"Casing" is not that hard. Y'all need to chill out.
I joined my current MBB firm 2 years ago, but just felt obliged to write this. "Casing" is not that hard. I was a biomedical engineering major. I had zero business knowledge. I spent about 1 weekend watching youtube videos and practicing with a friend. It's not that deep.
I see people saying they prepped for months. Dude. Just watch a few videos, memorize a few basic frameworks, and call it a day. This isn't the MCAT we're talking about. Chill out, stop being so pretentious, and have fun while you're in college. You'll have plenty of time to grind in consulting.
Since I'm feeling generous, hopefully this will help:
1. Repeat the case. "Just to make sure I got it right, the client is a PE firm considering acquiring a tire making company."
2. Take 30 seconds to jot down your thoughts and insert BS framework.
3. Lead the case, but be humble and ask for confirmation. The interviewer is there to guide you. "I think I would break this down into 3 key issues. First, the market size. Second, customer and competitive dynamics. Third, growth opportunities and adjacencies. Does this sound like a reasonable approach to you?"
4. Methodically walk through your issue diagram. "The tire making market is clearly massive, so I think the most important issue here will be the competitive dynamics, so I would suggest starting there. Do we have any info on the competitive landscape? For example, is it fragmented / consolidated?"
To recap: repeat the BS case back to them, organize your thoughts into a BS framework, and BS the interviewer to oblivion. At the end, when they ask if you have any questions, ask personal questions to stroke the interviewer's fragile ego. "I'm just curious, what brought you to X?" Never ask about culture.
To the broader point though (this post is not meant to be an interview advice post), just have fun. People make this career their whole personality, as early as membership in one of those elite consulting clubs in college. It's not that deep. Chill out.
I agree to some extend but bro they are more lenient with non-business candidates and you studied fucking biomedical engineering. Maybe not the best example of if I can do it so can anybody else
Very true. I acknowledge not all applicants are gifted with such superb acumen as to get a 4.0 GPA in biomedical engineering as I did. I also try to remind myself that there are mortals who study mere “business administration,” who indeed may be held to a higher standard for casing and therefore must dedicate months of prep to the endeavor (sharing their progress with anyone who will listen, of course).
At the end of the day, all we can do is do our best, and remain humble.
ngl man BME vs business...... idk if u should be saying all that
Bro forgetting to include he's also a transgender disabled muslim black woman
This. Try casing as a white male
stop being so pretentious lmao bro cmon now
Yes it is hard. Indeed crazy hard, especially Mck cases. Bain and BCG are much more vanilla and given your example I assume that you’re probably from one of those. It’s not fair to say that simply since you got it with little effort that it’s an easy process. I’ll spill some stats, one MBB office on the coasts took mid single digit interns. 80% diversity. Had thousands of applicants, few hundred first rounds, mid two digit final rounds. In what world do you think that you could consistently out perform everyone else? Isn’t that just purely naive?Sometimes you just accredit it to you being lucky but don’t say that the process is easy. Also saying this as someone that landed 3 BB/EB offers and MF PE so it’s not just a rando saying that it’s hard.
Yeah my McK cases were meaningfully more unpredictable/interesting than the Bain/BCG ones. They had me do structuring on things completely outside a typical framework context, asked me on the spot to do the math mentally instead of writing it down, and had more complex charts/math.
I don't think this is a well-intentioned post. This is "oh I didn't even have time to study for the exam, oh look at me I got an A!" I think you felt very clever that you were able to succeed in case interviews while doing much less prep than you know most people do and just wanted to flex it (two years after your interviews).
I believe there is a huge amount of unpredictability in who gets MBB offers. You've got three shots on goal (unlike the dozen top banks or tons of top tech companies), and by the time you're at final rounds there are 50 incredibly smart and personable kids gunning for like 10 spots. Yes, you hear stories of people who had never thought about case interviews until they get a first round and then prep for 'a weekend' like you did and get offers at all three firms. There are a ton of stories you don't hear of the people who tried this and got rejected from every firm, or could have passed their interviews if they had taken prep a little more seriously but just slipped below the bar.
I took case prep (and interview prep) very seriously because I wanted to improve my chance of passing every interview. I probably started at a point where I could've passed a case interview 60% of the time - sometimes I would do ok, and other times I would absolutely crush it. I just wanted to get so consistently good that I would pass an interview 80-90% of the time. And I did! My interviewer in first rounds said I was the strongest caser of the day, and I got similar feedback on my structuring and casing strength from my final round interviewers after I got my offer. I might have gotten the same feedback and nailed it with half as much prep, but I would've been much less confident predicting that without the prep.
Very insightful and impressive. Mind sharing some insight into the prep process that got you confidently into that 80-90% success rate on cases? Thanks in advance.
Sure there's a few things I did that were very standard and then a few things that were different.
Standard - I think everyone does these in this order:
Different - these were super helpful unlocks for me:
As someone who spent some time at MBB- It's not technically hard like physics, but it requires a certain mental muscle and business intuition. You also need to learn how to communicate the way they like it. Yes- it's feasible to study in a weekend and get lucky and have a relatively easy case. But what happens when the case isn't a simple profitability framework? Or what happens when you get a chart that has a few insights that aren't as obvious? Just doing this pencil paper math should warrant some practice- it's amazing how many people we interview for my current F500 strategy role who make math mistakes due to missing 0s in large numbers. Or people who go through the problem and we are like 'what the heck did he do there?'
That being said, OP is right and people should chill out a bit. It shouldn't take 100+ cases. I've tutored people on case interviews for $$$, and I hate to say it but some people no matter how much they try just don't have it in them. Often they spend so much time memorizing frameworks and formulas then when I change something up they get completely lost. Nothing wrong with that, consulting isn't for everyone- I'm sure they will find something else that they will excel in.
but some people no matter how much they try just don't have it in them.?Elaborate is it an iq thing?
Somewhat, but it's also a thinking/learning style thing. Some people are better than others at handling ambiguous problems. Think of the type of person who would rather memorize facts as opposed to understanding the concepts and thinking critically. You need to be comfortable thinking on your feet and being a bit uncomfortable in certain situations.
Like for example a girl I tutored was able to calculate profit. But when I flipped the question around and asked "at what cost per unit would he break even?" she struggled. This is an extreme example, but the idea is that you can't just study and memorize formulas/examples, and you actually have to have some ability to think on your feet and quickly come up with a structure.
I’m someone who has batted 1/2 among the B’s(Ms timeline didn’t line up for this process), but I have not been on the other side of an interview yet, so take from it what you will.
My feeling is that beyond a certain level of intelligence and having taken the initial time to understand the structure they want(which is admittedly a bar not everyone will meet), it is largely a social test. Some is down to luck and how much you “click” with the other person so to speak, and some would be the underlying social skills you have and what you can do to make that click as likely as possible. Being able to follow subtle cues about what they want you to talk about is huge.
I have had a couple people I spoke to within one of these firms tell me this is largely how they view it too, so I know I am not alone in this view. I also like you didn’t prepare a ton, but I found getting high quality help through touch-points provided by either company was huge. And also helps to understand the game a little better.
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