Case Preparation

Hi there, 

Sorry to hear about that. Practicing can come with a lot of anxiety and everybody struggles with it in their own way. 

What I would suggest is that you spend some time thinking why you are procrastinating. Most of the times, we do it because we feel that we are up against a task that is too difficult and unpleasant to deal with. We basically feel that we are setting ourselves expectations that we are not able to live up to. 

If you're in that situation, it might help to:

• Start small - if the idea of practicing for a few hours feels daunting, then practice for ten minutes. Most of the time, you'll end up spending more time on it anyway and even carried away with the process.
• Set targets - set yourself a small target like doing one case a day, but ensure that you are consistent about it. Make it your one priority of the day and pat yourself on the back once you successfully do it. 
• Gamify - whenever you successfully invested time in practicing, give yourself a treat. It can even be a verbal encouragement or whatever would make you feel better. This way you'll start associating practicing with pleasure in a more direct way.
• Eliminate distractions - when you do practice, try and turn off your internet connection, put your phone on flight mode and have only window open on your computer. Make it a dedicated learning time. 

Hope this helps!
Best,

Cristian

Hi there,

Sounds like you're in a rut!

When people get stuck on their fitness/gym goals, what do they normally do?

They get a trainer! Or, they enroll in a course.

Hire a coach - they're literally here to keep you on track :)

Lacking that, here's a needed mindset shift for you: https://www.preplounge.com/en/articles/how-to-shift-your-mindset-to-ace-the-case

Finally, do a full assessment of your abilities across the core competencies (frameworking, math, charts, case leadership, communication, etc.) and figure out where you're weakest. Create a gameplan to address those methodically.

Hi there,

Q: Stuck on just consuming content for case preparation and struggling to consistently practice cases/drills as I feel I need to learn the related content. Any tips? 

This is what I usually recommend to prepare (you have probably covered 1 and 2 already so you can start from 3):

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 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 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/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.
4. Keep track of your mistakes and see which ones you are repeating. If so, try to identify the source of the mistake (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 have 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 prepare for tests, you can find some material to prepare below (full disclosure – I am the author ;)):

▶ McKinsey PSG Imbellus Solve Combo Guide

▶ BCG Online Case Software Simulation (Chatbot)

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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). 

If you are struggling to practice, I can also help you to connect with the other candidates that are doing the program so that you can practice with peers who already have a good level of knowledge.

You can check the following link to learn more:

▶ GYM Program

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

Best,

Francesco

Hi there,

Coming from a non-business background I remember feeling like I was spending too much time circling around the topic rather than actually learning how to do cases well. For example I felt I needed to:

• Read books about consulting and read through endless cases
• Develop an understanding of economics 
• Learn about the major industries and how they work

All of that can be overwhelming and make you feel helpless (you cannot quickly do an economics degree just to prepare for an interview).

Here are the main insights I had that helped me overcome this paralysing way of thinking:

• Quality is far more important than quantity. I learned more in one or two high quality case interview practice sessions than I did by reading through dozens of cases in books/case libraries etc. It was insightful feedback that got me to improve, not endless repetition (if you don't know where you are going wrong you can't improve). 
• Common sense is more important than industry knowledge. You need to demonstrate that you can think clearly and in a structured manner. It's not easy to do that while you are regurgitating everything you read about the airline industry. Also - for interviewer-led interviews (like McKinsey), the case questions are generally too specific for you to spend a lot of time telling the interviewer what you know about a certain industry (unless you are interviewing for an expert position).

At the end of the day, interviewers are looking for you to demonstrate a few very specific ways of thinking and none of those includes deep industry knowledge

I know that feeling! A few thoughts on what you can do:

• Find partners on prep lounge who will case with you - they may not be able to provide the most insightful feedback as you're both figuring out the process, but it'll give you live practice
• Hire a coach - they can give you specific guidance and tips an a few sessions could be helpful
• Go through the cases on the websites and practice responding before reading the answers

Hope that helps - and good luck!

Could you specify a bit more what you mean by “content”? 

Do you feel like you are not familiar enough with the business concepts to come up with structures for solving the cases? Are you just reading through frameworks but don't know how to leverage them in different cases?

I think all of the above can be addressed with a structured approach but would need to better understand where you are currently experiencing your challenges. 

It might make sense to get together with a coach so you can establish a roadmap for you preparation that you can work with.

It's simple: without drills and mock interviews you cannot improve. 
Most of the material that explains how to do interviews is spectacularly useless. My suggestion is to use a coach and get crashed in a mock interview.
 

You should take 1-2 weeks to go through content. On week 3, you have to start having some real case practice. And you keep balancing one and the other. 

Just go and start setting up a few case interviews with peers. Put a couple every week. 

You need REAL CASE to be able to understand what to improve. Otherwise it's just procrastination.