How Do I Actually Go About Studying Cases?

Hey there,

It can be tricky when you get started, especially if you are not in an environment that can help you out (e.g., college consulting club). I went through the same thing when I prepped.

My approach was as follows:

1. Start by just reading all the material I could "about" case interviews, so think YT videos, blog posts on Management Consulted, PrepLounge, here, and everywhere and anywhere. Just to understand what a case was and how a case interview "happened"
2. When I had a grasp on the general lines, I then did ~5 cases by myself. I'd read the prompt, think of a few follow up questions I would like to have answered, checked some of the data supplied if any, and then checked my answer against the actual recommendation (needless to say it wasnt super productive, but it helped me just get a sense of what to do)
3. Then, pretty quickly moved to caseing with other people (I used CaseCoach, but other sites are equally good, like PrepLounge), where I emphasised doing new cases, trying different types of partners, and being super feedback-oritented
4. I had one case with an M / EM / PL at my target firm early on, and I did add a session with a coach after ~8-10 cases to gauge my main areas of improvement, and again one more time after ~20 cases to see how I had improved. Everything afterward was a real case in an interview doing my BCG and Bain rounds (ended with ~30 cases total, inc. ~10 with actual/former MBBs)

I found that for entry-level roles, the cases aren't that hard, so you just want to work on minimising small errors, and if you do make one at some point (by omission or other), make sure to catch it and correct it before they do. You can do that by sense checking your figures / conclusions constantly (e.g., you get a revenue figure and you had market share earlier, ok, whats the market size implied? If it's $10M for something nationwide, it's probably wrong, so go back to your notes).

Do remember there is no "magic" number for cases, though I'd say 10-20 is generally a minimum to get the hang of it. There is more benefit to doing weird / out-of-the-box cases than doing 30 pricing cases (after 2-3, you should get it). Coaches can be helpful, especially if you don't have access to former/current MBB/T2 people in your network to practice with, for me it was a big confidence boost. Finally, if after you start getting good at them, you still don't enjoy doing cases, then consulting probably isn't for you (at least not long term).

Best of luck!