Case studies - How to prepare them? (MBB & Top 6)

Case studies from top firms like McKinsey, BCG, and Bain are known for their complexity. However, they are not insurmountable if you work on them sufficiently in advance of your interviews. If you have successfully passed the screening of one or more of these offices, do not waste this chance due to a lack of preparation! You will need several weeks of work to hope to reach the level required to succeed. So don't wait until you schedule your interviews to start preparing.

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‍Do 2 or 3 cases in real conditions without delay

This will help you confront the reality of the exercise. The case study is not a school exercise in the sense that you do not only need to return knowledge that you have learned well beforehand. It is a behavioral exercise that will have to be repeated and repeated again to master all its facets perfectly. Several candidates begin their preparation with hours of reading Case in Point and watching online videos. If these resources can't hurt you, remember that the industry you are trying to enter is hyper-selective. 99% of candidates also have these resources. The cases they offer no longer resemble the cases offered by maintenance firms at all. So do not waste too much time on them because they will certainly not help you to concretely understand what YOU need to work on in order to quickly progress. Get started. You will always find people around you to review your case studies. You can also connect with partners in our network.

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Quickly understand what is expected of you to carry out the most effective preparation possible

During this phase of discovering the case study, it will be very important to quickly receive feedback from a person with enough perspective on the exercise to formulate your points of improvement precisely and guide you from the start of your preparation. The 1-hour test sessions of StratMachina were created to allow you to confront the reality of this exercise and to become aware of the road that you still have to go. Book yours without further ado.

At StratMachina, each candidate receives a detailed performance evaluation report including an MBB rating of 7 dimensions to master to achieve the perfect case:

• Its clarification : Has the issue of the case been understood, quantified, put into context?
• Its approach structure : Is the proposed approach intelligent, non-academic? Does it solve the case by breaking it down into different parts prioritized according to their impact on the resolution, mutually independent and covering it as a whole (MECE)?
• Its analytical abilities : Faced with one or more analytical questions, is the candidate able to propose a complete theoretical approach and then make a quick and error-free numerical application? Have the digital approach and application been vocalized? Is the candidate reliable in his calculations and able to manage his stress during these questions?
• Son drive : Is the person proactive in “handling” their case? Are the next steps in his reasoning always clear, logical, structured? Is she able to draw/schematize/illustrate her thinking effectively? (tables, matrices, graphs).
• Relationship Management : Is the interviewer included in the reflection? Is the person humble, attentive, and attentive to the weak signals (verbal and non-verbal) sent by the interviewer during the case study? Is the person confident and able to handle the case study in a collaborative and pleasant way?
• Business & Common Sense : Does the person have a business culture that allows them to approach customer issues with confidence and/or to have in mind certain specificities specific to this industry? Does she use common sense when necessary? Is it disconnected from the reality of the business world? For more junior positions (internship, entry-level), a lack of business sense is less important.
• Conclusion : Was the conclusion sloppy or careful enough to finish the case study on an excellent impression? Considering the progress made at this stage and the parts of the initial approach covered over the past period, is the answer given logical and well-founded? Does the candidate correctly use the intermediate conclusions and numerical results of the case for his arguments. Have the next steps (to confirm/disprove the response + to operationalize the recommendation) been stated and do they make sense?

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Repeat the exercise over and over again. Stay optimistic and in good shape

‍Once you have triggered a virtuous circle of regular case study practice with different partners who are able to give you feedback on each of the dimensions mentioned above, all you have to do is repeat the exercise. Do it effectively and focus on quality in everything you do. As said above, the case study exercise is a behavioral exercise and therefore, implicitly, a repetition exercise. When you can make an excellent clarification, you will make a worse conclusion. You will then make a new case where, this time, the conclusion will be very good but the analytical question failed. And for the next one, the analytical question and the conclusion will be good but the clarification will have missed fundamental information, making you miss a key issue in the case. Candidates who pass all their interviews have repeated the exercise enough to no longer depend on chance, on the apparent ease of the case, on more or less good knowledge of the industry. So take every good opportunity to repeat your cases. In addition to training with partners, a good way is also to confront interviews in firms that you are not particularly interested in.

Another key point to keep in mind here is that you may experience a plateauing/stagnation effect after a few weeks of work (generally 3 weeks 1 month after starting your preparation). Don't worry, keep working effectively and stay positive. Eat well, get enough sleep, and exercise if you can. And do not hesitate to call on professionals who can unblock your preparation a few weeks before your interviews. Our various maintenance simulation packs in real conditions will help you accelerate your progress and put all the chances in your favor.