All questions tagged caseinterview - Consulting Q&A - PrepLounge.com

Hello!

Congrats on the interview.

Agree with Allen here: most cases will be the "usual" ones. Some advise on those:

1. Practice cases with partners asap, as many as you can do.Find experienced partners who can provide a good feedback

2. Practice your math skills, both in your cases and with ad hoc exercisess, such as:

1. ​Multiplying double digit numbers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ndkkPZYJHo

2. Leveraging math tools (Mimir math for iOS), Math tool on Viktor Cheng website to practice

Furthermore, you should practice as much as you can, and ensure that you cover:

• 1. Profitability cases- basic profitability framework.
• 2. Idea generation cases: for any specif issue
• 3. Growth cases: market penetration, new product launch, product mix change, etc.
• 4. Pricing cases
• 5. M&A cases
• 6. Valuation cases
• 7. Value chain cases

Furthermore, ensure you don´t forget FIT prep! The "Integrated FIT guide for MBB" has been recently published in PrepLounge´s shop (https://www.preplounge.com/en/shop/tests-2/integrated-fit-guide-for-mbb-34)

It provides an end-to-end preparation for all three MBB interviews, tackling each firms particularities and combining key concepts review and a hands-on methodology. Following the book, the candidate will prepare his/her stories by practicing with over 50 real questions and leveraging special frameworks and worksheets that guide step-by-step, developed by the author and her experience as a Master in Management professor and coach. Finally, as further guidance, the guide encompasses over 20 examples from real candidates.

You can see plenty of reviews from candidates who purchased it already.

Furthermore, you can find 2 free cases in the PrepL case regarding FIT preparation:

• Intro and CV questions > https://www.preplounge.com/en/management-consulting-cases/fit-interview/intermediate/introduction-and-cv-questions-fit-interview-preparation-200
• Motivational questions > https://www.preplounge.com/en/management-consulting-cases/fit-interview/intermediate/motivational-questions-fit-interview-preparation-201
• Behavioural questions (ENTREPRENEURIAL DRIVE) >https://www.preplounge.com/en/management-consulting-cases/fit-interview/intermediate/behavioral-questions-entrepreneurial-drive-fit-interview-preparation-211

Feel free to PM me for disccount codes, since we still have some left from the launch! :)

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Hello!

Sorry, what do you mean with forensic topics?

Not sure if it´s a language misunderstanding, but never heard :)

Hi there,

There are a few aspects here:

1) Are you capable? My answer here is it appears to be a firm "Yes". If you only had a few weeks to prepare and did as well as you did, you clearly are intellectually able to be a consultant.

2) Do you want this? I am in the camp that you need to enjoy casing to some degree if you are to enjoy consulting. That being said, it's hard to truly "enjoy" consulting regardless (long hour, lots of stress, etc.). Most people enter consulting because of ambition, drive, desire to learn/develop, etc.

3) How do you figure out if you want this?

a) Research

• SpencerTom has a ton of great articles talking about the consulting world (https://www.spencertom.com/category/management-consulting/)
• There are some great Q&As already on this topic. Just a few of them are here:
  • https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/got-an-offer-from-mckinsey-i-want-to-take-it-but-im-not-sure-ill-enjoy-the-long-hours-advice-please-7991
  • https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/what-should-i-do-reserach-vs-consulting-4101
  • https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/do-you-have-to-be-geniusvery-smart-or-hardworking-to-break-into-mbb-and-be-agood-consultant-6972
  • https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/what-was-your-worst-experience-during-your-career-as-consultant-6919
  • https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/and-what-was-your-best-experience-as-consultant-6920

b) Talk to people! Seriously, have some networking calls. Break the barrier/ice and literally just ask them to be "real" with you. Dig deep and figure out what consulting looks like day-to-day, what it means for you, and what you want. Then compare it to other options. The best way to figure this out is to have open, honest, real conversations with people at these companies.

Hi there,

Thanks for you kind words on the prep material ;)

In terms of your questions: the tutorial is not part of the assessment, thus it won’t impact your score.

In case you have any other questions, please feel free to PM me.

Best,

Francesco

Hi Mehrasa,

Very important lesson here in casing: The details matter!

The case is indeed correct.

Option A (Rewards Program):

# of customers: 10M (assume flat)

Estimated number of customers participating in Y1: 25%​

------------------------------------------------

Option B (Intermittent Sales):

Customers (flat): 10M

See the difference? Intermittent sales says nothing about customer breakdown changing, while the rewards program does.

UPDATE: ​
Hi everyone!

You may have noticed that the Prep4Success program has been replaced by the new CoachingPlus program. It's the ideal case interview prep package, that includes everything you need to ace your upcoming case interview: the unlimited possibility to practice with peers and three to ten coachings with former management consultants that will drill you to unfold your entire potential. And all this at an unbeatable price!
Once you have purchased the CoachingPlus package, you will immediately have access to all Premium resources and receive coaching credits based on the number of coachings you have selected. You can directly use these credits in your coaching cockpit to schedule your sessions with your CoachingPlus coaches.

If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to contact us.

Hope this helps and best of luck for your case prep and upcoming case interviews!

Christine

PrepLounge Community Management

Follow us on: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn

Hi Michelle,

If your personal situation has changed such that moving to the Middle East is no longer a suitable option for you, I would definitely call the recruiter to let them know. Ultimately their job to help recruit the best people for their firm, and they should be understanding, especially given it relates to a family emergency (not just a change of mind).

Given your concerns about missing your chance, when you call her I would clearly communicate that: a) due to your circumstances, you would like to know if it would be possible to change your interviews for a role in your home country office, but that b) if this wasn't possible, you would still like to go ahead with your interviews in the Middle East. If you did start in the Middle East, you could try pretty quickly to get a transfer for personal reasons - typically, once you are in the system switching offices (especially for personal reasons) is relatively easy.

Good luck!

Hi there,

It's a great question and something that too many candidates mix up!

Neither a fragmented nor a concentrated market is necessarily good nor bad to enter.

Fragmented

Pros:

• Easy to enter (presumably)
• No one player can dominate you or force you out (Amazon/Facebook/Amazon for example)
• No one player has unfair advantage in the form of buyer/supplier power
• You can product differentiate to win
• You can possibly merge/acquire/grow to gain market share and eventually dominate

Cons:

• Likely highly competitive
• New (and possibly better) entrants may come in all the time
• Margins will likely be tight
• Price competition likely
• You are not a market maker (i.e. you are bound by the laws of supply meeting demand)

Concentrated Market

​Pros:

• Once you're in, risk of new entrants/competition is low (high barriers to entry)
• Once you win, you have monopoly power (high margins, market control, etc.)
• The existing player(s) is/are likely very weak (high marginal cost structure, inefficiencies, slow to move)

Cons:

• Will be extremely hard to enter
• Will be extremely costly to enter
• Once you're in, you will likely get bullied by the existing power
• The existing power will have more buyer/seller power and a natural advantage over you

What information do I need to decide whether to enter? Well, not to be cheap/use a generic framework, but I need to know the three Cs (Company, Customer, Competition).

Fundamentally, if I enter, will I win?

• Company - Who am I
• Customer - Do I offer something people want
• Competition - Can I do this better than everyone else?

So, to decide this, you need to solve a whole case ;)

Hi there,

Yes! This is looking to see whether you can make reasonable assumptions/estimates.

To me, the key here tends to be in the product features.

With these types of cases, you often receive information on how your features stack up against the competition (and possibly information on customer preferences).

You need to basically say "ok, how much better is my product compared to competition?" You also need to consider how many competitors there are.

So, if there are six competitors and your product is average, you can assume ~16% market share. However, if your product is #1, then you could get between twice and much and 50% of the market share (i.e. 32-50%).

^This is just an example, but if you provide us the numbers we can help you come up with reasonable #s (and, most importantly, talk through the reasoning)

Hi,

Here is a set of things you need to know:

1) Math and formulas:

• Interest rates calculations
• Compound margin
• NPV using the Rule of 72, Perpetuity
• CAGR using the Rule of 72
• Currencies exchange calculations
• Speed, time, distance calculations
• Equations, systems of equations
• Ratio & Proportions
• Little's Law
• Solving the problems by calculating the area of the triangle
• Profit / breakeven formula
• Correlations, outliers (being able to spot on the graphs, tables)

2) Fast math skills

• Rounding up and down
• Learn how to multiply double digit numbers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ndkkPZYJHo)
• Learn the division table up to 1/11 (i.e. 5/6 = 83.3)
• Learn how to work with zeros using powers (e.g.: 4000000 = 4*10ˆ6)

Use math tools (Mimir math for iOS), Math tool on Viktor Cheng website to practice

3) Working with tables and graphs and deriving conclusions

• Study "Say it with Charts" book
• Check all available MBB presentations and publications. Practice to derive conclusions and check yourself with the actual ones from the article / presentation
• GMAT IR part (Official guide and Manhattan prep)
• Learn basic statistics (Any GMAT or MBA prep guides)

Good luck!

Hi,

There are no magic pills and we need to know the objective and the context of the case to help you with the structure

Best

if they provide you with the info how they value what, weighting those parameters by their value is definitely a very good approach to take.

Hello there,

1. Given that you are interviewing for Operations practice, I would presume that they would primarily give operations-oriented cases. In this case, be ready for the conventional business case (profitability and business situation), but be ready to expand the key drivers underneath it on operations situation e.g. value-chain analysis, supply chain network, manufacturing line, etc.

2. Following the first one, this one would also involves a lot of operations-based cases, encompassing relevant figures such as FTE analysis, operational flow diagram (noodle diagram), etc.

3. This would be a mix of discussion on topics revolving operations as well as more emphasis on "fit", best to prepare stories on leadership, conflict management, as well as operations-related experiences.

Hope it helps.

Kind regards,
Nathan

It's not necessarily an and/or. When thinking about FC and VC you should also be thinking about the value chain.

For example:Raw Mats (VC) and R&D (FC) are at the beginning of the chain. Labour (FC or VC), electricity (VC), and rent (Generally FC) are in the middle (production/manufacturing). Transport/shipping/delivery (can be FC or VC) is at the end.

That being said, if you clearly have an operational prompt (i.e. we're seeing bottlenecks that have cause an increae in our costs), then go value-chain. Likewise, if you hear "We've seen costs rising over the past 3 years", and you can generally go FC/VC. However, if you get the same question and you're a vertically integrated company (perhaps Oil&Gas), you may want to talk about both simultaneously (keep it structured though).

Make sense?

Hello!

I was personally impressed by the quality of the case library: they constitute a very good source of similar cases.

However, be aware that the 2nd rounds -with partners and senior partners- does not necesarely have a typical case, like those outlined there. Those can be totally impredictable -and they are tought that way, more even in a brain-teaser layout-.

However, for 1st round, you are move than covered.

Cheers!

General speaking: no.

During the interviews they are gonna ask you if you had any experience and every kind of experience will be appreciated but it's not something mandatory.

Try to understand of you had any experience (even in sport or events) where you had to "manage" people, it would be something nice to have.

The only exception is when you apply for a senior position and not as "entry level analyst".

Hope it helps,

Luca

Hi A,

First, clarify the objective clearly upfront. Does the client only care about revenue or also profit?

If the case is focused on only revenues, focus only on that. You can say to the interviewer, "I suggest we look at the revenues first and see what opportunities we have there. Afterwards, if we have time, we can explore costs as well. Does this sound like a good plan?"

Does this help?

Best, Aws

Hi Anonymous,

as mentioned by Vlad, if the interview is based only on case questions you can prepare as you would do for a standard consulting interview at MBB, Strategy&, RB, OW, ATK, etc. I would clarify with HR if there are additional steps involved, such as a group or written case, which are present at Deloitte in some countries (eg Germany).

I helped several people for Deloitte and have 15+ real questions they asked, including written cases; for more information please feel free to PM me.

Best,
Francesco