Pepp up problem solving skills

Hi Andrej,

"As any student who is applying for consultancy" is a vague term...considering most people applying for MBB etc. prepare wrong :)

In general, yes, if you want to improve your skills here you should prepare as if you are going to actually interview!

I have a few tips for you. Of course, not even close to being exhaustive (need a session for that), but they should get you started:

• Quality over quantity - don't crank out 2-3 cases a day if you don't have time to reflect on them! Make sure to save your work, your notes, your feedback, etc. and review it weekly
• Learn from others - case people in the very cases you struggled with! You can learn just as much from casing as by being cased
• Forget about memorization - Casing is not about memorizing every framework type. It is about "learning how to learn". I.e. learning how to approach problems in a certain way. When you "learn" a case, don't just memorize the answer. Critically think about why and how the approach should be

Good luck and I'm always here if you have any questions!

Hi Andrej!

The best way to improve your case solving skills is to practice as much as you can. I'd suggest you study all the cases and their solvings that you can find.

A lot of people like to study with a buddy - that can help you broaden your perspective. Or you can find a coach who will help youset goals and give you plenty of material to work on, as well as career advice.

And yes, you can study the regular way even if you're not planing on entering consulting.

Do you have any other questions? I'll be happy to answer them.

Best,

GB

Hi Andrej,

I'll answer your question starting from the three main parts of the consulting interview, which all deserve your attention and effort to get offers from MBB.

- Personal Experience Interview: fit and CV questions to assess your personal impact, leadership
skills, and entrepreneurial spirit.
- Case Interview: typical business case to evaluate your structure in approaching problems,
problem-solving skills, and business sense.
- Your final questions to the interviewers.

Feel free to text me for more detailed tips about the preparation. I have supported tens of experienced professionals in crafting impactful stories and structuring business cases.

Hope it helps,

Antonello

Hello! Andrej!

Overall yes, indeed, the only way to get better at casing is casing... a lot!

However, what I have found is that cases done during the MBA -e.g., the ones form the Strategy classes, etc.- are indeed different:

• Much longer
• Need to dive into tons of data an spreadsheets
• Longer and written deliverable

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Hi Andrej,

It depends on what you mean by “regular way”. In general, you should:

1. Keep track of your mistakes
2. Do cases related to the areas of weaknesses you identified (may be an industry or a part of the case such as graphs/conclusion)
3. Work with partners that provide good feedback – you may have to try different peers to find the right match

In case you also want to prepare for interviews in consulting later on, I usually recommend the following to prepare:

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
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 fit and the case part. The case part should also cover market sizing, 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 to precisely do that. You can click on the following link to find more:

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

After this program, you will know exactly what to expect in your interview, what to work on, and how to focus on the real differentiator to land a top consulting offer.

Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Best,

Francesco

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