Prepare for your case interview by learning the basics and mentally preparing for the intense practice.
How do I prepare for this daunting task?
In tackling case interviews, it’s quite possible for bright candidates, who know exactly what to expect, to lose their composure. In order to repeatedly demonstrate prerequisite skills under the pressure of a real case interview, those skills almost have to become “second nature”. This can only be achieved with sufficient preparation.
Here is a two-fold approach that most successful candidates use:
- Self-study: Familiarize yourself with the basic concepts and frameworks. Don’t spend too much time on this to avoid rote memorization. Rather try going through cases yourself and think about how you can build on frameworks to come up with your own customized structure. To get started, browse through our extensive Case Library and take a look at different types of cases.
- Mock interviews: Actually put the theory into practice by solving a case with a peer. On our Meeting Board, you will always find good case partners to practice with and can easily schedule your mock interviews. You will determine your baseline after experiencing the first live case. From this point, you can continually work on improving yourself until casing almost starts feeling effortless.
In short, you need to learn the fundamentals and then PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE! The latter naturally being the most important driver. You can think of case interviews as analogous to sports: Athletes spend some time learning the rules and best practices / important plays, but at the end of the day, they need to practice intensely during training to be ready for the big game.
