Hi everyone, I am a MPH student and I have received interview call from Strategy& which is next week.

This sounds like you didn't do a lot of case practice before. My strong recommendation would be to delay the interview. This is my typical recommendation on how much you should practice: 

In my experience, practicing 15-20 cases is sufficient, if you do it strategically. My recommendation is as follows:

• Read up on the typical approaches and standard frameworks to get the concept.
• Then, do 5-6 cases to get a practical feeling for what a case is like. Start with easier ones - e.g. market size mini cases, simple profit tree cases, etc. This will help you develop a rudimentary sense for how cases work
• The next 5-6 cases should cover cases from all major types and help you gain the experience and comfort with standard frameworks and the thinking required for solving the cases.
• Lastly, you will want to do 6-7 cases to hone your skills. Practice with people who understand what they are doing - experienced interviewers, coaches, etc. that can give you 1-2 main items of feedback after each case that you can then practice to apply and improve on in the next case. During this time, you should also practice to move away from off-the-shelf frameworks and tailor, or - even better - develop your frameworks specifically during the case.

The further you move towards the final interview, the more important it is to practice with experienced interviewers. While you can easily ask any friend or practice with peers for the first few cases, you should aim for qualified, professional feedback as you approach the finishing line.

However, keep in mind, that this requires a strong plan and strategic approach to the preparation. I regularly see people doing 30-40 or even more cases. While this can also lead to success, in my eyes, it is a bit of a waste of time, especially for experienced hires that often also have a regular job to do while preparing for the consulting interviews.

Let me know if this helps. I'm also happy to elaborate any of the above in more detail. DM me if you like.

Hi Indu,

This is what I normally recommend to prepare (you have probably already covered some of the points):

1. Define a calendar for your preparation. Identify how many hours you have before the 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 the interview so you can keep that as a benchmark. If you are very new to case interviews, you may want to postpone it since it is in one week.
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, 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 and the case part. The latter should also cover math and graph analysis.
5. 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.

If you want to spend few hours only instead of 100+ and cover everything mentioned above, I developed a program precisely for that. Plus, I can share with you 50+ real questions asked at Strategy& during interviews.

You can click on the following link to learn more:

https://u.preplounge.com/63phuq

Please feel free to PM me if you need more information.

Best,

Francesco

Hey there!

Since you don't have any consulting background as well as an MBA degree, the situation is very difficult. Usually, it takes around a month to prepare for the case interview with the coach (if you prepare every day), so it will be almost impossible to prepare in one week. 

Taking into consideration, but anyway it will a great experience for you in the future!

Good luck, 

GB

Hi Indu,

I agree with Gaurav...you very much have an uphill battle here.

You really have two options for success (combined would be best):

1. Ask to postpone the interviews by several weeks or a month
2. Hire a coach

Indu, I d try hard to postpone. No one can / should tell you to be able to succeed in the interviews in just a couple of days. Candidates postpone interviews all the time - and the firms honestly dont care. You job is to show up 100% prepared ACCORDING TO YOUR POTENTIAL. As you see, the higher your potential, the more prep you need.

Hi Indu, 

Henning & Francesco have given plenty of tips in their replies.

If you cant postpone the interview, then best option is to hire a coach or invest some serious hours in the next days to practice. I have helped two people recently get into S&. So feel free to message if you would like to discuss further on case prep.

All the best.

Hi Indu - I've coached >30 people successfully through to offers at Strategy&. If you are looking for a coach feel free to reach out. 

However apart from that, practice trumps all other resources. This includes peer practice, find old case books online, find examples of case interviews on YouTube etc