Strategy Simplified

Send us Fan Mail Bain interviews have different rules, and Abi Chen spent 6 years at the firm learning them from the inside. As a former Bain manager and now an MC coach, she interviewed candidates and helped decide who got an invite. So she knows where strong candidates lose ground. In this episode, she walks through 4 of those mistakes – and what to do instead so you can get your offer. Resources: Practicing cases but can’t tell what’s holding you back? See how Black Belt coaching works – 1...

Send us Fan Mail Almost every large consulting firm has a healthcare practice. Far fewer have a healthcare position. In this episode of The Briefing, Namaan breaks down our 2027 healthcare consulting research. The big finding is that healthcare consulting splits into two sides, care delivery and life sciences, and a firm that’s excellent at one is often absent from the other. So the question for any practice leader is which side your firm has built a position on. McKinsey, BCG, and Bain take ...

Send us Fan Mail "I need to start prepping for the online assessment now, because it's the hardest part of getting an interview." Katie hears some version of this on her calls all the time, and it's easy to see why. The test can feel like a weird game you have no way to practice for, and it's the first thing standing between your application and an interview. So in our first episode of Case Busters, Katie puts it to the test. Should you really be grinding practice tests months before you appl...

Send us Fan Mail In most cases, your interviewer already knows how they'll score you by the time you reach the closing. But when it's a close one, the closing is the tiebreaker, and it can rescue your score. Namaan breaks down the 3 parts of a closing that works: the recap, the recommendation, and the risks and next steps. Practice it in every case, so the closing is ready to rescue your score when you need it. Resources: Start my free Case Foundations course – it covers all 5 core components...

Send us Fan Mail Big 4 interviews are around the corner – and most candidates need 6–8 weeks of prep to be ready. Mitali Jalan spent years at Deloitte and Bain, then coached 400+ candidates. She sees one gap sink strong applicants again and again: they practice 1-on-1 cases and never practice the other formats the Big 4 use. Think group cases, written cases, presentations, and AI-assisted or Excel cases. And behavioral prep matters just as much – at some firms, it carries equal weight to...

Send us Fan Mail 80% of AI projects fail. Only 10 to 20% of enterprise AI pilots reach production, and 2 firms break down why. Ugo Philippart of Emerton Data calls his firm the fire squad companies phone after an AI project has failed. Damien Chan of Adastra says over 75% of its pilots make it. Both measure performance from day 1. Most teams wait until a system is underperforming. That gap turns a pilot into a failed project. And if you want a career in consulting, this is what the work looks...

Send us Fan Mail Midway through a practice case, one of George Cary's clients did the math and said 90,000 when he meant 900,000. George didn't care. After 5 years and 100+ interviews at McKinsey, George will tell you the right answer is the bare minimum. The offer comes from how you got there and what the answer means for the client. In this episode, he walks through the 3 case math mistakes that cost strong candidates the offer, even with the math right. If case math is the part you dread, ...

Send us Fan Mail Divya spent 8 years at McKinsey. She sat down with Sanya, a senior at Penn, and ran a case with her, live. Divya told her afterward it would've passed a McKinsey Round 1. Listen to learn how Sanya did it – built her structure, worked the math, and landed on a recommendation. Then Divya breaks down what worked and what she'd tighten up. Resources: Bates White is hiring undergrad summer consultants for 2027 and economists for PhD candidates – apply hereWant thi...

Send us Fan Mail Over half the firms in our latest consulting industry survey said demand is outpacing their ability to hire and deliver. Healthcare, energy, PE – the same story across the board. The bottleneck is capacity. Firms can't staff fast enough to keep up with the work already in their pipeline. And that reshapes the picture for mid-market firms getting squeezed from both sides and the candidates those firms are fighting over. We cover: Why buyers want the full economics of AI before...

Send us Fan Mail Applications for the Case Competition World Cup close this Sunday, September 13, at 11:59pm PT. APPLY NOW More information: Undergraduate Track, presented by Grant Thornton StaxGraduate Track, presented by AdobeThis is an opportunity to get in front of top employers, including Accenture, EY-Parthenon, KPMG, Kearney, Charles River Associates, OC&C Strategy Consultants, and more. Connect With Management Consulted Create a free MC account or download the MC app (Apple,...

Send us Fan Mail BCG is racing to hire forward deployed engineers – and the application window closes September 17. This year's pay range for campus hires is $110,000 to $190,000, up from $110,000 to $160,000 last year. Same job, new title, $30,000 more at the top of the range. Big Tech has cut entry-level hiring by more than half since 2019, opening a window for BCG to hire AI talent it usually couldn't afford. That window won't stay open forever. But BCG isn't the only firm racing through i...

Send us Fan Mail Deloitte, PwC, IBM, and 4,500 other companies use Adobe Experience Cloud products. And they can't find enough people who know how to implement them. Nick Hilton, Tyler Tu, and Brian Au from Adobe's Customer Experience Certifications team named the Adobe jobs they're struggling to fill: MarTech analysts, implementation consultants, solution architects. None of them require a technical degree – what they require is proof you can use the tools. That's what Adobe is puttin...

Send us Fan Mail Langston got callbacks from McKinsey and BCG. His first instinct: 10 hours a day of studying for three weeks straight, a fast route to burnout. He'd applied to MBB once before and gotten nothing. But this time, two interviews landed in his inbox. Katie walked him off the cramming ledge and built a plan around the time he actually had. Three weeks is enough – if you spend it right. Resources: If your interview is in 3 weeks (or 3 days), Black Belt builds your plan around the t...

Send us Fan Mail Paul Edwards has led more than 1,000 private equity deals. AI took the grunt work, and now Stax consultants are getting promoted faster. He leads the PE practice at Grant Thornton Stax. Inside the firm, that's 3 to 4 more projects a year for every consultant. But the one thing AI still can't do, he says, is teach curiosity. You either bring it or you don't. That's the exact bar Stax is judging this fall in the Case Competition World Cup Undergraduate Track – free to enter, te...

Send us Fan Mail Most consulting interviews let you drive the case. McKinsey doesn't. McKinsey is one of the only firms that runs interviewer-led cases – the interviewer leads the case, not you. So candidates who prep the way BCG or Bain expects walk in ready for the wrong format. And the case is only half your score – the PEI (Personal Experience Interview) is the other half. Ex-McKinsey coach Mark Di Giorgio breaks down why the interviewer-led format catches strong candidates off guard, how...

Send us Fan Mail Most candidates prep for the McKinsey PEI like a regular behavioral interview. McKinsey built it to do more than that. One story, and up to 25 follow-up questions testing whether what you said the first time still holds. That's why memorized answers fall apart under the PEI. Scripted stories crack under repeated follow-ups. The ones that hold up are built to survive being asked the same thing five different ways. In this episode, Namaan breaks down the four traits McKin...

Send us Fan Mail Every firm on our new 2027 Top Enterprise AI Consulting Firms ranking wants to hire the same person right now. And none of them can find them. Namaan calls it the unicorn hire: technical enough to deploy AI, business-minded enough to define the problem, and clear enough to explain it to a non-technical client. That's the same skill behind telling deployment from transformation, the mistake costing firms deals right now. The people who can spot that difference are the on...

Send us Fan Mail Last year, 500 students on 100 teams competed in the Case Competition World Cup. Before they saw the case, coach Divya – 8 years at McKinsey – taught them the first move that separates winning teams from the rest. It's the day 1 answer: a hypothesis you lock in before you have the data, even though it feels premature. But skip it, and teams start boiling the ocean – expanding the question until there's no path left to a real recommendation. This fall, the competition returns ...

Send us Fan Mail A private equity firm bought a paint company. Turned out their sales reps were handing out 50% discounts to any contractor who asked nicely. That's the kind of blind spot 3 PE leaders talk through in this episode – what actually happens once a private equity deal gets underway. Carl Evander (OC&C), Sean McDevitt (Arthur D. Little), and Dave Clement (Simon-Kucher) break down how a deal actually gets picked, checked out, and sold for a profit. You'll learn: Why the numbe...

Send us Fan Mail If your case framework doesn't pass the toothbrush test, it's too generic for McKinsey, Bain, and BCG. Ex-Bain coach Abi Chen walks through the toothbrush test, the 3 mistakes that cost most candidates their offer, and the 4-step process to build strong frameworks. Finally, she walks through two full framework examples – an M&A case and a pharma product launch. Resources: If your frameworks keep failing the toothbrush test, Black Belt is how you fix the processWant to bui...

Send us Fan Mail Bates White let us inside a real economic consulting case interview. Annie Olecki, a senior consultant in Bates White's antitrust practice, ran a live case interview with a volunteer from the MC community. And economic consulting cases don't look like the strategy cases at McKinsey or Bain. The case: a phone manufacturer suing its battery suppliers for price-fixing. The candidate has to size the damages, then revise the number - twice - as new evidence shifts the picture. Tha...

Send us Fan Mail Namaan talked to dozens of PE practice leaders for our 2026 ranking. Almost every one said the same three things: 1) Cross-practice integration. 2) Strategy through execution. 3) Deep sector expertise. Strip the logo off 7 of 10 firms and you can't tell them apart. That's the sameness problem. And it's expensive. Sponsors stop evaluating and default to relationships, brand, and price instead. On this episode of The Briefing, Namaan breaks down what the standout firms di...

Send us Fan Mail Most 2nd-year MBA candidates have 2 to 4 weeks to get case interview-ready this cycle, not the usual 6 to 8. More cases won't close that gap for McKinsey, Bain, and BCG. Former Bain interviewer and LBS MBA Mitali Jalan compressed her prep into under 4 weeks and landed her offer. This session is her plan for doing it on a short runway. The fix isn't more volume. It's knowing what to drill, and when. Listen for: Mitali's 4-step sequence for compressing 6 to 8 weeks of prep into...

Send us Fan Mail McKinsey screens candidates with a video game – McKinsey Solve – before they ever see a case interview. Most candidates either try to copy other people's answers or panic because they don't know what it's measuring. So here's the breakdown: what Solve is, what McKinsey is testing for inside it, and how to approach it. The answer isn't Solve-specific prep. It's the same problem-solving fundamentals that carry you through the entire McKinsey recruiting process. We cover: What t...

Send us Fan Mail George Cary spent five years as a McKinsey EM. In this live case, he coaches candidate Harvey through a real McKinsey market entry study: should a diesel truck manufacturer build and sell electric trucks. Harvey builds a framework, runs the full cost-of-ownership math, and lands a final recommendation. George pauses after every section to break down good vs. great in real time. You'll learn: Why McKinsey calls it "problem solving," not casing – and the vocabulary that signals...

Send us Fan Mail Sharon had everything going for her. Top-tier MBA. MBB interview invites across the board. She'd done 50–60 cases – but didn't make it past a single first round. What held her back wasn't her profile. It was her approach. So she came back the next year when the stakes were even higher. This time, she did it differently – and landed McKinsey and Bain. Katie breaks down what shifted and what re-recruiters (and first-timers who want to avoid the same trap) can take from Sh...

Send us Fan Mail "Any other objectives?" sounds polite. But in a case interview opening, it costs you points. Namaan breaks down the 3 questions that kill candidates in the first 2 minutes of a case. The case opening is the first section that gets scored. And it's nearly identical every single time. So if there's one part of the case you can walk in ready for, it's this one. Get the opening right, and the rest of the case gets easier. Resources: If you struggle with case openings, Black Belt ...

Send us Fan Mail You can nail every case you practice and still get rejected. That's because firms aren't grading you on vibes. McKinsey scores you piece by piece – opening, structure, math, brainstorming, closing. Other firms use 3 buckets instead: structure, problem solving, communication. Either way, a 4 out of 4 in math won't save a 1 out of 4 in brainstorming. Firms want you solid across the board. In this episode, Namaan breaks down exactly what's being scored – and why doing 100 more p...

Send us Fan Mail McKinsey is making 12% more hires this year than last. But the jobs aren't going to the same profile of candidate. Energy and utilities is projected to grow 11% in 2026 – one of the least sexy practices in consulting, and one of the hottest right now. Healthcare, private equity, and consumer/retail are all shifting too. If you're aiming at the wrong sector or the wrong skill set, you're competing for the smallest slice of the market. Namaan breaks down where the hiring is con...

Send us Fan Mail Consumer and retail consulting used to be one market. Now it's 4. Each lane pulls a different lever – growth, margin, or talent. Firms that used to compete on "we do consumer and retail" are getting picked apart by specialists who can prove which lever they actually move. In this episode of The Briefing, Japheth sits down with Namaan to break down the 4 lanes reshaping a $70B market, why AI stopped being enough on its own, and why private equity's longer hold periods are turn...

Send us Fan Mail Building business judgment is learnable – most candidates just go about it the wrong way. Tauseef Charanya spent 10 years at BCG, conducted over 300 case interviews, and coached hundreds of candidates through the process. In this episode, he explains what business acumen actually looks like in a case interview, why work experience alone doesn't build it, and the 4 layers you need to hit to get an offer. Resources: If you're ready to work on your business acumen with an ...

Send us Fan Mail Using AI for case prep? For most candidates, it's costing them the offer. McKinsey and Bain are already grading how you use AI in interviews this cycle. Most candidates ask AI for answers, skip the hypothesis, and accept whatever it hands back. That skips the exact skill firms are testing: how you think through a problem, not just the answer you get to. In this episode, Namaan breaks down the 3 AI case prep mistakes, and the right way to use it like a directed junior analyst ...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is presented by Bates White, one of the world's top economic consulting firms. If you're an undergraduate rising junior (Class of 2028), Bates White internship applications open in August. Learn more. Consulting firms are moving towards non-traditional cases. They want to see if you can think, not just if you've memorized a framework. This one is a BCG-style case built around two universities launching a joint degree from zero. Ex-BCG coach Yusuf Shai...

Send us Fan Mail Everyone assumes AI is eating consulting alive – demand shrinking, firms pulling back. That's the narrative. The data from our July Consulting Market Outlook says something else entirely. In this episode of The Briefing, Japheth sits down with Namaan to unpack what's actually happening in the market right now. Demand is up. The bottleneck isn't leads or RFPs – it's delivery. And that changes who's winning in the second half of 2026, for firms and for candidates. W...

Send us Fan Mail BCG's HireQuotient Online Assessment is the Online Case – same test, new platform. Katie – MC's Black Belt Advisor and ex-BCG – breaks down what's on it, how it's scored, and the thing that fails candidates outright. We walk through a live demo so you can see the mechanics before BCG sends you the real thing. Finish in time, prioritize fast, rule things out. And when you get to the final video rec – you get one shot. Whatever's recorded when the clock hits zero goes to BCG. R...

Send us Fan Mail The consumer and retail consulting market is fragmenting. Specialists are winning deals that used to go to the big firms – and the clients driving that shift aren't going back. 2 partners from this year's Top Consumer & Retail Consulting Firms ranking break it down. Keith Fogerty from Advancy and Shikha Jain from Simon-Kucher share what's actually happening in the market – revenue growth pressure, AI's real role, private equity's tightening standards, and why a pret...

Send us Fan Mail Bruno had every disadvantage on paper: international student, non-target school, three internships that didn't add up to one clear story. He didn't let it hold him back, landing a full-time offer at BCG. In this episode of Recruiting Reality Check, Katie – MC's Black Belt Advisor – breaks down what got Bruno there. Spoiler: it wasn't more cases. It was a plan he stuck to even when it felt too "boring" to work. Turns out, unsexy habits get results. We cover: Why stacking...

Send us Fan Mail Every McKinsey interviewee last year got at least 1 non-traditional case. Most candidates are still only prepping for standard business cases. Namaan breaks down what's actually different about case interviews in 2026, and it's not just the case types. McKinsey is piloting an AI-enabled interview round. Bain's also adding one this summer. The bar on communication and presence just went up too, because AI raised the floor on sounding prepared – but sounding ready isn't t...

Send us Fan Mail Energy consulting grew in line with the market for a decade. Flat. Unremarkable. Nobody paid attention. That changed. The market's now projected to grow 11% in 2026, and leverage for candidates with ops or technical backgrounds is higher than at any point in recent history. In this episode of The Briefing, Japheth sits down with Namaan to break down what's driving the boom. Spoiler: it's not just the data center buildout you've been reading about. Whether you're hunting...

Send us Fan Mail The reality of MBB recruiting: 100 candidates apply. 15 get an interview. 1 gets the offer. Most of the 99 who don't get it aren't underqualified. They just had a bad plan. Kabreya Ghaderi, who coached hundreds of candidates and spent time at McKinsey, PwC, and Bridgespan, sees strong candidates still miss because their prep plan has a hole in it they can't see from the inside. In this episode, Kabreya walks through the 4 gaps that sink even candidates who are doing everythin...

Send us Fan Mail Ish Mawla ran a BCG case in front of a live audience. Real candidate, real pressure. The case: a solar company in an emerging market watching its revenue fall while the broader market keeps growing. Aditya has to figure out why – and what to do about it. Then Ish breaks down the whole thing – what Aditya did well and where he left points on the table. Here's what stood out: Why your framework can work against you – and the one thing most candidates build in that they shouldn'...

Send us Fan Mail 5 people just landed offers at McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Deloitte, and L.E.K. We got them all in one room and asked them the same question: what actually worked? The real stuff – how many cases they did, how they networked, what they wish they'd done differently, and the misconceptions that almost cost them. Aisha did 50 cases her first recruiting cycle and didn't get the offer. She did 25 the second time and got it. That contrast says more than any framework guide will. You'll le...

Send us Fan Mail Mitali Jalan was told she couldn't break into consulting as a chartered accountant. She was told it was unlikely she'd land Bain as an international MBA student. She got the offers anyway. She worked at Deloitte India and Bain London, then sat on the other side of the table as a Bain interviewer. She's coached over 350 candidates and knows where people lose the offer. The thing she kept seeing? Candidates who spent weeks on case prep, walked in technically ready, and still di...

Send us Fan Mail Every week we hear the same question from candidates: Is AI going to gut consulting before I can break in? Short answer: No. Longer answer: The model is changing fast, and you need to know what's shifting and what isn't. Arda Ecevit spent over 13 years at Deloitte, Strategy&, and Bain before co-founding NexStrat AI. He sat down with Namaan to talk about what AI is doing to consulting – and the parts of the job it can't touch. What AI is taking off the junior consultant's ...

Send us Fan Mail Walter applied to consulting out of undergrad and didn't get an offer. Went into investment banking, got another shot a year and a half later, and still wasn't ready – too busy, not focused enough, cramming at the last minute. So he quit his job to recruit full time. That's an extreme version of the lesson, but the lesson applies to anyone working full time while trying to break in: you have less time than you think. Consulting firms aren't running a six-month hiring cy...

Send us Fan Mail BCG interviews typically start 3–4 weeks after the application deadline – and deadlines are here. Tauseef Charanya spent 10 years at BCG – half consulting, half building AI products globally. He's done 300+ interviews and has seen strong candidates miss offers for the same reasons, over and over. In this episode, he breaks down the 3 mistakes that hurt otherwise solid BCG candidates, why doing more cases without feedback makes you worse, and the 4-step system that gets ...

Send us Fan Mail Most new consultants walk in with work style blind spots they can't see – and their managers notice before they do. In this episode, Namaan – COO of Management Consulted – breaks down his framework for owning your first 90 days in consulting: how to identify your blind spots, read your manager, and carry yourself like someone who's been doing this for years. You'll learn: What your manager actually cares about (hint: it's not how hard you work)The 3 work styles that get consu...

Send us Fan Mail Energy consulting is growing 11% this year – the fastest-growing sector in consulting. AI data centers are eating power faster than the grid can supply, the energy transition is still underway, and nobody has a clean answer for how to do both at once. 3 insiders from MC's 2026 energy ranking join the show: Sean Jump (dss+), Charlie Sorensen (BearingPoint), and Michael Einstein (Simon-Kucher). You'll learn: Why clients are asking for things now they weren't 2 years agoHow ener...

Send us Fan Mail Maile Dyer reviewed 400+ resumes as a Bain Manager. She was on the recruiting team, making the decisions on who got interviews. And she kept seeing the same 3 mistakes: structure, content, and formatting. Most candidates miss at least one. A lot of them miss all 3 — and they never find out why they never heard back. In this episode, Maile breaks down each mistake and tells you exactly how to fix it. Katie Neff joins to tie it back to your full recruiting strategy. You'll lear...

Send us Fan Mail BCG just updated its Consulting Career Assessment (CCA) and most candidates approach it the wrong way. In this episode, Katie – ex-BCG, Black Belt Advisor at Management Consulted – breaks down the revamped CCA across each section, so you know what to expect. What most candidates miss: this isn't just a math test. BCG is measuring who you are and whether you are consistent in your answers. You'll learn: Why consistency in the working style sections matters more than picking th...