Beginner Preparing for EY-Parthenon Take-Home Case

Yes, it will likely have a real-estate, hospitality, or tourism context, but the core skills are standard strategy consulting: assess the market, business economics, risks, and give a clear recommendation

A simple structure:

1. What is the question?
   Is this about investing, entering a market, growing a hotel/asset, or improving returns?
2. Is the market attractive?
   Demand, customer segments, competition, pricing, supply, and market growth.
3. Is the asset/business attractive?
   Location, concept, occupancy, revenue, costs, profitability, and operational feasibility.
4. What is the recommendation?
   Lead with a clear yes/no, give 2–3 reasons, key risks, and next steps.

For the 48 hours:

• Read the full pack first before deep-diving into the data.
• Build 3–5 clean slides with one clear takeaway per slide.
• Focus on insights, not showing every calculation.
• State assumptions clearly if data is missing.
• Practice presenting your recommendation in 10 minutes and prepare for challenge questions.

Your advisory background is useful. Bring practical real-estate judgment, but keep the answer commercial and decision-focused

Treat the 48 hours as a mini client engagement, not as 48 hours of analysis: the biggest beginner risk is spending too long exploring the data and leaving too little time to build and quality-check the answer.

I would use a simple workplan:

1. In the first 2–3 hours, define the decision. Write one sentence stating what the client must decide, then build a short decision tree: market demand, commercial attractiveness, operational feasibility, and key risks. For a real-estate or hospitality case, translate those into the relevant drivers—location and catchment, customer segments, occupancy or utilization, pricing, revenue mix, operating costs, capex, and return.

2. Spend the next block testing the highest-impact branches. Keep an evidence log with three columns: question, evidence/calculation, and implication. This prevents interesting analysis from entering the deck unless it changes the decision.

3. Build the storyline before polishing slides. Each slide title should be a conclusion, not a topic—for example, “Demand can support the asset, but the proposed price requires premium positioning.” The slides should collectively answer: what should the client do, why, what could change the answer, and what happens next?

4. Protect the final 6–8 hours for QA and rehearsal. Recalculate the key numbers independently, check units and time periods, make sure every chart supports its title, and confirm that the recommendation follows from the evidence. Then rehearse the presentation and prepare for questions on assumptions, downside cases, and missing data.

Your real-estate advisory background is an advantage if you use it to identify practical drivers and risks. Just avoid relying on sector intuition without showing the evidence. If the brief is ambiguous, state a reasonable assumption and explain how the recommendation would change if that assumption is wrong.

Before you begin, ask the recruiter about the expected output, slide limit, presentation length, and whether external research is allowed. Those rules should determine the depth of your analysis and the amount of detail in the appendix.

Hey Adi, you’re actually in a pretty good starting position for this.

I’d expect the case to have a real estate, hospitality or tourism angle, but I wouldn’t assume it will be purely “real estate focused.” EY Parthenon cases tend to test whether you can structure an ambiguous business problem, identify the key drivers, analyse the data, and turn it into a clear recommendation.

For a 48 hour take home, I’d approach it roughly like this:

1. Start with the question, not the data.
Before diving into the exhibits, define exactly what the client is trying to decide. For example, “Should the client enter this market?”, “Should they acquire or develop this asset?”, or “How can they improve returns?”

2. Build a hypothesis driven structure.
For a real estate or hospitality case, your buckets might include:

• Market attractiveness and demand

• Competitive landscape

• Asset or concept economics

• Revenue and cost drivers

• Investment requirements and returns

• Key risks and sensitivities

• Strategic alternatives

You obviously wouldn’t use all of these mechanically. Tailor the structure to the actual question.

3. Think beyond the property itself.
This is where the strategy angle comes in. If it’s a hotel case, for example, don’t just analyse ADR, occupancy and RevPAR. Think about why demand exists, customer segments, competitors, positioning, supply pipeline, pricing power, operating model, and ultimately whether the economics support the strategy.

4. Make the Excel model simple and auditable.
For a take home, I’d prioritise getting the right answer over building a ridiculously complicated model. Make your assumptions explicit and run a few meaningful sensitivities.

5. Spend serious time on the final recommendation.
Don’t finish with “therefore, I recommend X.” Give them the answer upfront, the three or four reasons supporting it, and the key risks or conditions. Think, “If the partner had 60 seconds to read my slide, would they understand my conclusion?”

One thing I’d definitely practise beforehand is taking a few public real estate or hospitality investment questions and giving yourself 30 to 45 minutes to structure them without looking at any solution. You’ll quickly get much more comfortable with the consulting brain part of the exercise.

Also, don’t worry about being completely new to cases. Your RE experience is an advantage. You just need to layer commercial and strategic thinking plus structured problem solving on top of it.

Good luck with it!

Hi Adi,

Look, if you have not started preparing yet, you are in serious trouble.

Trying to wing a 48 hour take home case as a complete beginner creates a very high chance of failing. You need to hire a coach immediately.

Check EY Parthenon's assessment rules. If external coaching is permitted, have the coach support you during the 48 hour window. If it is not permitted, work with the coach before the case begins and complete the live assessment independently. Either way, do not try to figure this all out for the first time during the test.

I have 30 real take home tests that I use to train candidates, including 2 from EY Parthenon. That means we can practise the actual format rather than giving you generic case advice.

For the case itself:

1. Start with the objective. What decision does the client need to make?
2. Build a clear approach before diving into the data.
3. Ruthlessly exclude information that does not help answer the question.
4. Lead with a clear recommendation supported by your most important analyses, charts, risks, and next steps.
5. Keep the presentation concise, with one clear message per slide.

Do not assume it will definitely be real estate focused. Ask the recruiter, but prepare for a general business problem as well.

Hi Adi, 

Congrats on getting invited to the interview!

Whether the case is real estate focused is something you should clarify with the recruiter. They should be able to tell you whether this step in the interview process is specifically focused on the industry that's associated with your role or whether it can be from any other industry. That should then allow you to tailor your prep accordingly. 

You might be able to find lots of info online about written cases. But effectively, you get a prompt over email, let's say, which also lays out some expectations in terms of the output (e.g., 5 slides). Then you need to prepare those and send the output or in some cases,  you need to directly present it to some consultants. The format differs from firm to firm so it makes sense to clarify it directly with the recruiter. 

If you want practice with this reach out and I'm happy to help. 

Best,
Cristian

Hey Adi :)

I’d expect the case to have a clear Real Estate, Hospitality or Tourism angle, but I wouldn’t prepare only industry specific frameworks. Focus on the core case skills first: structuring the problem, analysing data, identifying the key insights and building a clear recommendation.

With 48 hours, the biggest differentiator will likely be how well you turn your analysis into a concise, senior level story and presentation. Your RE advisory experience is actually a strong advantage, so make sure you use it rather than trying to sound like a generic consultant.

If you want to practise a take home case or structure one together, feel free to reach out.

Best, Alessa :)

Hi Adi, 

I just saw this and I guess by now you did your case.

How did the case go and what is it about?

Hi,

I would not assume that it is definitely in your area of speciality. 

Some tips on written cases: 

1. Start with the end in mind - what do you need to achieve? what output do you need to get to?
   1. This helps greatly in understanding which pieces of information are important and what kind of analysis you would need to do
2. If you need to make any slides or written communication, ensure it is concise
3. Do check the rules or instructions on the use of AI - this is something that some firms are very particular about

All the best!