Trending Content
Career Resources
WSO Free Modeling Series - Now Open Through
May 31, 2024
9 Free Financial Modeling Lessons
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
+Bonus: Get 27 financial modeling templates in swipe file
+Bonus: Get 27 financial modeling templates in swipe file
This happened to a friend in his interviews last year. He politely told them that he was familiar with the case, and they quickly switched to another one. I've never had this happen/heard of this happening at MBB interviews, though. In fact, one of my Bain case interviews was made up by my interviewer based on a trip he took for his last vacation.
I don't think it's that common an occurrence, although i guess it might happen if you interview in many places for both SA, and then again for FT.
Why did your friend tell the interviewer that he was familiar with the case? Wouldn't it be to his advantage to simply solve a case that he had already done before?
They address this in "Case in Point," but I think the argument goes it will probably be evident that you've done it before given how fast you will solve it and how you seem to already know how everything needs to be segmented, etc. It's hard to recreate genuine discovery. That being said, I think most people would still just roll with it.
I have heard of this happening, for two reasons: 1) people with alumni/friends at MBB have those friends give them a practice case or two, which in turn come from the case bank (especially true if a particular office, i.e. NYC, tends to prefer a smaller subset of the cases) and 2) a case from MBB winding up in a casebook without them knowing it. I've heard of one person having an MBB interview and realizing several months later that the same case was in the Darden 2012 casebook.
1) "Practice" cases and interview cases are kept strictly separate. I'm sure it's happened before that an interview case has leaked out or whatnot, but it's not as casual as you imply--I'm pretty sure leaking an interview case would get one fired. 2) This is the reason why almost all case interviewers will collect your notes and whatnot. Obviously they can't confiscate your memory, so I suppose it could happen.
Have never heard of this happening. At least for all of my interviews, the cases I got were based on actual engagements my interviewers had been on.
Echoing devildog. No way this can happen unless someone royally screws up. At my MBB, practice cases are never used in real life interviews. And if an AC/A1/BA leaked one of the real life one, he'd get fired.
Yeah that's what I thought as well. I was just a bit confused because there were so many MBB cases in MBA casebooks that I was wondering where they were all coming from. So are those all practice cases? Are there really that many legit MBB practice cases out there?
Nostrum odit dolore officiis praesentium voluptatem. Excepturi assumenda dignissimos quidem. A est ea quisquam accusantium assumenda. Et dolor perferendis ullam voluptatem rerum beatae. Omnis iste vel perspiciatis eum explicabo.
Doloremque sed labore vel error doloribus. Impedit tenetur nemo odit. Dignissimos adipisci animi libero in eveniet quisquam error. Et ut harum quis sit. Iure libero eius quisquam quis delectus ratione est. Voluptatem quo et rem aut dolor.
In dolores qui blanditiis aspernatur quas nulla est. Culpa vel quo fuga quasi in voluptatem beatae. Vero adipisci reiciendis cumque. Vel modi et facere blanditiis non.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...