Case interview coaching

Our sessions are led by former senior McKinsey consultants and are focused on building the Problem Solving skill, that is at the core of case interviews and consulting projects

Is there a need for case coaching?

In general, we believe that live case coaching is an optional step of preparation for management consulting interviews and should be used to very limited extent to complement available digital materials, individual and peer practice. You can read more about how we see it fit into a typical preparation journey.

To help you decide if it is something that can be beneficial to you, below we discuss two types of case coaching that we offer and share examples of how a coaching session can be conducted depending on a candidate’s need.

Two types of case coaching

  • Work with an isolated challenge

    As you go through your practice you might discover that you consistently struggle with a specific step in problem solving, or perhaps that there is a problem type that you find intimidating. You might feel like peer or individual practice is not enough to solve your specific problem and you need a coaching session.

    It is best to reach out to the coach and explain the issue beforehand so that you can discuss how to best approach your isolated challenge and give them an opportunity to prepare.

    In this type of session, you would not go through a case end-to-end. Instead, you would work on a set of exercises tailored to remedy your specific problem or on a set of case questions you encountered previously and found challenging.

  • Mock interview

    Most widely spread style of coaching where a coach would give you, as a candidate, a case to solve and provide you with comprehensive feedback with overview of all the improvement areas. This type of coaching session doesn’t allow for enough time to work through a specific challenge that a candidate struggles with.

    This session can be a good fit when (1) you feel you are not getting new feedback from your practice and you wonder if you could uncover new areas for improvement with a coach (2) you feel well-prepared and you want a final test or a confidence boost (3) you have absolutely no access to current or former consultants and never practiced with them, so need a more “professional” view on your performance

Examples of candidates’ stories and their coaching

  • Example 1: Approaching unconventional cases

    John reached out to us after a workshop that a consulting firm arranged for the candidates. He described a case that he got at this workshop and how he had no idea how to approach it. The case was about a company that found a dinosaur in a remote jungle and didn’t know how to proceed.

    After a conversation, we realized that John had a problem with “unconventional” cases overall.

    We conducted a coaching session where we gave John a few prompts of unconventional problems. Together, we worked through them until John felt that those problems are no different from Profitability, market entry, or other cases he is used to.

  • Example 2: Working through specific case types

    Jane reached out to us with very specific request. She was applying the logic driven problem solving method on practice until she ran into a specific type of case where, it seemed to her, this method wouldn’t work: a pricing case. Jane asked if it was possible at all to solve pricing cases through logic, or if she should use frameworks.

    During a coaching session, we worked through a few pricing cases of different types, practicing building custom, logic driven solutions for those until Jan felt comfortable with this type of cases.

  • Example 3: Unfolding specific cases

    Jack had worked through 30+ cases. He accumulated over 10 of them where he wasn’t sure if the structures that he built were optimal and he felt that peers he practiced with couldn’t give him good advice.

    We used a coaching session with Jack to review his questions in relation to the cases he had doubts about and discussed how we would (if we would) tweak his solutions and why. Hence, thanks to Jack’s home work and peer practice, we covered a multitude of his questions in a very short period of time.

  • Example 4: Polishing touches

    Janet reached out to us a few days before her interview. She felt confident about her problem solving skills, but had concerns if an actual interview, in particular the partner round, would be much harsher than the practice she was used to and if it would make her stressed, resulting in her making mistakes.

    We conducted a mock interview with Janet so that she got a sense of the pace and dynamic of a real interview. In addition, we made a few suggestions on Janet’s case delivery that would help her problem solving skills really shine.

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Case coaches

Anders

Former McKinsey Partner | Former leader of McKinsey’s recruiting in South East Asia

Through his more than 15 years of tenure at McKinsey, Anders coached, interviewed and assessed more than a thousand candidates that applied to McKinsey offices around the world. As a former partner responsible for McKinsey’s regional recruiting, Anders understands the recruitment process at McKinsey better than most. He guides candidates through their interview preparation process with unique insights from his previous experience, combined with his passion for talent development and coaching.

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Anna

Former McKinsey Engagement manager | Experienced interview trainer and executive coach

After getting her MBA, Anna got 5 offers from the top consultancies without memorizing any frameworks. Through her tenure at McKinsey and afterwards, she worked with hundreds of management consulting candidates, particularly focusing on development of their strategic thinking. Her strength is training candidates in structuring problems without previous industry knowledge through logic and rigor of thinking like McKinsey consultants do.

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