Case interview prep. We get hundreds of questions a year. And all of them start
like this. "I am different. How should I prep for my case interview?" We have a
lot of great guidelines and there is nuance to case interview prep. But it's
important that you understand at the baseline how we, at Management
Consulted, recommend a different style of case interview prep then you might
have heard of before. Hi, I'm Jenny Rae, the Managing Director
of Management Consulted. And I care a lot about getting people ready for
case interviews, into their dream jobs, and ready for jobs in consulting and
beyond. Because my career was shaped forever based on the help that I
received, The help was focused, clear, and very actionable. And that's what this
video is all about. Case interview preparation, the first question that we
get is, "How much time should you spend on case interview preparation?" And our
answer is, "As little as possible to get you ready for the interview." Now how do
you know what that looks like? First of all, you need to do 20 cases at a minimum
before you're ready for the case interview. Our recommendation is that you
do a total of 20 cases, if you do them effectively, and I'll talk about that in
just a minute. But what 20 cases will take you, will be a minimum of 30 to 45
minutes per case with some review time. So let's call that a baseline of 20
hours. At a minimum, you need to allocate 20 hours prior to your interview. How
much time should you spend that across? Should that 20 hours come in the week
before your interview or should it come across 20 months before your interview?
And our answer to that is it depends a lot on who you are, and how much time you
have. Many of you come up against interviews you're delightfully surprised
when you get them, and you have just a few days. You can practice for 20 hours
in just a few days, and you can work up the learning curve. But our general
recommendation is that you find some happy medium. Six months is an ideal time.
So you're looking at, on average, three cases per month along with some supplemental
information. So to answer how much time specifically, a minimum of 20 hours.
Ideally, over about six months of preparation. The second question that we
get is, "How should I practice and what resources should I use?" Well, that's a
great question. Our first recommendation is that you do the first
three to five cases out loud, with absolutely no learnings or other
preparation to support it. It will give you a great sense of where your raw
talent lies, and what you need to hone using other materials on the back end.
This is a bit of a surprise for many people because the standard academic
process is, read first before you go to class, go to class and listen to somebody
tell you what to do, and then take a test on it later. And our recommendation is to
flip that entirely on its head. Take the test first. Figure out what you already
know and what you need to know. Then, go through and identify how you study or
those specific parts of the test, and then take the test again.
So should you practice out loud? Absolutely! Should you practice out loud
first? Absolutely! The second part of that question is, "How should I resource myself
after I've identified what I need to work on?" And that's again a great
recommendation. We have a diagnostic tool, as well as a scoring chart, that you can
use in your first few cases to identify what you should do afterwards. And we
recommend a number of different resources. We have a lot on Management
Consulted. Such as drills for math, so just structure drills. Cases that you can
do on your own. And videos, that you can watch and listen to that help you
understand both how somebody who has no idea what they're doing,
progresses through the process. And how experts sound so that you can mirror
what they're doing. But knowing specifically what part of the case you
need to work on, will be incredibly important. We also refer you to outside
resources. We're big fans of some of the other players in our space. They do a
great job with books and listening materials, Victor Chang is an example,
Mark Cosentino and Case In Point is another example,
David Ohrvall and cracked the case, does a really good job with many of their
materials. But again, you can buy those materials
and start with them, and never crack the case. If you really want to do an
excellent job you need to start with out loud cases first, and then you need to go
back and identify what you're going to do later. The third question is, "How will
I know when I'm ready?" And our recommendation for this is twofold.
First of all, you will know when you're ready when you have practiced with at
least one expert who is incredibly honest with you, who has told you that
you're ready. That's the definite way that you know.
And if you haven't done that, you should get on it. You need to work with
somebody who is currently or recently has worked at one of the firms, who's
been in an interviewer chair, who's willing to give you very honest feedback. So it
can't be a family member or a friend, who is likely to temper your feedback. And
ideally if you work with them the night before the interview, they're not gonna
want to crush your hopes. So you need to work with them at least a few days
before the interview, so that you get an idea of where you really stand. The
second way that you can tell is more of a self diagnosis. Which is that you can
do a total of twenty cases, and as you review each one of the cases after doing
them, you realize that you would not be scared by any of those problems, if they
came up in that form, or in some variation of that form. Once you've done
20 cases you've covered multiple industries, different kinds of business
problems, and there will always be continued variety as you move into the
case in the case process. But when you alone are not scared of going into the
case interview, that's the second telltale sign that you are ready. The
next question that we get is, "Do I really need to know all the case archetypes?" And
that's a great question. The answer is, "Yes, you do." But you don't need to use
them, and you should not use them verbatim. Which is why it's super
important that you don't do 50 cases, using three case archetypes. You're going
to be too restrictive, not creative enough, you're going to be thrown for an
entire loop when you actually have to do something that's outside the norm or
creative inside your case interview. So you need to know
the case archetypes, you need to know what they are, and you need to know their
limitations. And we have great videos on case frameworks, and styles of cases,
so that you're able to understand what some of those differences and the nuances are.
The next question, really good one, "How good at math do I need to be and what
kind of math should I prepare for?" Here is a common point of confusion. There are
two definitions of mental math inside cases. One definition is the speed of
your mental computation when you take away your calculator. And the other one
is the ability to derive insights using data. You have to be good at the second.
There is a non-negotiable on that. You need to be able to identify
how data ties to insights, and you need to be able to do calculations that give
you insights. So insights are a non-negotiable. Speed of calculation
without a calculator, is something that you will not have to do regularly on the
job. So it's important to create a level playing field for everyone. That they
take away the calculators and Excel and the tools, for the case interview. But you
need to be able to calculate any single function inside your interview in 20
seconds or less, without using a calculator or writing down every
mechanic between point A and point B. As long as you can do that as long as you
can calculate something in 20 seconds or less, you're going to be in great shape
for your case interview. And we have amazing tools in our mental math course,
and our mental math trainings, on site where we work through exactly what you
need to know in terms of math. Now, the final question is, "Do I really need
expert help?" Going back to what I talked about before. And this is a great
question. And here's the answer, "You do." You might not have to pay for it, some of
you all have a network of people that you work with, somebody who is a former
colleague or a friend from school, but if you don't have someone who has been an
interviewer, at the firm ideally, that you're
interviewing with. Or at one of those pure firms or at a firm that is more
rigorous in their case interview process than those peer firms, you are risking
being blindsided inside your interview. There is a general sense that reading
and thinking in preparation for the interview gives you an inflated sense of
confidence. An expert won't do that for you. So it is critical that you do get
expert help in your case interview. Now if you want to
work with somebody, we have the best team in the business. We take them through a
process where we hand select them, we train them, and we work together to make
sure that clients get what they want. There's no internal competition at
Management Consulted. So if you are interested in working with an expert, we
would love to work with you. If you have any other questions about case interview
prep, we would love to include them in future videos or answer them directly. So
come visit us at www.managementconsulted.com.