i'm really worred about consulting interviews

Don't look at the vault guide, as it's too framework heavy, which you cannot master in 24 hrs.  Get case in point, skim its smaller framework section, and find someone to do 2-3 practice cases with.  The main key is structure.  Structure everything you say; they don't care if you take a moment to gather/write down your thoughts.

Bain's 1st rd is quite easy, if you know the frameworks and are clear in your communication.  The key for them is for you to tell them the basis for your assumptions (i.e. where are your price estimates coming from?).  Use your real-life experiences to justify your thoughts (i.e. because i typically pay about $100 for a pair of shoes).  Mck's 1st rd cases are slightly more difficult than bain's and they put a massive emphasis on structure.  Beware that, with your finance and acct background, they may pair you with an interviewer in the corp fin practice, who will give you a highly quantitative case that you likely will not be able to solve.  None of the interviewees at my school got the one I was handed.

Thanks for the responses guys, though b you didn't exactly help calm my nerves. I started looking over the vault just a while ago and the 4ps and whatever don't seem that confusing (more like common sense). Luckily in my corp fin class I did some M&A cases so I'm somewhat prepared to talk about industry changes, barriers to entry, fixed vs variable costs...etc. i guess i'll focus on the framework aspect of it and only skim the rest of the vault material if i have time

I'm hoping to get a finance case as I would be extremely comfortable talking about financial statements. 1 quick question about the vault guides; i think in the first sample case they give a company inquiring why their waffle sales increased. it just seems like the person is blindly guessing? is that how the caseis going to be structured? i'm supposed to ask a bunch of questions. it seems more like a game of 20 questions than an actual case. e.g

has the overall markets for waffles grown recently? no have sales of other breakfast foods or our own products increased? no has our client lowered prices recently? no have other waffle manufacturers raised their prices? no did the price of syrup go down? no has the production process changed? yes are the ingredients the same? those have changed too, we're using a new supplier...etc

that seems retarded. obviously if the client has changed the way they make waffles and are seeking out to wonder why sales increased, they wouldn't need a consultant to help them figure that out. is that how a typical case works? wouldn't the interviewer be annoyed at all those questions?

thanks!

Consulting is about asking the right questions to get to the root of the issue, in this particular case, why waffle sales increased. Obviously this example is simplified for a practice interview, but be prepared to have to ask some questions in the beginning to "dig" out relevant information.

Case in point is a good reference point, but the key to consulting interviews is still experience or practice. The more you do a case interview, the more you know what your interviewer is looking for. Still, as you said, much of it can be boiled down to common (business) sense.

My advice is to approach the interview into 4 parts:

1) understand the situation - (listen to the interviewer's question, figure out exactly what question you are being asked to answer, ask any necessary questions to clarify) 2) choose method of analysis - (tell your interview how you will proceed, so for example, in the waffle case, you are going to examine the 2 components of revenue, price x volume, and then more specifically on drivers of volume growth) 3) analyze the case out loud - (tell your interview exactly what you are thinking, ask for more info if needed, and generally end up with a viable answer to the question) 4) succinct summary and recommendation - (summarize what the problem was, how you looked at it, what your analysis pointed to, and how you would go about fixing/changing/improving it)

Gl.

I would focus on doing well at your IB interviews. If you've got superdays, you're really close to locking something up.

It's not exactly "blindly guessing", which is why I recommended case in point. Businesses face very specific types of problems (declining revenue, shrinking market share, shrinking profit margins, etc.) and there are usually 2-3 very specific causes associated with each of the problems (expired patent, competitor entry, rising costs, etc.) The key is to identify the type of problem, recall the specific framework related to that problem, then ask the questions relevant to that framework. That is why I find consulting cases a bit difficult... case in point has 12 different "situations" and a decision tree of about 10 steps per situation. A lot of it overlaps, but it's still a lot to memorize. Best to try to memorize through repeated practice IMO.

Guys I've got loads of help on my ibd interviews from this forum. Thought I might ask for a bit more for cracking a MBB interview. Could someone tell whether it is necessary to remember the Case System given in Case in Point ... or would you recommend the simple smaller frameworks to work with?

No finance on consulting cases. The most it will go to is profit = revenue - cost.

There are at least a handful of threads on doing case interviews, not going to rehash the whole thing.

I have a question regarding Case In Pt which was mentioned above. Wouldn't an interviewer be annoyed that you're essentially rehashing from that book? I know its pretty stupid to say, "Okay I'm going to use Porter's 5 forces" and stuff like that. If you start off with, X is the objective. Are there any other objectives I should be aware of? And then you say,increasing sales... I know of four ways- increasing volume, price, amount per purchase, and seasonal balance.

What are the chances the consultant says, "okay this guy just memorized case in point and its not natural intuition."

don't worry about frameworks, you aren't expected to know them. further, trying to apply a certain framework will get you stuck more often than not. case in point is a great read though.

what you need to remember, and is really helpful in structuring your approach and asking the right questions is the following: company, customer, competition, channel and cost (the 5c's). if you consider these, you'll have a structured approach and cover most of the problem areas.

consider questions such as: what is the company's position / competitive advantage, who is the competition, what is the market share of the leading companies, what is the competitive advantage of the comptition, what are the customer segments, how are they growing, what do they value, what the the sales channels, what level are they growing at, what is our sales split among them, what is the cost structure. these questions can really help put you on the right track.

remember to also think in groups (and many times, groups of 3 help). try to put the information into buckets.

the last piece of advice is that practice really does make perfect.

good luck!