Crafting Cases

  Bruno:

Imagine you were stuck in a room with two expert case coaches for 12 straight hours.

• You'd get to solve 12 MBB-level cases along with them.

• You'd see how they would solve those cases, at an expert level.

• And you'd get to learn what to do and why, from their comments, at every single step of the case.

How much would you learn from this experience?

How much easier would your case prep journey be after doing that?

How much more CLARITY would you have on what it takes to be at the level where you get multiple offers?

While most candidates are practicing with stale books, clueless candidates and generic, inch-deep "tips and tricks"...

…You'd have access to the insights, best practices and common traps that the best private coaches keep to their small circle of clients, but never share online.

You would learn all the tiny nuances that can make a candidate's performance go from "boring", "meh", and "more of the same" to "Outstanding, hire this person right away".

Clarifying questions. Note-taking. Question timing. Final recommendations. Recovering from mistakes. How (and when) to take control of the case, and when to follow your interviewer's lead.

All of these little things that do make a difference would be demystified.

And you know what's better?

You'd learn to solve cases for your own interviews at least 2X faster.

Maybe even 5X faster.

99.9% of candidates don't have access to this type of experience.

It's not easy to find GOOD coaches who'd do something like this and, even if you do…

It's just way too expensive.

(Five to ten thousand dollars, at least.)

In fact, the average case prep experience is the extreme opposite of what I've just described…

The haphazard journey of the average candidate

Here's what the case prep journey of the average candidate looks like:

First they consume a lot of content. 

Books, webinars, videos.

They spend a whole month  (and sometimes even more) consuming stuff. 

Trying to understand. Trying to find the best method, the best framework.

It's what they've done their whole lives!

PROBLEM: "I have spent all my time reading books and now only have 2 weeks to prepare."

SOLUTION: "Reschedule the interview."

People drawn to consulting tend to be more intellectual, more "cerebral" than average. 

They've excelled in school. They got the high grades. They're often went to a top 10 university or MBA program.

And so they do what they are used to do: they study.

Little do they know that cases are a practical skill. You learn it by doing.

Then, they procrastinate their first case a bit more.

Doing their first case is scary.

There's also a lot of friction involved. 

Wouldn't you also procrastinate if you had to practice ANYTHING having no idea what you're doing?

They have to find another candidate. They have to schedule. 

They have to be prepared to give the other candidate a case in return.

Of course, they need to have a good case prepared for that, but how can they? 

They've never done one before.

Beneath all these rational reasons to procrastinate is the mother of all reasons for not doing things you should: FEAR.

Fear of failing. Fear of the other candidate thinking you're untalented.

Fear that all your content consumption didn't really make you better.

(And it's true, it didn't.)

I've seen candidates spending 3-4 months procrastinating their first case. 

It's F***ing Crazy.

Finally, they find a candidate to practice with.

And here, things improve...

They fail their first case (as does everyone). 

And then they see it didn't hurt that much. They do their second, third... 

They do their tenth case.

And they're getting the hang of it.

But shortly after that, their progress stalls.

They look around and see some people still making progress. 

They can't help but compare themselves: 

"Maybe they're naturals... Maybe I'm just not cut out for this job..."

But when I take a look at the cases they've been doing, there's something off about it...

The 3 problems with traditional Mock Interviews

If you look at traditional Mock Interviews with a "skill-building method" lens, you see all sorts of problems with what 99% of candidates do.

If they were trying to learn to play a musical instrument, do calisthenics or perform surgery using those methods, they wouldn't be successful either.

There are 3 key problems with the traditional approach:

PROBLEM #1: Random order = No progression

Imagine you were trying to learn math from scratch.

But instead of following a sequence, you just tried your hand at a random math problem everyday.

One day it's a simple "solve for X" algebra problem. The other day it's an integration problem. Then geometry. Then trigonometry.

No sequence. No knowledge stacking so that you can build the foundations before you attempt the more complex problem.

It's just you doing math problem after math problem, hoping for it to "click" someday.

How long would you take to learn math?

And how much faster could you learn it if you learned it in the right order?

Well, most people learn cases in a completely random order.

But some cases are 100X more complex than others.

See these two pricing cases, for instance:

The first case is a math problem. The second, a strategy problem.

The second problem is 100X more complex than the first.

And it requires a completely different set of techniques to be solved.

The flow of the case is different. The prioritization skills are different. The skill level needed is different.

And they're both pricing cases. 

It's not a matter of case "type", it's a matter of case complexity.

Now, if you get three cases as complex as the second example for your first mock interviews, you're not gonna have a fun experience.

It's like trying to learn to solo like Van Halen or Jimi Hendrix when you pick up a guitar for the first time.

You won't just improve slower. You will not improve at all.

In all disciplines, you build skill by learning from simpler to complex.

How come with cases most people just do random practice?

Problem #2: "It's the blind leading the blind"

The second problem with the traditional mock interviewing practice is that no one knows what they're doing.

As a client has told me: "it's the blind leading the blind".

Answer from a candidate in a survey we ran -- unfortunately, this is more common than not...

Not only the cases you get are random, the feedback is also random.

Sometimes it's useful. 

Sometimes it's useless.

Sometimes it's damaging.

And sometimes it's just not prioritized.

They tell you to improve something that should be the 10th thing in your list.

(Usually this is projection -- someone told them to improve that thing in their last case, and now they tell everyone to do the same.)

Back to the "learning math" example: 

Imagine you were learning math and not only the exercises are random, the feedback you get from each exercise is random as well.

You got the right answer, but the grading sheet tells you that you got it wrong.

If you ask me, that's a pretty good way get frustrated and guarantee you'll never learn math.

Problem #3:  Mechanics vs. Principles

And there's a final problem with mock interviews.

Almost every candidate I meet who's following the traditional case prep plan wants to know about the "mechanics":

• "How long should I take to create my initial structure?"
• "How can I do math faster?"
• "What 3 clarifying questions should I always ask?"

Fair questions to ask if you're a beginner.

But what they're missing is the CONTEXT.

You can get the offer taking 5 whole minutes to build your initial structure.

You can get the offer despite being slow at math.

You can get the offer without even knowing clarifying questions were a thing.

And yes, you can get rejected while doing all the "right things" in every single case.

Your interviewers are looking for "whys", not "hows".

It does matter how you solve the case, but it matters more WHY you did each thing.

Do you get the principles of problem solving? 

What's your intention in doing this Framework slow vs. fast? In asking these clarifying questions?

When I see candidates doing mock interviews, they only focus on the mechanical aspect.

It's the only thing they know.

Everyone starts with the mechanics, but 90%+ of candidates stop there and never learn the context and the principles that are essential to get the offer

But they never look into the why.

Why am I supposed to do these things? 

In what context? 

Is there any situation where I shouldn't?

If you try to learn the mechanics without understanding the context and the principles, you'll get the mechanics wrong anyway.

The ideal way to learn to solve cases

So, how would "learning cases" be like if we applied age-old skill-building methods to it?

At Crafting Cases we swear by the "divide and conquer" strategy.

Learn the individual parts of case solving (The 6 Building Blocks) and use drills to master them, and you WILL improve much much faster than everyone else.

It's what athletes, musicians and every other skilled professional does.

But what about the "glue" that holds these individual skills together?

What about the skills to "drive the case forward"?

How do you master the flow of the case? The nuanced communication skills?

How do you handle the time pressure?

How do you learn to take control of a full case from start to finish?

Well, you do the opposite of what the average candidate does...

Instead of doing cases in random order, you LEARN cases from simple to complex.

(Each level of complexity adds new things to consider. I will explain more about this below.)

Instead of learning from candidates who give misleading feedback and outright wrong "tips", you learn from someone who knows what they're doing.

This lets you have good habits from the start.

It lets you know what things are most critical and which are "nice-to-have".

It lets you focus on what really matters.

And instead of just focusing on the mechanics, you will still learn the specific mechanics of what you should do, but in the context of the underlying principles.

To do that you should have a way to know not only what you should do, but also why you should do that.

(And when you should NOT do it.)

---

In other words, you need a way to learn cases that:

• Starts with simple and "easy" cases and works its way up (systematically) to more complex ones...
  
  

• Shows you the proper technique that actually works with real interviewers in a real interview setting...
  
  

• Explains coherently WHY and WHEN you should do the things that you're doing...

Sitting down with experienced coaches who care about your outcome would be one way of doing this.

(If they actually have a method, of course. Most don't.)

But just doing 30-50 cases "for the sake of it" will NOT guarantee any relevant improvement.

It doesn't really get you to the level of performance you need to get an offer at a top consulting firm.

Julio and I have been thinking about this problem for years:

How can we replicate the high-end coaching experience that only a handful of candidates get in a way that's practical and affordable to everyone?

Even better:

How can we replicate this experience AND include the methods, skill-building principles and detailed guidance that no single coach we've ever known has put the time and effort to integrate into their services?

And so our quest began.

We set out to create the ultimate program to learn cases better and faster than anything out there.

And this is what I want to share with you today...