Customer Reviews

Case in Point:Complete Case Interview Preparation - 5th edition

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Case in Point is a must read for people who are serious about getting a consulting job.

Having said that, this book will not help you get a consulting job unless:
(a) You are already interested in business; and
(b) Have good common sense; and
(c) Are comfortable with quantitative questioning; and
(d) Have good interviewing skills; and
(e) have an impressive enough CV to get an interview.

The above does not apply if you are one of those exceptional people who will probably receive offers everywhere you go (in which case the book may still be useful nonetheless).

After reading this book I interviewed with both Bain and McKinsey (for AC and BA positions) as well as with a number of investment banks. Ultimately I received a couple of offers at investment banks, was knocked out in the second round at Bain and received an offer from McKinsey.

Surprisingly the concepts I learnt in the book helped me with my IB interviews (at places such as Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley) as once they establish the basics (ie you can do DCF and understand undergraduate finance 101) they quickly move to strategy-type questioning where people familiar with consulting frameworks have a massive advantage.

Advantages of the Book

The advantage of this book is that it gives you a number of frameworks which can be adapted to answer pure strategy questions. I am aware of no other books that give you such detailed frameworks. The book then gives you a large number of practice questions (most of them are `allegedly' based on real interviews), shows the implementation of those frameworks in candidate answers and then critiques those answers.

To give you an example of how the book worked well for me - take my Bain interview Rnd 1 - the question was Toys R Us is thinking of putting in Vet surgeries in its stores - is it a good idea or not? What should they be thinking about? I was able to draw on the Case in Point problem of a retail store looking at putting a banking outlet in its store to guide my answer. If you immediately know that the things you should be looking at are entering a new market frameworks as well as synergy analysis and the potential for cannibalisation of store space you can arrive at an answer quickly that makes you look more insightful than the average.

In one of my McK round 1 interviews I was actually told that I had hit every single point on the answer guide. Not bad considering that I hadn't thought of anything original.

Disadvantages

One disadvantage of this book are that you can become so proficient with the frameworks that you can start using a framework that the interviewer wasn't wanting. Perhaps this was my overconfidence!

To give you an example in Bain Rnd 2 I was asked about a private equity company that had bought a company and wanted to "grow the business". I immediately started using a "grow the business" framework - ie revenue enhancement model, when it actually turned out that the interviewer wanted a cut cost to boost profitability model that focussed on holding period and exit strategy.

Another disadvantage is that you never are allowed enough time to write down your proposed framework to the answer before you are required to start answering the case so you better have it all worked out in your head. A follow on problem of this is that your answer can seem "creative but unstructured". I personally found that Bain obsessed about structure but McK cared more about creativity.

Some of the frameworks also need improving as they are too esoteric (especially at an entry level). The profit equation for example that Cosentino uses in the 5th edition is (I believe) so esoteric that if I had written it down I would have been laughed at. The one he advocates in the 4th edition is superior.

The pricing section is very insightful (and interesting) but did not help me much with questions about corporate valuation (ie "we have an exploding offer in 20 minutes and need to decide whether we sell the factory for $5 million or not") where I had to fall back on what I had learned about accounting and finance in my undergraduate degree. This question arose in both Bain and McKinsey cases.

Another thing that puzzled me is whether this book is targeted at MBA level entrants or undergraduates.

Conclusion

Overall the book is excellent and if married with the online questions (which you have to buy separately) can enhance case-interviewing immeasurably. I know friends of mine who I would consider smarter than me that bombed out spectacularly because they hadn't prepared.

If you want to prepare then this is the gold standard. Successful preparation with this book will take at least 20+ hours.

It won't however get you a job unless you bring the qualities to the table that the firms are after - eg leadership, presence, good grades and business acumen.

"Case in Point" has been staple reading amongst my colleagues that want to move into consulting. It's written for MBA graduates, but it's really accessible for everyone with some business background.

The example cases are numerous and excellent, very challenging, and illustrate the type of interaction you should aim for with your interviewer. Furthermore, different structures for tackling a case are explained, and the most important points to highlight in different case scenarios are emphasised. It's too much to learn by rote, but if you have a decent sense of how business works then it's useful as a reminder of what you should be discussing.

The book proclaims that it's approach is a "system," and I suppose that if you follow the approach to the letter, as well as quickly manage to identify the type of case you are dealing with, this is true. More realistically though the "system" is 4 steps gets you through the first 5 minutes of the interview, after which I find it hard to imagine how your own personal approach and dynamic is not going to take over. This might just be me though.

General opinion amongst my peers as well is that "Case in Point" is much better than the Vault case preparation guide. I agree, it seems that the Vault guide is written for people that really don't know what's expected of them in a case interview (perhaps for a much younger audience?). If you're aiming for the top firms it's not up to scratch.

Best of luck to everyone preparing for cases, remember you are brilliant and to be yourself in the interview!

Coming from medical school, business cases were a bit intimidating and unfamiliar. Case in Point really decoded the whole process in a way that one can understand in a couple of hours. Of course, the book's practice cases are the biggest help as there is no substitute for thinking through these problems. I must say, Case Questions Interactive on the author's website was just as important in my preparation - and something must have worked because I landed an offer from McKinsey! I can't speak for those coming from a business background, but for those without much relevant experience, Case In Point is a must-have.

After my first round of interviews with BCG, I googled for more cases to practice on and ordered Case in Point 5ed. First of all, the book explains a lot of the expectations of the interviewers, and how you should prepare for the interview. This was all news to me and very useful, since nobody had explained these things to me. Having botched interviews with two management consulting companies a year earlier, I now learned why.

The IVY system is good as a starting point, but could be simplified further. The cases offered in the book are very brief, and do not reflect the nuances in a real interview - especially the lack of time to think if the interviewer stresses you on with followup instructions. Some of the case solutions are also somewhat limited.

Having said all that, I think that the book was instrumental in helping me structure my approach in follow-up interviews. After three rounds and seven interviews, I received an offer to start with the BCG as an experienced hire. The book made all the difference to me, and as it is easy and fun to read, I warmly recommend it to all those who look for a career in management consulting!

Case in Point is a decent book and offers good advice. But having worked in strat con myself, I disagree with Cosentinos methodology. I think it is too unstructured and will lead interviewees to shoot with unrefined questions during the interview. Also, the way he tackles Cases suggests that one can learn and repeat the same structure in the interview. From my experience, this is not the winning strategy. Preparation is important, but I would favor practicing a more general understanding of business frameworks.

Also, the book is solely focused on the US. If your interview is for an international office, the recruiting process will be very different. Look for local books, websites etc.

This book got me a job at Mckinsey. It provides insightful cases that make you think and be creative, it gives a detailed guideline for everyone to follow in the interviews and more importantly, it shows what you can expect in the interview process. I also interviewed with BCG (although I preferred Mckinsey) and the book served just as well. Practice a lot with this book; two weeks may not be enough to land you a job at the top consulting firms (1 /2 months is enough, though). Honestly, you may be increasing your chances of getting an offer from the company you wish by some 50% with this book!

This book helped me get the job at the #1 mgmt consulting firm !!!
Prior to this book, I had spent a lot of $$$ of various case books, none of them which seemed natural to me and were overly complex to use for real world cases.....

Case in point changed all that...I recommend the 5th edition. I read and reread through most cases a week before the big day. Cosentino's method is simple and natural and widely applicable to a variety of real world cases. This book provided me critical structuring and thinking skills that firms looks for. I received a huge confidence boost. Billion thanks to the author for this case-saver...

I am a second year MBA candidate at Columbia Business School and in the thick of interview prep. I have a stack of case prep materials and had no idea to begin. When I asked my friends who have successfuly gone through the process, i.e. they're all heading back to top consulting firms, they said I should stick to Case in Point.

They were right. Case in Point is by far the best case book out there. The book's lighthearted approach helps you dissect cases and the Ivy Case System makes breaking these problems down simple. It helps you organize your thinking to focus on the key aspects of the case- something that interviewers are definitely looking for. I've also been using CQ Interactive on CaseQuestions.com, which lets me practice even when I can't get someone to give me a case.

Case in Point does a great job highlighting things that you might take for granted but that would be really important in an interview to set you apart from the rest of the pack. If you are looking into consulting, this is where you should turn.

When I saw that Marc Cosentino's book is now available to the general public, I cheered! Mr. Cosentino's book is a systematic, thorough, intuitive and unpretentious tool for grappling with the all too over-mystified case interview.

I not only used this book for my own first foray into the business world, but I made frequent trips to the Harvard Career Services Office to buy copies for friends. These individuals ranged in all levels of experience: from Sloan MBA students, to freshly-minted grads and young professionals with a few years experience. With no exaggeration, they all moved into consulting with Mr. Cosentino's help.

Treat this book as your main go-to for case and personal interviews. All the others similarly catchy-titled books, including Ace the Case, are simply its supplements.

I recommend Case in Point for 2 main reasons: It is both practical and thorough. The simulated cases give the novice a sense for the given-and-take of a case interview. And Cosentino's "Ivy Case System" helps non-MBAs to get grounded in the broad classes of issues that companies, and hence consultants, face.

My advice: Kick-start your case interview preparation with this guide, and then check out CQI to boost your business quant and test your case-cracking skills.