How to get familiar with different industries?

This is a very common issue, and it is not about industry knowledge.

What you are experiencing is usually a fragile start, not a lack of content.

A few points that should reframe how you think about this.

First, you are not expected to know industries. Interviewers do not expect you to know banking cost structures or energy value chains. If they did, they would just hire industry experts. What they test is whether you can reduce any business to first principles fast.

When people struggle in unfamiliar industries, it is usually because they:

• Try to recall “industry facts” instead of reasoning
• Rush into details without anchoring the business model
• Overthink clarifying questions

Here is a cleaner way to approach any industry.

1. Always start from the same core logic

No matter the industry, every company has:

• Customers
• A value they sell
• A way to charge
• A cost base to deliver that value

If you anchor on this, the industry becomes secondary.

For example:

• Bank: customers borrow or deposit money
• Energy company: customers buy energy units
• Manufacturer: customers buy physical products

Different surface. Same logic.

2. Use a short, controlled clarification phase

You do not need many questions. You need the right ones.

Good clarifying questions are about:

• Who is the customer?
• How do they make money?
• Where do costs mostly sit: variable or fixed?

That is usually enough to proceed. If you ask 5–6 questions, you are already too deep.

3. When asked about costs or revenues, reason out loud

If you do not know exact drivers, say what you expect logically.

Example:
“In a manufacturing business, I would expect raw materials, labor, and fixed assets to be the main cost buckets. I would like to validate which of these is most material.”

This shows judgment, not guessing.

4. Do not memorize industries. Build intuition

Reading industry primers helps a bit, but it is not the main lever.

Much higher ROI:

• Practice structuring the first 2 minutes of cases in random industries
• Practice explaining a business model simply
• Practice saying assumptions confidently and adjusting when corrected

That is how you build business sense.

You do not need more knowledge.
You need a more stable starting point. 

If your first 2–3 minutes are solid, unfamiliar industries stop being scary very quickly.

Hi there,

This is a very common struggle and you’re thinking about it in the right way. The goal isn’t to “know” every industry, it’s to develop a repeatable way to make sense of any industry quickly.

A few principles that usually help:

First, anchor on first principles rather than industry facts. Almost every business can be reduced to a simple flow: who pays, for what, how often, and at what cost. When asked about revenues or costs, interviewers don’t expect perfect accuracy, they expect reasonable logic. If you say “in banking, revenues likely come from interest margins and fees” or “in manufacturing, major costs are raw materials, labor, and capex,” that’s usually enough to move forward.

Second, ask a small number of high-impact clarifying questions upfront. Focus on the business model, not details. For example: who is the customer, how do they make money, and where in the value chain the client sits. Two or three sharp questions are better than many small ones, and they show judgment.

Third, use universal lenses. For revenues, think volume times price and then ask what drives each. For costs, think fixed versus variable and map them to the value chain: input, production, distribution, and overhead. This works across banking, energy, fintech, or manufacturing even if the specifics differ.

Fourth, build comfort with being directionally right. Interviewers know you’re not an industry expert. Saying “I would expect the main cost drivers to be X, Y, Z, but I’d want to validate this” is perfectly acceptable and often encouraged.

If you want to strengthen intuition, it can help to skim short overviews of common industries (banking, energy, manufacturing, telecoms) and note typical revenue and cost buckets. You don’t need deep dives. Annual reports, simple industry primers, or even one-pagers are enough. Podcasts are fine but lower ROI than practicing this logic live in cases.

The real skill is not memorizing industries, but staying calm, breaking the business down logically, and being comfortable making and testing assumptions. That’s exactly the muscle interviews are designed to test.

Best,
Evelina

CNBC is an excellent YouTube channel to watch quick snippets on interesting topics across industries. They are usually less than 10 min long, and go through all the topics and themes you are looking for. Most importantly it’s actually very fun and interesting

You should then complement this with targeted case-specific learning: in this practical case- create a matrix with the exact questions u just listed. Fill it in the more you learn. Then test this with your case study partners, coaches, case books, and more chat gpt. There’s a lot of self learning that can be enabled with the smart use of AI. What u will start to realize is all these questions won’t really have too much nuance at an industry level for you to warrant pure memorization. After a while you will notice plenty of repeatable themes. 

This is a common, and very smart, realization. The feeling of "guessing" when asked about key costs in banking versus retail is exactly what separates candidates who are trained versus those who truly develop business acumen.

Here’s the reality: the interviewer is not testing whether you know the difference between Tier 1 and Tier 2 capital. They are testing whether you can logically apply first principles to an unfamiliar P&L. Every company, regardless of industry, breaks down to Revenue and Costs.

The strategic pivot is to stop trying to memorize drivers and start learning the language of assets and operations. When you encounter a totally new industry, immediately apply a three-part lens during your clarification phase:

1. Asset Base (What do they own?): Is this a capital-intensive business (like Energy or Manufacturing, meaning massive fixed costs, depreciation, and high CapEx) or a human-capital business (like Consulting or Fintech, meaning high G&A, salary, and intangible costs)?

2. Flow/Process (How is value created?): Does the client transform a physical good (Manufacturing/Energy) or transfer risk/information (Banking/Fintech)? Transformation equals high COGS/Raw Materials. Transfer equals high IT/Compliance costs.

3. Customer Interaction (Who pays and how?): Is revenue a transaction (retail), a subscription (SaaS/Fintech), or interest/fees (Banking)? This immediately drives the Revenue side (Volume x Price vs. Number of Clients x ARPU).

If the case is about a bank and the interviewer asks for key costs, don't guess the specific regulatory expense; structure your answer by category based on the Asset Base logic: Fixed Costs (IT infrastructure, branch network depreciation), Variable Costs (employee bonuses, transaction processing fees), and Capital Costs (regulatory reserves, cost of funding/interest paid to depositors). This structured, logical decomposition is what they are actually looking for, not industry-specific memorization.

Spend one hour reading the "Business Overview" section of the last Annual Report (10-K) for just three key sectors—a major bank, a large tech manufacturer, and an integrated energy company. This isn't for content, but to internalize the standardized industry terminology so you can speak the language, even if you are using universal frameworks.

All the best!

This is one of the most common problems I see. The good news is that it's very fixable.

you don't need to know every industry. You need to understand how businesses work in general. Then you apply that understanding to whatever industry comes up.

Most candidates try to memorize facts about different industries. Banking has these costs. Manufacturing has those revenue streams. This approach fails quickly. Industries have endless details, and interviewers can always ask about something you haven't studied.

What actually works is learning to think from basics. Every business answers the same core questions: How does it make money? What does it spend money on? Who are the customers and what do they care about? Who are the competitors? If you can work through these questions logically, you can handle any case.

Here's what to do when you face an unfamiliar industry. Ask one or two simple questions about how the business works: "How does the client make money? Is it per transaction, subscription, or something else?" and "What are the main costs? Is this a business that spends mostly on equipment or mostly on people?" These two questions give you most of what you need. They're smart questions, not signs of weakness.

Then think out loud using what you know. If it's a bank, you know they make money on the difference between what they pay to people who deposit money and what they charge people who borrow. You know they have costs for regulations, branches or technology, and employees. You don't need to know exact numbers. You just need to show you can think it through.

To build basic knowledge, I suggest a few things. Browse the "Industry" sections on McKinsey Insights, BCG Publications, or Bain Insights. Don't memorize. Just get a feel for how consultants talk about different sectors. The Economist helps too. Fifteen minutes a day reading business news builds your instincts faster than studying case books.

The real secret is to practice cases in industries you don't know. Force yourself to think through them without searching online first. That uncomfortable feeling is where you actually learn.