Thats an insane amount of case studies and if a Consultancy needs you to prepair this much for an inteview their method is quite bad to determine if a candidate has the right fit. I worked as a consultant in a top 3 research and consultancy firm and now joining as a strategy advisor for a major retailer with 5b revenue. The inteviews and assessments took time to prepair for, but no way it took me 6-8 weeks. More like 1-2 day for the inteviews and 2 weeks for the assessment (had 3 parts). Also my brother in law worked at BCG as a consultant, but never heard he ever did this kind of long preperation and he got offers from all major firms after his studies.
Congratulations to both you and your brother-in-law on your offers! It's true that some individuals can secure offers with limited preparation. However, case interviews may cover a range of topics derived from 11 main business problems. To maximize their chances of success, many successful candidates choose to practice 4-5 case studies for each business problem over the course of 6-8 weeks. While it is possible to receive an offer with just a couple of weeks of preparation, putting in more time and effort can significantly improve one's chances of landing the job.
For Mistake #3, it's interesting to note that generic frameworks need to be treated as 'back in mind' frameworks while tailoring to the context of the case. There seem to be two camps right now: 1) Absolutely memorize frameworks (Victor Cheng-camp) 2) Build frameworks from scratch (Crafting Cases-camp) In reality, it's a mixture of both, where you memorize a framework but also understand the principles and logic underneath these frameworks.
Your summary hit the mark! Creating frameworks from scratch isn't realistic. Even in real consulting scenarios, consultants use past project and proposal documents to shape their approach - nothing is truly created from scratch. However, it's key to adapt these frameworks to ensure we're tackling the problem, not just creating an exhaustive list of investigation areas.
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Thats an insane amount of case studies and if a Consultancy needs you to prepair this much for an inteview their method is quite bad to determine if a candidate has the right fit. I worked as a consultant in a top 3 research and consultancy firm and now joining as a strategy advisor for a major retailer with 5b revenue. The inteviews and assessments took time to prepair for, but no way it took me 6-8 weeks. More like 1-2 day for the inteviews and 2 weeks for the assessment (had 3 parts). Also my brother in law worked at BCG as a consultant, but never heard he ever did this kind of long preperation and he got offers from all major firms after his studies.
Congratulations to both you and your brother-in-law on your offers! It's true that some individuals can secure offers with limited preparation. However, case interviews may cover a range of topics derived from 11 main business problems. To maximize their chances of success, many successful candidates choose to practice 4-5 case studies for each business problem over the course of 6-8 weeks. While it is possible to receive an offer with just a couple of weeks of preparation, putting in more time and effort can significantly improve one's chances of landing the job.
For Mistake #3, it's interesting to note that generic frameworks need to be treated as 'back in mind' frameworks while tailoring to the context of the case. There seem to be two camps right now:
1) Absolutely memorize frameworks (Victor Cheng-camp)
2) Build frameworks from scratch (Crafting Cases-camp)
In reality, it's a mixture of both, where you memorize a framework but also understand the principles and logic underneath these frameworks.
Your summary hit the mark! Creating frameworks from scratch isn't realistic. Even in real consulting scenarios, consultants use past project and proposal documents to shape their approach - nothing is truly created from scratch. However, it's key to adapt these frameworks to ensure we're tackling the problem, not just creating an exhaustive list of investigation areas.