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Posts tagged ‘case interviews’

Sep 9

7 Comments

120 Case interview PhD practice sessions and failed a McKinsey mock-interview

“Dear Michael,

I have a question about case interview preparation which I was hoping you could answer for me. I provided some context and I am sorry if the email is far too long. I listened to the Firmsconsulting podcasts and articles I like the honest views provided.

I am currently a PhD candidate at Princeton, with an undergraduate degree from South Korea. I started casing about 6 months ago and completed about 120 cases with casing partners in my consulting club and over the internet. I bought several books and other programs. I paid to have my resume edited with an online service.

The problem is that I cased with a friend of a friend recently and it did not go well. He is a McKinsey manager. It was very, very bad and he really did not like my resume. I was embarrassed to explain to him that I did so much work. I am now a little confused and frustrated. I do not know what I did badly or correctly, and not sure what to do. I feel all my efforts have been wasted and concerned that if I continue, I will keep wasting my time.

Should I quit pursuing management consulting or am I using the wrong services?

SK” Read more

Sep 6

5 Comments

Brainstorming, MECE & 80/20 principles case interview video

You are unlikely to pass a McKinsey, BCG, Roland Berger or Bain case unless you can brainstorm. Although, you may never receive an isolated/explicit brainstorming request in a case, the skill is needed to identify drivers and build out an analyses structure.

Why is this important?

Candidates who can brainstorm well will never need to memorize a case framework for the rest of their lives, or get stuck in a case when they cannot recall a framework. No matter how many frameworks they memorize there is bound to be a case which requires a type of analyses they have never seen before, and if they cannot brainstorm, they cannot develop the required analyses approach. Moreover, comfort with this technique plays a major role with confidence building since the candidate never needs to worry about facing a case without a bag full of frameworks. They will not need them. Read more

Sep 2

17 Comments

Oil & Gas case interview candidates aggressively poached

In just 2 weeks, Firmsconsulting has seen six clients withdraw from the interview process to accept lucrative energy industry offers. Three had written offers in hand from BCG, Bain and McKinsey. The geographical scope of the offers, range of degrees affected and that such poaching has happened since at least June 2011 warranted us discussing this trend in more detail.

For context, since mid-2011, a client has withdrawn from our program every single month to accept an energy industry offer. That our clients span over 60 countries and the trend keeps increasing indicates the energy sector is far from its peak in hiring. All degrees have been positively affected, though MBA’s with heavy construction and/or energy experience and PhD’s with energy backgrounds are the dominant group.

Consulting firms are therefore even more desperate to find oil and gas talent since they are losing so many consultants, candidates in the interview process and interested profiles. Read more

Aug 30

8 Comments

McKinsey Case Interview Video, new: Learning the answer-first approach

 

Candidates should never begin their case preparation by learning the McKinsey approach. For the simple reason that if the interviewer is leading, which is the McKinsey style, how does the candidate know they would have identified the area of analysis without guidance? Those prompts from the interviewer are more important than candidates realize and many cannot solve cases without them.

So we start from the BCG approach, where the candidate must lead, and we can test their ability to prioritize issues and solve the case. Only after they can prove their skill to lead us in the analyses, we will switch and lead the candidate. McKinsey, and Bain, use an answer-first approach, sometimes called hypotheses. The problem with building hypotheses is that they are messy; it is difficult to apply MECE and application thereof usually requires some knowledge of the subject. For example, how easy is it to brainstorm the drivers of Pharma trial success if you know nothing about the industry? Not easy at all.

Most candidates build terrible hypotheses, which overlap and not really insightful We teach candidates a very clever and simple technique to build elegant, appropriate and MECE hypotheses by using the BCG style approach they have learned until now. In other words, candidates have to make just one change to the approach we already taught them, and they can use hypotheses. After this session, candidates should now be able to handle Bain, BCG and McKinsey cases.

Beyond a logical way to build hypotheses, we also teach a simple and useful technique to develop more than one key hypothesis. This is one of the most effective techniques to generate multiple relevant hypotheses.

There are profound differences between BCG, Bain and McKinsey, both in terms of their approaches to cases and the firms themselves. In this session we take some time to discuss these differences, and the implication for the candidate’s style of working and preferences.

Clients will find this video in Session 6 of the online case solution library. The video is only available to clients of our case coaching service.

Related articles

 

Aug 27

14 Comments

Case Interviews in BCG Istanbul & McKinsey Boston

“Dear Michael,

Thank you for the wonderful discussion about management consulting in Turkey. 

If you recall, I am very likely to interview with BCG Istanbul & McKinsey Boston. I worked for another major consulting firm in Dubai prior to pursuing my MBA. While I like my current firm and it is highly regarded, I am keen to go back to Turkey and join a larger firm.

It would be great if you could offer me any advice in making this decision.

Melike*” Read more

Aug 26

4 Comments

What must I do on my first business case?

“Hi Michael,

I really enjoyed meeting you and your team a few weeks ago. Thank you for taking the time to join me for coffee and discuss my career. I thought your stories were a little funny but really insightful, especially the Paris Hilton analyses. I never looked at it like that before. You were right, Joe Davis is a great guy to work with, and likes constant contact.

If you recall, I mentioned I would be going onto my first business case engagement at BCG and wanted to know if you had any specific guidance on what I need to know to support my manager. I do not have a quantitative background and read history at Oxford. Any tips or guidance will be greatly appreciated.

I would prefer printing the advice, so if you could kindly respond as an article that would be great.

Scott” Read more

Aug 24

14 Comments

Case Interview Solution, new: Corporate Finance

Corporate Finance cases are complex. I do not think anyone will disagree with this point. We receive several general requests a week from clients and candidates to determine if they are possible fit for McKinsey or BCG’s corporate finance teams. That is a tough question to answer without conducting a full corporate finance case and assessing performance. To solve this problem, we have created a comprehensive corporate finance case interview video. The candidate may watch this video and assess their performance independently. This is an actual McKinsey case currently used in the New York office. The detailed solutions and animations are entirely our own. We typically only make our 60 Corporate Finance Videos available to those interviewing for this practice, but have made this one video available to all clients to allow them assess their own abilities before choosing to pursue this practice.

The key lesson is that without a granular understanding of the basics of corporate finance, a candidate will never succeed in the interview. To solve corporate finance cases, a candidate must be very, very strong in conceptual strategy and finance. This case does not test arcane finance concepts. In fact, the finance techniques tested are fairly basic. However, to solve the case, the candidate must demonstrate an exceptional understanding of these concepts from the first principles. In preparing candidates for corporate finance cases we fully expect them to see the linkages between the different areas of finance, explain the limitations of the techniques and explain the practical implications of those limitations.

“Draw the WACC curve for a start-up from angel investor funding, through an IPO all the way to reaching maturity and explain the financial needs and likely financial strategy requirements at each stage of the curve?” 

This is not an uncommon question in our screening for corporate finance candidates hoping to join our program.

Corporate finance cases cover a broad area from M&A due diligence, profit maximization, financial strategy, capital markets analyses, post-merger synergy analyses and capturing etc. A lot of skills are required to operate across all these sub-disciplines of finance. At this point Firmsconsulting does not support candidates interviewing for the McKinsey Corporate Performance Center, which is a data analyses center. We only coach general hires for the corporate finance practice. Candidates interviewing for the CPC may access our training material but are not eligible to be coached.

If you want to see a complete consulting study on corporate finance, see this post we did on a recent McKinsey micro-finance engagement or our complete book, and supporting material, on developing a micro-finance recapitalization strategy for an emerging markets bank. The book, analyses and excel models for this fictitious client were so prescient that we were recently invited to present our findings to the South African Department of Trade and Industry. If you feel you are dodging heavy excel modelling by avoiding the finance practice, read this piece about the excel skills needed by liberal arts majors on general consulting engagements.

This case video is animated. Selected screen shots of the video are presented below. Clients will find this video in Corporate Finance Section of the online case solution library. The video is only available to clients of our case coaching service.

Related articles

Aug 23

Case Interview Solution, new: Competition Case

 

Competition cases are a misnomer and misleading. If all cases should examine competitors and the competitive dynamic of an industry, how can there be isolated competition cases? There cannot be, and trying to prepare for competition is really a waste of time. So why do we teach this technique? We teach the competition strategy case technique not because we expect a candidate to receive cases using just this isolated competition logic, but rather to present a way to analyse competition issues within any case. That an entire session is dedicated to competition analysis should indicate just how important this technique is. Too many candidates apply the Porter’s Five Forces, thinking it is enough to analyse competitors. There are too many problems using the Porter approach. Primarily, we have yet to see a candidate apply this technique correctly, because the majority of candidates have a very high-level understanding of the theory and techniques behind this type of strategy analyses.

A deep and thorough understanding of competition analyses will provide most of the skills a candidate needs to solve any strategy case. So taking the time to understand our counter-intuitive way to solve these cases is important.

Moreover, competition frameworks are not intuitive and therefore not easy to apply in a case. It is important for candidates to first understand the logic of competition case before trying to apply frameworks. This video explains that logic.

This case video is animated. Selected screen shots of the video are presented below. Clients will find this video in session 8 of the online case solution library. The video is only available to clients of our case coaching service.

Related articles

 

Aug 22

10 Comments

Case Interview Solution, new: Operations Case Video

Operations cases are difficult. Most candidates struggle to generate frameworks and invariable use a trial-and-error approach to find their way through. This is a messy technique which fails most of the time. Yet, the approach to solve operations cases surprisingly sits at the core of solving estimation and IT cases. Therefore, understanding proper operations case techniques is vital.

Moreover, operations consulting is a major part of McKinsey, Bain and BCG’s business as we discussed in this overview of the difference between strategy and operations and this overview of a McKinsey supply chain project. There is a severe shortage of candidates for these practices. Remember, all consultants at the top firms are treated equally, and due to the generalist model, you will be expected to do operations and strategy projects. So entering here makes you as good as any other consultant at these firms.

The video which follows presents an elegant method to solve operations cases. This case expects candidates to have a thorough understanding of some basic operations concepts. Any MBA graduate should easily be able to solve this case. Therein is the challenge. This case does not test any complex ideas. It merely tests the most basic principles of operations, and unless a candidate understands them very well, they will fall short. Operations cases can always be reduced to a 3-step analysis of a supply chain, but this needs to be carefully presented to the interviewer. Moreover, lack of familiarity with the approach will lead to lots of wasted time. Understanding bottlenecks in operations cases is also vital. A related concept to understand is marginal cost analysis. When joined, operations cases and marginal cost cases tend to be very challenging. Operations cases tend to be very long. It is essential the candidate uses guidance from the interviewer to focus on that part which will likely generate the answer.

This case video is animated. Selected screen shots of the video are presented below. Clients will find this video in session 6 of the online case solution library. The video is only available to clients of our case coaching service.

Aug 24

4 Comments

A Bainie never lets another Bainie down, unless his name is Mitt Romney

This phrase is the operating mantra of Bain & Company. We question how true it is. What many people do not realize is that while Mitt Romney was CEO of Bain Capital, he was also CEO of Bain & Company when they went through a wrenching turnaround in the early 1990′s. I think we can all agree that whatever our political affiliations and our resulting disagreements, Mitt Romney did an amazing job at Bain as CEO and was a great consultant. Arguably one of the best consultants of his generation.

But why does Bain not be explicit about Romney’s role as CEO? This appears on their website. In fact the firm voluntarily released this statement to clarify Romney’s role, but it actually is more misleading:

“In 1985, as a vice president, Mr. Romney left our firm to help found Bain Capital.

Mr. Romney rejoined Bain & Company in the early 1990s to help the firm develop and execute a turnaround plan. He led a financial restructuring that included renegotiation of debt held by major creditors and put Bain & Company on the path to lasting growth and success.”

The press release omits his official title of “CEO”, yet chooses to include his earlier title of vice-president.

This appears on Romney’s website and is common knowledge:

“As Bain Capital was growing in prominence, Mitt returned to his old consulting firm, Bain & Company, as CEO. In a time of financial turmoil at the company, he led a successful turnaround.”

Despite Romney’s incredible effort, documented extensively using archived material in one chapter of “Partnership”, all Bain mentions about him is that he “helped” and “led a financial restructuring”. That is very vague and possibly deliberately so. It is actually the opposite of what consultants demand in resumes and communication. They insist on the removal of all ambiguous and subjective terms, like these words.

This description of Romney’s efforts is a little like going to your high-school reunion, seeing your friends with even hotter partners, feeling embarrassed and referring to your partner as a “friend”.

It is acceptable for Bain as an organization to not agree with Romney’s view. Yet, how can this be a reflection of consulting values to voluntarily release a deliberately vague clarifying statement to distance itself from a former CEO who saved the firm? Bain is a great firm, but this release and its intent does not reflect this proud legacy.

Without meaning to lecture anyone and not fully knowing the intent of the release, it should be remembered that management consulting should be reason without emotions. It should be beyond politics. We should not airbrush history to ride out a fad. Consultants don’t follow fads. We should stand by the decisions we make and our heritage, even when it may be uncomfortable to do so that times. We should be willing to lose revenue to defend our value system. At least then we will know what our values are truly worth.

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