Case interviews: can structured thinking & concision be developed?

Problem / Question

Concerned that my natural verbosity, poor working memory, and tendency to stray from original structure in cases are insurmountable obstacles to being a consultant. Do you know of people who overcame tendency to be wordy and unstructured in verbal communication to secure MBB role after lots of practice?

Background

  • Preparing for MBB interviews in one month
  • Previous experience: Went thru undergrad recruiting a few years ago with only one case under my belt. Dinged first round at all three.
  • Preparation thus far: I've run 10 cases with current MBBers in past two weeks. Mental math + Rocketblocks + PrepLounge + recording & reviewing interviews (4-5h/day)

My big weaknesses

1 Concision in verbal communication 2 Adherence to original plan/framework after first 5-10 mins. 3 Working memory-- slow in setting up framework; struggle keep all parts of structure in head

What usually happens in cases

According to interviewers, my "eerily good" business sense & general knowledge almost always lead me to: 1) Setting up a reasonable, unique framework, and 2) Cracking the case.

Improvements over last two weeks

  • Mental math speed
  • Slight improvements in verbal concision--cutting myself off at end of a sentence
1 Comments
 

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