Consulting Track

Management Consulting Interview Prep

The case interview is a performance skill, not a body of knowledge. It is learned through repetition with a partner, and the parts that decide it are the first three minutes and the last two.

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1,000+ candidates coached into top-tier firms

What We Cover

Building a structure for the problem in front of you, rather than reciting a framework everyone has heard

The case types that recur: profitability, market entry, growth, pricing, acquisitions, cost and operations

Market sizing and estimation, the most improvable component and the one most often left late

Case maths out loud: percentages, magnitudes, breakeven, and the sanity check that catches a dropped zero

Reading an exhibit for its message rather than describing it

Hypothesis-led analysis, and knowing when to abandon a branch

The recommendation: answer first, reasons, risk, next step, in ninety seconds

The personal experience interview, where one story is probed for twenty minutes

Digital assessments and game-based screens, which now make the first cut

Written cases and group exercises, where the candidate who talks most reliably scores worst

Common Consulting Interview Questions

Our client is a supermarket chain whose profits fell 15% last year. What is going on?

A pharmaceutical company is considering entering the Brazilian market. Should it?

How many electric vehicle charging points does the United Kingdom need by 2035?

A manufacturer must take 20% out of its cost base within eighteen months. Where do you start?

Our client is pricing a new medical device with no direct competitor. How should they price it?

Tell me about a time you led a team where you had no formal authority.

Describe a situation where you changed someone’s mind. What did you try first?

Why consulting, and what do you expect to dislike about it?

These are real questions asked in consulting interviews. Our coaching covers how to structure and deliver winning answers.

What Top Firms Look For

Structure specific to the problem, with three or four branches that do not overlap and do not leave a gap

Arithmetic done out loud, at reasonable speed, with the answer interpreted rather than merely produced

Business judgement: noticing the thing that matters, and recommending something a client could act on

Communication a client would be comfortable with, including signposting and listening

Personal impact, drawn from the behavioural half and from how you handle being challenged mid-case

A Day in the Life: Consulting

Engagements run six to twelve weeks with a team of three to six. A junior consultant spends the week on analysis, interviews with client staff and outside experts, research, and building the document that carries the recommendation. The rhythm is consistent: problem definition and hypothesis in the first week, data gathering and the slow discovery that the hypothesis was partly wrong in the middle, then synthesis and the recommendation at the end, with a great deal of thought given to how it will be received by people who did not commission it. Slides are a real share of the week, because the document is the product.

How to Break Into Consulting

Start case practice before you apply, not after. A first round can follow an application within two weeks, and preparation takes six to eight weeks

Do twenty to thirty live cases with a partner, alternating who gives and who receives. Giving a case teaches you what an interviewer can see

Drill market sizing and mental arithmetic daily and separately, because they fail independently of case structure

Treat the internship as the main door: conversion to a graduate offer is high, so much of the class is filled before direct applications are read

Apply across the market rather than top-down. Big Four practices, technology and implementation firms, boutiques and economic consultancies recruit in volume and on different timelines

Prepare three real stories in genuine detail. The personal experience interview breaks rehearsed answers in about ninety seconds

Guides for this track

The written material behind the coaching, free to read.

What Management Consulting Actually Is10 min read The Consulting Industry: How It Is Structured and How It Earns10 min read The Consulting Firms, and How They Differ10 min read The Consulting Career Path, Analyst to Partner10 min read Consulting Recruiting: The Cycle and How to Run It10 min read The Consulting CV and Cover Letter9 min read The Consulting Interview Process, Round by Round10 min read Consulting Fit Questions and the Personal Experience Interview10 min read

All 14 guides for this track

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to prepare for case interviews?

Six to eight weeks of real work, most of it live practice with a partner rather than reading. Twenty to thirty cases is the usual number to become comfortable, with returns falling sharply beyond about fifty. Market sizing and mental arithmetic need separate daily drills, because they fail independently of case structure.

Do I need a business degree for consulting?

No. Firms hire humanities students, scientists, engineers, lawyers and career changers. The screen looks for analytical capability, achievement, working with people and enough polish that a client would take you seriously, and any subject can provide that evidence. An unusual background is worth naming explicitly rather than hoping it is inferred.

Is the case or the fit interview more important?

The case decides whether you can do the work and the fit interview resolves most marginal calls. At firms running a structured personal experience interview the behavioural half is close to half the assessment, which is why candidates rejected after a case that went well have usually lost it in the first fifteen minutes.

How does consulting compare with banking for a graduate?

Hours are better and differently shaped, pay at entry is close and usually slightly below banking once the bonus is counted, and the work is broader and shallower. Consulting teaches problem structuring across industries; banking teaches transactions and modelling in depth. Both feed private equity and corporate strategy, by different doors.

This week in your target role

Open NewsViz

“Tell me about something happening in this market” is coming in some form. Pick one story, read the source, and have a view on it.

Your Coach: Surojit Chakraverti

Citigroup · Rothschild & Co · Hedge Fund CIO

Surojit is a hedge fund CIO (Third Wave Capital, previously Redline) and former investment banker who worked at Citigroup and Rothschild — with his core deal experience in M&A at Citi and Rothschild. He has personally coached over 1,000 candidates into roles at Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, KKR, Google, McKinsey, and dozens of other top-tier firms.

Every consulting coaching session is tailored to your specific targets, timeline, and experience level. No generic advice, just the insider knowledge that separates offers from rejections.

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Coached by Surojit Chakraverti — Citi, Rothschild, Third Wave Capital

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Tell me when Consulting roles open

Most of these assess on a rolling basis, so the fortnight after applications open is worth more than the deadline printed at the end of it. We watch the boards daily and email you the day one goes live.

One email when applications open, plus a short weekly round-up in season. Free, and you can leave at any point.