best of luck, and let me know if you have any further questions!

Agree with Mario,

Would be good to do a bit of self-study of what case interviews are, what typical questions are asked and the common frameworks. 

From my own experience, move quickly to do practices. While it may feel daunting at first, i think everyone agrees the fastest way to ramp up is real practice.

Happy to offer my help as well leveraging my experience as a final round interviewer for Bain. 

Best,

Bryan

Hello!

My 2 cents here: BUY TIME! The only reason why I made it to McK (I had a similar context) was by pushing back the interviews a few months. 

I have suggested this to many of my students, and it's always been the right call. This process is hard enough not to be at your 110%!

Cheers, 

Clara

Hey Khaty! 
 

Congrats on securing your 1st round :)

The key to cracking your way into consulting is practice. Obviously, you need to cover the theory of case studies and PEI questions (I recommend the classic “case in point” book and Victor Cheng material to get started), but it's through practice (mock interviews with peers, coaches, consultants, etc.,) that you'll succeed. 
 

Happy to talk more and walk you through the entire preps process + to coach you using real-life interview questions and cases, if needed. 
 

Best of luck!!

Mario 

I would suggest starting with Cosentino's or Cheng's books or with Crafting Case or RocketBlocks websites in order to learn how to approach a case. 
Then I would do 5-10 cases to understand my weaknesses and from then work on them to improve those areas with several drills and exercises! Then do again up to 30ish cases on PrepLounge ;)