This process, to me, doesn't seem to fall into the traditional "stall-verify" category — the candidate asking for data he needs as the case unfolds (i.e. the candidate driving the case) versus the candidate is inundated with data even before the case opens up. The latter in the written case is unnerving to me. Specifically, I've had issues with:

a) opening a written case or what to expect at the start of the case with the information "out there"
b) frameworks — whether they matter here?
c) weeding out extraneous information to get the right data
d) not sure if the information provided is sufficient to make certain analysis (and that I must ask for additional information or estimate….)

My Reply:

Let me start with a caveat. I don't have any direct experience with the Monitor Written Case Interview. When I got an offer from them years ago, they had the traditional verbal interaction type case.

That being said, I've seen many firms move to incorporating some type of written case such as the McKinsey Problem Solving Test.

I'll start with my thoughts as to WHY firms are using this type of format in part of whole.

The three biggest things this format does for the consulting firm is it provides an evaluation that 1) is frankly hard to prepare for, 2) really does test whether the candidate can ignore extraneous, non-relevant data (of which there is a ton of on the job), and 3) to test if the candidate can draw logical conclusions based on the facts available.

With a verbal case, you're the one coming up with ideas, you're the one asking for data, you're the one determining if your hypothesis is right or not.

With a written case, someone else has come up with the data (typically way more data than you actually need to "solve the case"). For written cases interviews like the McKinsey Problem Solving Test the test gives you the hypothesis and you have to figure out if it's correct or not. It sounds like in the Monitor Written Case the interviewer gives you the hypothesis / question and ask you if it's correct or not based on the data.

In both cases, you're taking someone else's hypothesis and testing it against the data. This very much mirrors what day-to-day consulting work is like especially for a new consultant. Typically the engagement manager or partner comes up with the initial hypotheses for the client team.

As an Associate, you're job is to go get data and figure out if the hypothesis is right or not. So in this respect, the Monitor Written Case and others like really test this one specific aspect of the job more so than a verbal case could.

Also in a real client engagement, the first week or two an engagement is often just gathering basic facts about the business without any hypotheses. These facts would be things like 10 year sales history, 10 year profit history, 10 year profit history by customer segments, 10 year growth rate by customer segment, 10 year growth right by customer segment for the company vs. the same growth rates for the industry, and literally dozens of such basic facts.

These initial facts are then used by the consulting team to come up with the hypotheses that will determine the rest of the engagement or more likely these facts will be used to see if the initial hypothesis that triggered the engagement is in fact the most important issue before devoting resources to trying to resolve it.

So in the first week or two of an actual engagement, you end up gather enormous amounts of data that you don't actually need (but aren't able to determine that until AFTER you get the data).

With respect to your specific questions, let me answer them the best I can:

a/b) In terms of how to open such a case, I'm not actually sure what Monitor is looking for here. My guess is it will probably be one of two things. Either they will ask you to open the case as you would a verbal case interview such as the ones described in my videos.

Or they will follow a Q&A format and ask you specific questions to see if you can draw a conclusion that's fully supported by the facts or determine that you don't have sufficient information.

If it's a traditional case, then I would just open the case as I suggest in my videos. Use a framework. And when you need data, rather than just telling the interviewer you're looking for X data, you would probably tell the interviewer you're looking for X data and then actually looking on the written case to see if the data is there.

In this open ended format, the key is YOU bring structure to the case, and refer to the data in the written case. (Separately, it's a good idea to look at the written case to see if any interesting patterns emerge that might refine your initial hypotheses. For example, if profits are terrible, it might lean you towards a Profit = Revenue - Cost framework)

If the interviewer is looking more for a Q&A type dialog where the ask questions about the case and you answer them, then I think the framework is less important and probably not needed at all.

c/d) In terms of having difficulty with weeding out extraneous data, this is a tough one to practice. I never practiced this myself, I just happen to naturally be good at it. I can kind of just look at data and the question and I can just kinda tell if it's relevant or not.

The closest thing I can see to practicing this skill is pulling out a standardized test prep book (GMAT, GRE, SAT, LSAT, MCAT) especially for those test which have a data sufficiency section.

This is a pure logic test. You don't need to know anything about business to do well in this particular aspect of a written case. So if you need practice, go to the standardized test prep programs.

Incidentally, at McKinsey the applicants who did well as consultants all had very high math test scores. If you are really good at math, you tend to naturally be really good at this data sufficiency / logic stuff.

Hope this helps. Again, I think this kind of format is very useful tool from the employer/interviewer's standpoint. It tests some of the raw talent aspects of the candidate rather than what they learn.

In the overall scheme of things, I think this is probably not the most important area to focus on in your prep for consulting interviews. The time to results tradeoff of improving your logic and data sufficiency skills is going to be low.

In contrast, I think the time spent familiarizing yourself with frameworks and the case process is a good time investment because it is very possible to be talented, but poorly prepared for verbal cases, and do poorly as a result. So the first 5 - 10 hours of prep via my videos can very easily double and triple the number of passed interviews.

My sense if 50 - 100 hours of prep on logic and data sufficiency might improve your success rate by 20% - 30% at most.

From the consulting firm's point of view, if you have the raw talent to be a good consultant, are completely unprepared and unfamiliar with cases/frameworks, it IS quite likely one can do well on written tests like the Monitor Written Case (especially if its oriented around data sufficiency / drawing logical conclusions) or the McKinsey Problem Solving Test — which is why I think firms are adding this type of element to the interview process.

(And my sense is firms that are setup to train new consultant who have great raw talent, but little formal business training, will tend to gravitate towards this type of evaluation measure). Those that want talent that is more polished and ready to go without much training, will probably lean more to the verbal cases to test readiness.

1) The question asked applies to a wide range of people. Please don't ask me to review your resume or CV. However if you have a particular kind of background (ex-military, no mba, etc…) that others probably share, if you phrase your question more generically I'll be more inclined to answer.

2) Ask nicely. You'd be surprised how many emails I get from people who "demand" I give them help in the next 72 hours.

3) Ask a question that isn't already answered in the videos. If you watched all the videos and still had a question, tell me so. If you didn't bother to watch everything, watch the videos first and read all the existing FAQ's before asking a question.

Pet Peeves:

1) Don't ask me about your gpa/gmat/gre/lsat/mcat scores and what your chances are of getting an interview. Ask the firm you're applying to for that info directly. Or just apply.

2) Don't ask me to critique your resume or CV or estimate your chances of getting an interview based on your background.

3) Don't be rude and demanding - sheesh… the site is free (and my friend think I'm crazy for not charging a lot up front for the info provided). The q&a is again free (though donations to my favorite charity kidpower.org is much appreciated).  This is a pet project of mine. I only answer questions maybe once or twice a month.

My motivation in answering Q&A is to create a comprehensive online resource that is able to help a lot of people enter a really wonderful profession… and to help people in a way that does not take up any or much of my personal time.

So if my answering your question is likely to make the site better, there's a good chance I will answer it (though depending on my schedule often not immediately). If the question is only relevant to you, but not others, I will most likely not answer it as I get LOTS of questions.

I first found your videos last summer and eagerly watched all of them. It was a great way to understand the purpose of the case interview and how to make it into a discussion based on discovery and inquisition.

After watching your videos and practicing about 20 cases with friends, I felt well prepared for my interviews. I had interviews for summer positions at Bain, BCG and McKinsey.

I can happily say that I took an offer with BCG and can't wait to start. Without your videos, I would not have gotten the offer. It allowed me to tear away the scary aspects of the case and show my natural ability.

I've worked in the telecom industry for 11 years. I don't have a MBA. Would getting an Executive MBA help in getting a case interview?

My Reply:

I can't speak for all firms, but I have never met anyone in consulting at any firm that had an Executive MBA. Amongst the top firms, there's a perception that the Executive MBA programs at top schools are not as competitive as the regular MBA program - so most don't recruit from those programs.

If you were a great candidate and happened to have an Executive MBA, I don't think it would hurt you. However, I think if you really were a great candidate to  begin with I think you'd be able to get the interview without the Executive MBA.

Given your background, I recommend networking extensively to get an interview. This is the best bet for people with backgrounds that don't fit into those pre-defined profiles that the firms usually go after.

Then once you get an interview, you have to do amazing to make any progress.

I am trying to prepare for the Problem Solving Test portion of McKinsey's interview process and am not sure how to structure my practice strategy.  Are you familiar with it?  I am a law school graduate and have taken business law classes and had business law internships but have no serious business background.

I want to be as prepared as possible for the Problem Solving Test and case interviews.  I have less than a week to prepare but I have been studying the practice Problem Solving Test on the website for the past couple of days.

I ordered Case In Point by Consentino (recommended by a current McKinsey employee) and will begin to use it today.  Though the Problem Solving Test is not difficult, it requires business savvy and comfort with numbers.

I think the Problem Solving Test is a milder written version of case questions but I am not familiar with the case method.  Any suggestions on how can I strengthen my business judgment in the upcoming days?    Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

My Response:

The McKinsey Problem Solving Test wasn't used when I was at McKinsey. I did take a look at it and think I understand it's role.

First, it is really a case interview where much of the data has already been gathered for you. In a typical case interview, you start with no data and the candidate is expected to determine what kind of data would be relevant and then asking for it.

The McKinsey Problem Solving Test provides much of this data in advanced and is asking you which conclusions can mathematically and logically be drawn from the data. Similarly, it also test what conclusions can NOT be mathematically and logically drawn from the data.

From the sample I saw on the McKinsey website, it does NOT require business savvy in order to perform well on the test. The sample test I saw was written very well to be accessible to people with non-business backgrounds and from a variety of countries/cultures.

It is primarily a math, estimation, and logic test.

It's actually fairly reflective of the day-to-day work of a consultant — looking at a bunch of data and determining what conclusions you can and can present to a client based on the data.

I think the fact that you're not permitted to use a calculator is interesting.

Given all the computations one could do, there probably isn't enough time to run every computation on there. You have to "ballpark-it" and do a lot of applied estimations.

I think practicing Cosentino's explanation of the estimation question (which is excellent) portion of a traditional case interview is useful.

The only other tip I would suggest is to READ THE QUESTION CAREFULLY.

Confession: I took a shot at the first 4 questions on the sample test… and I missed 2 of them! (Granted I have a 3 week old newborn in the house, am sleeping 3 hours a night this week, but still…)

My mistakes were basically careless errors.

I didn't read the question carefully, or I glossed over the labels in charts and made the assumption of what data I thought it covered, without actually looking at the labels carefully to see literally what it covers.

In some respects, have some business background can be a bit of a liability. Someone with an analytical and logical bent will take the questions and the data literally — which is good.

Someone like me in a rush is tempted to rush to a conclusion, notice a familiar data format (and assume I know what's being explained), and quickly attempt to answer the question I think is being asked using the data I think is being presented… rather than answering the literal question being asked using the actual data being presented.

So long story short, other than practicing a few estimation questions to get used to doing "ball park math", there isn't much you can do to prepare for the McKinsey Problem Solving Test. Either you're inherently logical and can think in approximate mathematical terms, or you're just wired a different way (e.g., lateral thinker, creative thinker, intuitive thinker… all of which are wonderful gifts, but don't always lend themselves well to consulting).

Also see my post on the Monitor Written Case Interview.

I am a PhD candidate at XXXXXXXX. I had applied to many big and small consulting firms throughout Fall 2009, but without any success. I was not able to land any interview with ANY of the consulting firms.

I feel I deserved atleast interviews at some of the firms, but I think I am either messing up my resume very bad or there is some big that I am totally missing.

I am preparing to apply to some more consulting firms which are still hiring and I was wondering if you could just take a look at my resume and give me some comments. I am kind of very desperate at this point as I have applied to more than 20 firms without any luck whatsoever so far.

My Reply:

In general, I don't respond to "what are my chances" and "will you critique my resume" questions. BUT, I decided to in this case because the mistake this person is making in his application is very common… and it's also easy to fix.

For background, this person's resume was reasonably strong. Perfect math scores. Top 5 overseas college, Top 10 PhD program in hard science.

But his cover letter was pretty blah.

The perfect cover letter for a consulting job (or any job for that matter) is NOT A FORM LETTER!

Trust me on this one.

Every cover letter for EACH firm should be UNIQUE and different than the letters you write to other firms.

I remember reading a stack of 400 resumes from Stanford undergrads. OMG it is so freaking boring. Everybody sounds the same. You could just tell it was a copy and paste / mail merge form letter.

I've read thousands of cover letters in my career. It is torture to read them.

You must stand out.

There are a few things you can do to stand out, listed in no particular order:

1) Get your brand names into the first sentence or paragraph (You know… Harvard, your Olympic Medals, etc…:)

2) Show you did your homework about the firm (very important). Why do you want to work for THAT particular firm? What's your unique reason? How sure are you of your preferences? Why?

3) Talk to people at the firm (google: informational interviews) to see what the firm is about. Do your homework. Then in the cover letter, name names… mention the names of people in the firm you've spoken to, what they said about the firm, and why what they said got you interested in the firm.

4) Explain why you'd bit a good FIT for the firm. It's NOT good enough to be qualified. There are lots of qualified people out there. Consulting firms and employers in general like to here people who are both qualified and MOTIVATED by legitimate and sincere reasons.

This is especially true if you come from a non-traditional or non-business background. If going to consulting would be a big career shift for you, you'd better do a darn good job explaining why the shift makes sense.

Otherwise the assumption is a little bit, he/she's apply just for the heck of it. And if your background is amazing, it's possible you'll get an interview with a lousy cover letter.

Personally, I had networked like crazy to meet people in consulting before I ever applied for real. I knew them. They knew me. I KNEW I wanted to do consulting… and I think it came across.

My resume wasn't amazing. It was a B+.

Every cover letter I wrote was different from the other ones I wrote. I regularly quoted memorable things from specific people I spoke to from those firms and explained why I was impressed by them.

Even to this day, I still remember what impressed me about certain people are each firm… and what I thought it showed about the firm.

In short, I most definitely had my reasons for why I was applying and I was very deliberate in sharing those reasons. And, most importantly, my cover letters didn't look like any of the other ones.

After consulting, for every job I got after consulting, I probably averaged applying to only 2 or 3 companies for each job offer I received. I was very selective in who I wanted to work for. I did my home work. I explained my reasons in a good cover letter and more often than not got a meeting with the CEO.

Is this a lot of work?

YES!

Do most people take this much effort?

Heck no!

Why does it work?

Precisely because most people aren't willing to do the extra work to stand out.

Just received an offer at Bain & Co for the AC position. What luck to have come across your website a week before the final round!

What separates your exposition about applying frameworks to case interviews (and life really!) from all the other 'for-profit' guides is the focus on 'application' as opposed to 'framework'.

It was never made clear to me exactly why and how the 4 C's (say) become relevant to a general business situation. Your video presentations made amply clear where a particular line of questioning is supposed to take you (what purpose drives the particular analysis), which dramatically changed how I approached cases.

I want to say I'm so very grateful that all of your advice is freely available online for anyone to access. You're a real equalizer! Thank you again.

My Reply:

Congrats! Bain is a great firm and they give their AC's a lot of responsibility.

Thanks for your feedback.

I think one thing I'll point out about the case interview frameworks on my site is they are NOT primarily intended to help one pass case interviews. They are intended to help clients fix their businesses!

Many people seem to forget that point. Glad you found them useful.

I then broke it down to find out that the raw materials really depended on the price of natural gas, and oil (where I was told to not take into account the plummet in these prices after the recession). (ps, the product was the film on top of tables, cabinets etc.)

At this point I got a bit flustered, as I had found the problem but didn't know where to proceed.  If you morph into a business situation framework, which I did, I found out that the competitors were experiencing a similar trend, due to the unplanned for spike in energy costs.

My question is how would you proceed?  I figured that looking at the customer wouldn't particularly help because that wasn't where the problem was (revenues were up, profits were down) nor looking at the competitors (experiencing same problem).  I basically looked at the product (could there be alternative materials used), and the company (ways to hedge against fluctuations in commodity prices).

While I did ok in the interview, I did not make it past the round.  I wasn't expecting to, as I started jumping around at solutions after finding it was only tied to raw materials, and definitely wasn't structured that well.

My Reply:

Sounds like you do reasonably well in the first part of the case. You isolated the root cause of the client's problem which was an INDUSTRY-wide spike in energy costs.

So in this case, the business situation framework is not the best fit as that's most appropriate for analyzing the business situation for ONE business.

The right thing to look at next is to do an analysis at the industry level.

Whenever I get a number in a case situation that I want to understand, I always try to compare it to something else. My two favorite things to compare a new number against are historicals of the same number and then cross-company or cross-industry (in this case cross industry).

So if energy prices for this industry are extremely high (which is depressing industry-wide profits), I want to know how energy prices have changed over time. Have they always been high? Is it cyclical? Or is this a recent thing?

Next are energy prices for other industries equally high (making it an economy wide issue) vs. an industry specific issue.

Notice the trend of trying to find the right level of the hierarchy to analyze. (e.g., is this a firm specific problem, an industry problem, or an economy wide probelm)… as the solution will vary wildly depending on this answer.

Then I would want to analyze WHY energy prices are so high. Are they to stay high permanently, or is it just a temporary thing. If permanent, it suggest a major permanent change in cost structure for the industry (suggest possible changes in either industry capacity or prices or both) which would lead you back to either a business situation framework or the industry capacity framework… or a cyclical problem. If cyclical, then the issue is who has the most financial capital to withstand the cycle.

The other framework that would be useful here is "Porter's Five Forces". You might want to Google it to learn more. It's very useful for understanding industry dynamics and the health of an overall industry.

I never used it when I was interviewing, but have used the framework on-the-job.

The big takeaway from Porter's model is the level of supplier concentration at every level of the supply chain. So if there are only a few energy producers, but lots of competitors in one's industry… and only a few customers, then the profit of the entire supply chain gets squeeze in the industry.

The best example is the PC industry. Intel and Microsoft are suppliers to the PC industry… but they have near monopoly positions. If buyers of PC slow down demand, it disproportionaly impacts the margins of PC manufacturers but less so of Intel and Microsoft.

[My Reply in Brackets Following Each Question]
1. Is it a plus to have a summer internship with another consulting firm at CV (level of ATK, Monitor, etc.) during full-time recruiting with McKinsey? Will it help an applicant to differentiate from other candidates? Will interviewer try to find out whether this internship resulted in an offer?

[I would say, yes that's generally considered favorable sign. The interviewer might ask if you received an offer... and it would be expected that the answer is yes. If the answer is "no" that would be a concern and might be worse than not having the internship at all. It sort of begs the question of what about your on the job performance resulted in you not getting an offer.]

2. In my case I will probably have 2 internships with different firms (one standard summer MBA internship and one pre-MBA internship as Summer Associate too). Is there a risk that I will get an image of hopper who doesn't know what he wants and just like case interviews?

[I don't think that's too much of a concern. It's quite common for people who go into consulting to not know what they want to do with their careers. When you ask most consultants how long they plan to say at the firm, the answer is almost always... I'm not sure... probably at least the next year or two.]
3. Should I tell my McKinsey interviewer that I have offers from other firms? Will it make me more attractive candidate?

[Yes, you should slip it into the conversation. I wouldn't brag about it or be arrogant, but just mention it in passing. It will definitely help a little... at a minimum it's reassuring that their positive assessment of your is correct. So if Bain and BCG both extended you offers, and my assessment of you is favorable... I'm going to feel that much more comfortable arguing for your candidacy in the decision meeting following your interviews.]
4. What does McKinsey think about entrepreneurship experience of candidates? I found out that many firms are very suspicious about it, so decided to get an MBA since after it applicants are "more standard products" for top consultancies.

[I'm not sure I can give you a good answer on this one. The MBA thing DEFINITELY helps as many candidates use the mba as a transition point in their careers from say manufacturing to consulting or the military to consulting.  So if the entrepreneurship experience preceeded the MBA, I don't think that's necessarily a negative (though it may vary be individual interviewer). During the dotcom boom, there was definitely a concern that really entrepreneurial oriented people would not stay with the firm very long. In this economy, my guess is that's much less of a concern so I probably wouldn't worry too much about it since you can't really change it at this point.]

Another reason for me writing you, beside letting you know another success story, is that I found slight differences between what is available on your page (and some other pages) and what BCG is looking for in Europe. So I thought I would like to give back something more to the community beside the donation.

For clarification, this report is about inexperienced hiring practices of BCG in Eastern and Western Europe. (I had one of the 3 rounds at a W-European office). I have no formal business education, which might have affected the interviews.

Only two out of five cases were really data driven the others were absolutely qualitative. During the data driven cases I was never given segments, I always had to develop them myself. The 3 qualitative cases were very high level. In one case I only had to develop hypothesises and organize them without any data to support or contradict them.

They did not mind if I started an analysis on a wrong abstraction level (too detailed) or in a wrong direction as long as I immediately reacted when they dropped information. Many times after setting up a framework they asked me what do I expect the outcome of the analysis would be without actually doing the analysis. My guess is that they wanted to probe my common/business sense as I have no business education but have a strong story in quantitative skills.
The negative part of the detailed feedback said I should be more independent (I interpreted it as build the structure (e.g. segments) myself).

Overall my impression was that BCG in Europe is not looking for ready to go consultants (at least not among inexperienced applicants) but rather for people with high potential. They are looking more for creativity, flexibility and common sense than for predefined frameworks or getting the case right from the beginning.

They were also less keen on analytical skills, I got no estimation questions, and only 2 very simple calculations. (Though this might be due to my engineering and science background.)

I hope my experiences can be useful for others. You can of course, edit and publish this e-mail or parts of it on your page if you think it worth.

Thank you once again for the materials and great insights you share on your page.