Case Interview Preparation & Management Consulting | Strategy | Critical Thinking

This podcast is a controversial and thoughtful response to a letter from a reader who overheard his career counselor describing him as a "dumb black kid" who "has no future in business."

In this podcast we look at the rise of value modelling as a shiny new management technique in 2003 and its implosion in 2009. Value modelling is a lot like other big trends like the balance scorecard, business process re-engineering etc. which went belly-up.

Young consultants make some very common mistakes when they start out, and I explain how to use the strategy insight ratio to correct these problems.

Aspiring and some young consultants tend to have a narrow outside-in view of management consulting. They make significant assumptions about why and how strategy studies are done, and try to replicate this assumed behavior. They think "being analytic" means analyzing things before every decision is made.

Aspiring NBA stars make a classic mistake when trying to watch, analyze and replicate the reasons why someone like Michael Jordan was so successful. In this podcast I explain why aspiring management consultants and those in industry make the very same mistake when watching, analyzing and replicating the reasons why McKinsey and BCG are so successful.

[Update June 11] The 1st strategy training map is live! All 16 steps of strategy planning and 200+ critical points are complimentary to all our members!

It is fair to say that being assigned to develop the case studies to help a team on the strategy study is considered a dead-end role for most consultants. An associate or analyst would much rather want to be leading the corporate strategy analyses, business case or even the business unit analyses versus studying how other companies have tackled the same problem as the client.

This podcast was prepared for clients in our case coaching program. Each week I will consolidate the main questions and challenges clients are facing in the program and use these podcasts to communicate suggestions and advice to your unique preparation needs.

The Firmsconsulting Emerging Fellows program is a program we run whereby we find and mentor promising young students from impoverished parts of the world. Working with them over several years, we guide them into elite schools and eventually into McKinsey or BCG.

We have a section on the website where I list all of the articles I read on a daily basis: What Firmsconsulting is reading. The thinking was that readers could replicate the reading of a former strategy partner at an elite firm by reading what I read.

If you wanted to move from BCG / McKinsey to private equity, how do you make the career change?

This very insightful and unusual podcast discusses the unique situation 5 of our clients face.

This podcast addresses a major misunderstanding about billable hours. The concept is not bad at all, but works only in certain circumstances. This podcast carefully explains those circumstances, and crucially examines how billable hours hurts consulting assignments. It has nothing to do with the focus on profits, but rather who has the focus on profits.

In September 2013 we published the inspiring story of Irina who worked her way from a Ukraine vocational school into McKinsey. This podcast tracks her progress since joining McKinsey and explains the mistakes she made which ultimately led to her leaving McKinsey.

This is a short podcast offering subscribers advice on how to best use the enormous amount of information in both seasons. In particular, the podcast offers some important reminders and explains how the watch cases will allow you to write the strategy MBA exam at any major business school.

In Season 2 of The Consulting Offer, you will regularly see Alice breaking down the case problem into the correct logical components. She is impressive at doing this. However, you will also see Kevin pushing her to offer more. This podcast explains what Kevin was looking for. In other words, being logical in a case interview is insufficient to impress a partner in the final round interviews.

We insist candidates read extensively to improve their business judgement. However, we find candidates really struggle to demonstrate they have indeed read the article, and more importantly, have improved their thinking in some way as a result of reading the article. This counter-intuitive piece demonstrates how to generate 2nd, 3rd and 4th order insights when communicating with partners.

Candidates approach Merger and Acquisition cases with a very generic framework where Merger and Acquisition and JV's tend to be lumped together. This podcast demonstrates the power of effectively framing the case problem and introduces candidates to a very elegant / effective technique to develop strategies to capture the profits from a market. In fact, this technique demonstrates why an Merger and Acquisition is the absolute last resort to enter a market.

This podcast teaches readers how to extract up to 80% of the useful information about an article before you even read the article. The podcast first explains the difference between news, facts and opinions, before showing you the steps to analyze an article. Finally, the podcast uses the recent New York Times article about McKinsey and Dominic Barton to apply these very same concepts. You will see that what McKinsey what you to read from this article is very different from the information you should have extracted.

Between 17 January 2013 and 30 January 2013 we will be rolling out some significant and exciting changes to the website. Many of these changes coincide with the premier of Season Two of the Consulting Offer, and are useful because they make the material easier to watch, interact with and learn from. We will also be making changes to the way club members and clients access the material. We spent a long time thinking about these changes and while they will impact many members, remain completely aligned with our core values of treating all clients fairly.