Question re case preparation

Hi there,

You don’t need to finish the partner cases in Case in point unless you find them useful to improve. Some MBA casebooks are actually far better in terms of cases.

In terms of the general approach, there are many things wrong in Case In Point. To prepare, I usually recommend the following approach:

1. Define a calendar for your preparation. Identify how many hours you have available before your interview and allocate a time slot for preparation in your calendar for each day, working on the points below. Many people need 100+ hours to be ready before a consulting interview so you can keep that as a benchmark
2. Read Case In Point or Case Interview Secrets for a general understanding of what a consulting interview is. Don’t focus on the structures proposed in the books though, as they are not good enough nowadays.
3. Start reading good MBA Consulting Handbooks – 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 insides. Try to read at least a new case per day – in this way you will absorb better the information with constant learning.
4. After the first 5-10 cases in books/handbooks 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. Keep track of your mistakes and see if you repeat them. If so, try to identify the source of the mistake (feedback of experienced partners would be particularly useful for this). Be sure to focus on both the behavioural part and the case part. The case part should also cover market sizing, mental math and graph analysis.
5. Once you feel you are not improving anymore, if you have a tight time constraint or if you want a realistic assessment of your level, consider using support from experts to strengthen your performance
6. Before the interviews, be sure to prepare your questions for the interviewer –great way to show you prepared in advance and to connect with the interviewer for a good final impression.

Best,

Francesco

Eagerly awaiting the question... ^^

Hi there,

1- Hard no. Moreover, you don't need Victor Cheng either.

To clarify, read/use the materials that help you. Are you understanding? Is it hitting home? Or do your eyes glaze over and your head hurt? If Case in Point is working, finish it. If it's not, then move on.

Some people love Case In Point, some don't. Some love Victor Cheng, some don't. Decide for yourself!

Personally, I read about 3 pages of Case in Point, never touched Victor Cheng, and prepped on my own (this included creating/running "study teams" to research and deep-dive into Industries ourselves, create our own frameworks, etc.). Without any books I intereviewed at 8 companies and never failed a round.

To summarize: Do what works for you

2 - Take every case with a grain of salt. Much more important than the specific framework or solution is how you think. If you think the recommendation is ridiculous, ok. If you have a good reason/logic for why (which you do), even better :)

Hi Anonymous,

ad 1) Doesn't matter at all. It's just theoretical prep which is necessary and beneficial to do - but the exact sequence and mixing them doesn't make any difference.

ad 2) If it's a non-interactive case (so without any real-life interview partner) chances are small that you will go exactly into the same direction and come to the same conclusion. When doing this kind of theoretical case interview prep, just don't expect that and rather try to look at it more from a procedural view on how to approach different cases. Still good to cover some theoretical cases like that again to absorb some basics, but it's not comparable to any learning experience with a professional interviewer/coach.

Hope that helps - if so, please be so kind to give it a thumbs-up with the green upvote button below!

Robert

HI, 

Quick tips on interviews preparation:

• Step 1 | Work on frameworks in books (e.g. case in point); amass content and build your tool box. Attention, the day of the interview in most cases you should not make a mapping between the frameworks you studied and the case stated by the interviewer. You often have to build a customized framework.

• Step 2 | Train with peers. In a case study we test the structure of course, but also the business sense and the ability to use the indices or the data communicated by the interviewer. It is not a 1-way talk but a real discussion between two people. Here is the real limit of training using books.

• Step 3 | Test yourself with people who have really been interviewer in consulting firms to benefit from cases that have been tested for real and feedback through the evaluation grids of consulting firms. Of course, I would be delighted to discuss it with you when will be in this phase of your preparation.

• Step 4 | Multiply the applications and therefore the real interviews. Nothing prepares better than a case study in a real situation. Morever, the more applications you submit, the more you maximize your chances of having one or more offers. I recommend on the other hand, to start with the firms that you target less and to keep top priorities for later.

I finish by reminding that it's compulsory not to neglect the fit which is often less prepared than the case study. So please do not forget that this part of the interview counts as much as the case study, so it is very important not to improvise.

Dear A,

1. No need to make all the cases. The real preparation is face to face. So I would recommend you to finish with all the books and courses as sooner as possible

2. Agree with Robert here

Best,
André

Hello!

I laughed reading your post, since I tought the same thing many times!

However, here you need to look at it with a different angle. This a theorical exercise, hence, many times focused more on the process, logic steps, math associated, etc. 

Agree with you that is nuts to believe you will be able to penetrate the market in that short period of time and achieve that level of market share, but if the problem steps guide you there... think that this is only theorical. 

In any case, I would comment this totally in the conclusions had this been a real case interview. 

Best, 

Clara