Economic Consulting vs Management Consulting

Question

Hi,

I have a interview coming up for an Economic Consulting firm and am starting to do some Case prep. However, most of my resources are for Management Consulting and I have gotten mixed reviews on if the cases/questions asked are different between these two branches of consulting. Does anyone have some insight into the Economic Consulting case set up and perhaps some resources that I can use? Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi Rob,

I interviewed with both economic and management consulting firms and can confirm that yes, interviews are pretty different.

In strategy consulting interviews:

The interview is mainly based on fit questions plus business cases and market sizing. Example: “Our client is interested in entering the Spanish market. Should he do so?”
Focus will be on analytical, communication and synthesis skills.
There is no requirement of specific technical knowledge during the interview, with the exception of research analyst positions.

--> To prepare you have mainly to work on (i) Initial fit questions; (ii) business cases; (iii) market sizing. You can find some details on how to prepare with possible resources at the link below:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/mck-first-round-interview-340

In economic consulting interviews:

The interview is mainly based on fit questions plus questions on economic principles, competition policy or econometric/statistics questions. Example: “Would a merger be positive or negative for consumers? Why?”
Focus will be mainly on your analytical skills and economics knowledge. You are expected to know well Microeconomics (in particular Game Theory and Competition Policy), Statistics and Econometrics.
You are expected to have knowledge of statistical software like Stata (they may test that during interviews, either with a live tests or theoretical questions).

--> To prepare you have mainly to work on (i) initial fit questions; (ii) theoretical economics knowledge (eg price elasticity, homoscedasticity, R-squared definition, competition policy concepts, etc); (iii) basic applied statistics/econometrics (say the equivalent of Econometrics 101).

Best,

Francesco

Answer 2

I worked in economic consulting for 6 years and have interviewed more than 30 candidates. Cases are different to MBB ones.

Cases tend to focus on microeconomic concepts and industrial organisation. We look for problem-solving and structure, but we rarely ask candidates to come up with a structure themselves and walk us through it.