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Anonymous A

on Jun 24, 2018

Global

One hour of autonomous preparation time prior to presentation

Hello everybody,

I have an Interview with the following scedule:

Case introduction
About one hour of presentation time
Presentation

As the preparation time vastly differs from the cases provided here, I am wondering what the best approch on this might be.

Do the cases on this setup differ from the ones with only a couple of minutes of preparation? Does anybody know where to find sample cases with an extended autonomous preparation? Any other advises for me?

Thanks a lot in advance!

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Top answer

Vlad

Coach

on Jun 24, 2018

McKinsey / Accenture Alum / Got all BIG3 offers / Harvard Business School

Hi,

What you've described here sounds like a written case similar to what BCG has. I've uploaded some samples here: (ask me for a password)

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zor4m49eyx5qxal/AABeUN6mtiGkWhEklRjszX2Oa?dl=0

The best way to prepare is the following:

Train mental math. I posted the main tips here: https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/tips-to-do-big-multiplications-in-my-mind-726#a1422
Prepare for a regular case interview - it helps a lot. Basically, prep lounge website is about it
Practice making slides. Look for publically available MBB presentations for reference. Good books are "Pyramid Principle" and "How to make it with charts"
Practice reading cases fast and prioritizing the information. I found useful two sources:

Written cases you'll be able to find in google or in case books. I've seen a couple in "Vault Guide to the Case Interview" and "Insead Business Admission Test"
Harvard cases - either buy or try to find online. You can find a couple of MIT cases here for free: https://mitsloan.mit.edu/LearningEdge/Pages/Case-Studies.aspx Unfortunately free cases don't have the prep questions.

The appropriate structure for BCG written case (that you may also apply for your presentation) is:

Slide 1: Context, Objective, Recommendations

Slide 2-4: Analysis (Usually 1 slide with a table, 1 slide with graphs and 1 slide with pros and cons)

Slide 5: Next steps or risks & mitigation

Good luck!

1 comment

Dennis

on Jul 05, 2018

Thanks for your post! How do you distinguish recommendations (first slide) and next steps (last slide)? For me recommendations are the result, the findings of my analysis, so I tended so name these at the end of my presentation as conclusion. Don`t you agree?