Why do I just suck at casing?
“I’ve been putting in hours on casing, but I still feel like I’m hitting a wall. When I’m in the middle of a case, I forget much of what I’ve practiced, and my logic falls apart. I’m struggling to build creativity and confidence in my approach. For those who have been through this, what are the best drills, exercises, or habits that helped you improve casing skills and stay structured under pressure?
Also, do you have a reliable guideline for frameworks? I see so many (profitability, market entry, M&A, etc.), and I get confused on when to use what. Is there a simple way to think about frameworks that balances structure with flexibility?
Only been through 3 case interviews in the past (an MBB, and two T2s) and only received one offer so take this with a grain of salt, but, when I first started casing, I faced the same difficulties. I think virtually everyone does unless you already have industry experience. When I consulted online forums, I read some stupid ass comments talking about how “casing is an art and you pretty much have to be naturally good at it, you likely won’t get much better than the first few times you’ve cased”. I obviously felt discouraged and lost, but this is honestly the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Casing is way easier to get better at (given you have a month or more to prepare) than really any IB-style interview that could throw any merger model/paper lbo with unlimited amounts of assumptions at you. I was honestly terrible at this in the beginning. I got a Rocket Blocks subscription and one for Crafting Cases. I also used 3-4 different case books from MBAs(namely, Darden, HaaS, Kellog) that I found online. I first grinded through Rocket blocks framework and quant drills and then watched like 10 different cases a day from Rocket Blocks on youtube, and tried to pause and build my own structured frameworks and quant portions. I would also case with random people on rocket blocks 3 times a week. I also went through the case books to help more with business logic and how to tackle various industry problems. I really felt like I had improved substantially throughout the 2 months I did this, and I never got stuck on any quant portions of the interviews after this. Long write up, but in short:
-casing can easily be learned, doesn’t take a genius
-use Rocket Blocks for quant drills, framework drills, and watching videos of professionals tackle casing problems
-crafting cases is also useful for a broader understanding of how to tackle cases (do not memorize frameworks, it will ultimately confuse you and mess you up. Have some general ideas of like 5-10 different buckets that could be used for a given case, weather M&A, Prof, Growth, market sizing, market entry, etc. Also understand that not all cases exactly fit one of these categories. Plenty of times a case is two of these, think M&A and growth, mixed into one.)
-Case books for business logic and being able to read through the rationale for a given case structure.
just did a case and botched up the math calculations 🥀
i hate the mental math needed lol, why cant they allow calculators istg
The ability to quickly do the mental math is pretty much the whole point
i guess dude but i'd rather choke on a sausage
I think a big issue is how you handle it under pressure. When I was casing, I was doing great in mock cases and cases with student teachers at my uni but during the actual cases I got stuck over tiny details and math problems (literally blanked on 8*3) but the more I did it the more I got adjusted and the more muscle memory I was able to remember. That’s pretty big to focus on. Doing them alone in your room will only get you so far, find other people to case with and get those reps in!
It's probably because you make too big of a big deal of it and need to loosen up a bit. The MBB NA BA/A/AC case interviews I did were all no longer than 30-35 minutes after accounting for the behavioral portions of the interview. In 30-35 minutes, all you can realistically do is share your framework and dive into 1-2 areas, which typically involves looking at a few charts, discussing some ideas (this is where you want to sound structured including taking time to formulate your thoughts), and answering a few questions.
It's not supposed to be this all-out self-driven intellectual exploration where you need to come up with a ton of insights and lead the discussion and ask insightful questions.
For frameworks, I recommend looking at Crafting Cases (free videos). Do NOT memorize frameworks because (1) they typically don't come in handy and (2) the more frameworks you learn, the more confused you get when it comes time to creating one from scratch. Understanding what frameworks do on a conceptual level enables you to create a framework for any scenario.
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