Whatever You Do, Don’t Miss This ONE KEY CONCEPT
Guys, Girls, quick story here today. How did I succeed in my studies? The answer is a good parable on how to succeed at the case interview. As you already know, I studied law as a background and when you study law, you’ve got these huge exams and you have to figure out the right answers to these questions and these cases. So, I looked at this and I saw people studying for these huge exams for two years and failing, and I asked myself, why? Why is this? I knew these guys were smart, so why are they failing? And in my preparation for the exams, I came across this template of solutions that you could buy and look up and it would tell you what to write. This is when I figured out something that changed my whole perception of this exam-taking thing.
I started to understand how they grade these exams. In a legal exam, first, you get points for structuring it. You have to say, okay, here’s a claim of such-and-such which applies to this or that section of the law. And then you have to say, okay, these are the things that are required by the law for this to apply. And then you have to come up with the answer. I started to understand that points were given for just citing the different legal provisions that could apply. I figured out that in fact more than half of the points which were required to pass were given for citing the reason and structuring this, and I realized that I don’t have to come up with “the right answer” to pass the exam.
It was enough to actually just cite the possible legal basis. I knew, of course, that we had access to a legal textbook in the exam, so you could always look up the paragraphs. So, I figured out that scoring at least 50% was pretty easy to achieve, so I could focus on presenting an argument. My point is, I had figured out how to pass the exam, and that totally relaxed me. So, if you want to pass an exam or any other challenge like that, you first have to understand how these things are graded and what they are looking for. The case interview is very much the same. You can pass while not even solving the case, but instead by structuring it the right way and coming up with what could be possible answers and a way of getting there.
In fact, with my first interview, I completely messed up the case. I did not arrive at a decent answer, but he still liked it, because I showed him my way of thinking. My message here is that there are a lot of these things that you need to understand and learn that are outside of the realms of pure intelligence. You need to understand the rules of the game and you need to understand what is required in the CV, in the cover letter, in the interview, in the past. When people ask me, how did you manage to achieve at the top one percent of your law class, I always tell them that I didn’t study law, I studied exam tactics, and this is what you should do here as well. You need to study “Get a Job at McKinsey, BCG, Bain” tactics, and there are so many fine points to be learned here.
Systems, tactics, approaches — they’re not hard to learn, but most of you aren’t looking for them in the right place, which is right here in the pages of this book and on my Facebook page. Most of you just say, you know it’s so hard to get in there, I’ll never get a job there. Or maybe you say, I’ll just try it and throw my CV in the way it is and maybe they’ll think I’m great. No, they’re not going to think you’re great, because 99% of the CVs I see here suck. You haven’t studied the tactics, so study the tactics and find out what is required and how you win this specific game. Don’t act as if you’re running onto a soccer field and all you have to do is kick the ball as hard as you can in any direction. It doesn’t work like that. You need to understand where the goal is, and how to get the ball into the goal.
Don’t know where to get started on your path into McKinsey, BCG, Bain?
Here are the simple steps:
Step 1: SURROUND YOURSELF WITH A GROUP OF LIKEMINDED PEOPLE THAT HELP EACH OTHER ON THE WAY
Join https://www.facebook.com/groups/get.a.job.at.McKinsey.BCG.Bain/for THE place to get insider information on how to make it into Consulting; free training, live coaching sessions, success secrets, insider knowledge, and an overdose of motivation
Step 2: (if you are not yet invited to the interview) GET THE FREE TRAINING ON HOW TO WRITE A RESUME THAT GETS YOU INVITED TO THE INTERVIEW
In this free webinar, you learn how to make the firms chase you, tell your story in a way that excites recruiters and how to tick all the right boxes! https://moritzgruber.net/cv
Step 3: JOIN A PROGRAM THAT GUIDES YOU ALONG THE WAY TO YOUR DREAM JOB
Did you know that there is a specific way to write your CV that makes the top firms invite you to interviews? The secret is to change your CV from “a table of contents of your life” to “the best marketing document you have ever written”. I teach this here https://moritzgruber.net/impress-mbb-recruiters
Step 4: UNCOVER THE SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL CANDIDATES AND LEARN HOW TO ACT CONVINCINGLY IN THE CASE INTERVIEW
Do you want to be like so many of my students who come back successfully and tell me: “Moritz, actually it was totally easy. I just applied what you told me”. How does that work? Well, differently than 99% of other sources make you believe. You don’t need more business knowledge. You need confidence in your actions, clarity on what they expect, and the scripts that always work (no matter the question). This, I teach here: https://moritzgruber.net/mint
In my podcast I share key insights on how to make it into a top global consulting firm:
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