All questions tagged @interviewprep @case - Consulting Q&A - PrepLounge.com

Hi Floyd,
the approach is good, but you should review 2 assumptions:

1. Cars do not go to the gas station every day -> you should estimate the frequency and divide the total number of cars
2. 1 refuel does not last 1 hour -> if you assume 6 minutes per refuel with an utilization of 50% you have 10 cars served per pump per hour. I suggest using a smaller utilization for night hours

I would like to suggest similar cases in the platform to practice with:

• https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/how-much-would-you-charge-to-clean-all-the-windows-in-seattle-4965
• https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/market-sizing-milk-consumption-5087
• https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/how-would-you-calculate-the-value-of-a-cow-4982
• https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/estimate-number-of-traffic-lights-in-a-london-5692

I have developed specific frameworks to crack all the market sizing. Feel free to text me for additional details.

Hope it helps,
Antonello

Hi Valentine, in addition to the solutions proposed by the other coaches in the discussion, I would like to suggest similar cases in the platform to practice with:

• https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/how-much-would-you-charge-to-clean-all-the-windows-in-seattle-4965
• https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/market-sizing-milk-consumption-5087
• https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/how-would-you-calculate-the-value-of-a-cow-4982
• https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/estimate-number-of-traffic-lights-in-a-london-5692

Hope it helps,
Antonello

Hi there,

Great you are taking this seriously as it is a very important point.

First of all, you may want to work on your body language and voice. Even if you are nervous, you don’t want to show that. You could work on the following:

1. Sound of your voice. Monotone voice is one of the major elements of poor communication. Speaking fast is also another element that can give an impression of lack of confidence. If you have issues on this area I would suggest to listen to podcasts with great speakers for 30min – 1h per day with headphones. After some days you will start to speak in a similar way, as you will absorb their communication style. Can’t think about female speakers specifically, but I like Darren Dailyin terms of style. You may also just go on Audible and listen to the sample of books you would like to listen to check the voice of the speaker and see if you like it before buying one
2. Smile. Smiling can be a powerful element to show you enjoy the interview (and interviewer) and are not afraid. You can force smiles (although not too much) in case you get feedback you are not doing that.
3. Eye contact. You should not always look the interviewer in the eyes. But you should not look away when he/she asks you something (in particular in case you get questions such as “Why should I hire you”)
4. Ability to break the ice. Confident people are not afraid to start small talks with interviewers from the beginning. Keeping silence creates less connection and may be considered a sign of lack of confidence
5. Posture. Leaning too much towards the interviewer is also a sign of lack of confidence. You should keep a straight position most of the time.

You may also want to work on your mindset. The interview should be an opportunity to understand if you and the company are a mutually good fit and show the skills you practiced, not the only chance you have to change your career. This confidence comes only with practice.

Finally, you may want to exercise with people that put you in a situation of pressure, so that there are no surprises the day of the interview.

Hope this helps,

Francesco

Hi there,

These are the steps I normally suggest, it sounds you have already done 1 to 3.

I agree that if you have already decided to have coaching sessions, you are better off having them early on.

1. Define a calendar for your preparation. Identify how many hours you have available before your 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 a consulting 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 though, 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 behavioural part and the case part. The case part should also cover market sizing, math and graph analysis.
5. Once you feel you are not improving anymore, if you have a tight time constraint or if you want a realistic assessment of your level, consider using support from experts to strengthen your performance
6. 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 do precisely that. You can click at 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 need more information.

Best,

Francesco

Hi!

My view: In the optimal scenario, you receive coaching by an experienced former interviewer, and you complement this with a hand-picked set of determined high-quality practice partners (e.g., other candidates that are applying to the same firms).

You then have to distinguish between coaching sessions and practice sessions.

• The coaching sessions are used to get an understanding of what is tested in the interview, how you need to think, how to craft bullet-proof logic, and how to navigate through this logic.
• The practice sessions are used to get additional repetitions under your belt to make it "second nature".

With this approach, it usually takes about 8-10 weeks to get from zero to a level that could be called "MBB offer-ready". Assuming that your intrinsic base capabilities in terms of articulation, raw intellect, and ability to focus meet a certain minimum standard.

Cheers, Sidi