Break from preparation

Hi!

You have more than enough time to become offer ready. If you are planning preparation for more than, say,, 4 months, you are doing something terribly wrong anyway. So I believe you don't need to do anything!

My view: In the optimal scenario, you receive coaching by an experienced former interviewer, and you complement this with a hand-picked set of determined high-quality practice partners (e.g., other candidates that are applying to the same firms).

You then have to distinguish between coaching sessions and practice sessions.

• The coaching sessions are used to get an understanding of what is tested in the interview, how you need to think, how to craft bullet-proof logic, and how to navigate through this logic.
• The practice sessions are used to get additional repetitions under your belt to make it "second nature".

With this approach, it usually takes about 8-10 weeks to get from zero to a level that could be called "MBB offer-ready". Assuming that your intrinsic base capabilities in terms of articulation, raw intellect, and ability to focus meet a certain minimum standard.

Cheers, Sidi

Hi there,

Great to see you are planning well in advance. Better safe than sorry ;)

On Q1. Given you have plenty of time after the break, if you want to keep in shape during it I would recommend the following:

• 1 case read every 2/3 days
• 1 or 2 live cases per week

That’s it. That should be enough.

I don’t think you need to work on market sizing or fit at this stage as the prep for that is easier and can be done later.

On Q2. To answer this, you would need to share your areas of improvement.

In general, you may work on a specific area you feel you are weak (math, graphs, conclusions), without the need to do a full case.

Hope this helps,

Francesco

PS You probably won’t need more than 100-150 hours starting from zero for a great prep. Most likely way less if you follow the right plan and/or get a coach. So according to how much practice you plan to do per day, you may even extend the break

Hello!

Don´t worry, casing is like riding a bike! 

You won´t forget it during 2 weeks, even more, you will even notice a huge improvement after a pause, since some concepts in a way "get interiorized". 

I would not try to get homwork with me, try to enjoy the break and come back with extra strenght. 

Hope it helps!

Best, 

Clara

Personally I think you can take a break without doing anything

However if you are practicing with quality content and coaches - then you should not need more than 6 months. When it comes to practice - I have seen a lot of candidates prioritise quantity over quality and they just come across as rehearsed and not very imaginative in the interview. Be wary of that 

Hi, 1 month will not be a problem. I recommend to read the best cases you solved during this time + try to do 1 new case per week

Best,
Antonello

Hi Anonymous,

Based on your time-related information it's difficult to comment - quantity is not quality of interview prep.

In general I am fan of starting early and immersing yourself into the slightly artificial case interview world. If you did a reasonably good job over the last 2 months, you should already be a case pro and absolutely master the process of cracking case interviews anytime.

Taking a 2-weeks break - if the master the process, you can forget about that for 2 weeks completely and after 1 or 2 cases you should be on your top performance again.

Taking a 1-month break - well, at least read a few cases every now and then, just to keep your brain engaged with the subject, but no need to over-engineer that.

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

Robert

Dear A,

That's good that you start your preparation so many months ahead. 

Actually for your break you can either take your time, while case solving skills will be raping in your mind, so while you will come back to it again you can find deeper levels of that. 

Or you can keep repeating them every 2-3 days. 

Also, in the middle of your preparation term I would recommend you to take couple of session with coach to get a structured feedback and the line on where to improve. 

If you need any further help or insights, feel free to reach out. 

Best,

André