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Case in Point:Complete Case Interview Preparation - 5th edition | 
| Author: Marc P. Cosentino
Publisher: Burgee Press
Category: Book
Buy New: $20.00
Rating:  48 reviews
Sales Rank: 767
Media: Paperback
Edition: 5th
Pages: 186
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6.9 x 0.7
ISBN: 0971015848
EAN: 9780971015845
Publication Date: July 20, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
Cosentino demystifies the consulting case interview. He takes you inside a typical interview by exploring the various types of case questions and he shares with you a system that will help you answer today's most sophisticated case questions.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 43 more reviews...
 Got me a job I don't deserve January 9, 2007
28 out of 29 found this review helpful
I'm a pre-med student who had little intention of going into consulting. By mostly happenchance, I landed myself into the interview room with McKinsey. The majority of my preparation was simply reading (at times re-reading) this book. It worked.
This book is a fine introduction to case studies for students relatively unfamiliar with their structure. I would be more hesitant in recommending this book for the better informed, though there is still a trove of useful information for those types as well.
The major strength of this book is not the Ivy System (or whatever fanciful name it touts). The system(s) the book presents are of secondary importance to its actual strength: the numerous simulated case interviews. The interviews are actual conversations -- and this lets you see certain strong and weak moves an interviewee makes, the types of questions and responses the interviewer with which the interviewer prods, and so on. It is tremendously more effective that simply having a case prompt -- and then a series of bullets that you should hit on.
The Bible during your case interviews February 16, 2006
17 out of 18 found this review helpful
Are you apprehensive about your upcoming case interview? You should be. You will need to think logically, quickly, and deeply under pressure. Marc Consentino's Case in Point is a bible for anyone going for consulting, case-based interviews. This should be the first book you read and work through as your prepare for your interviews. It is the most comprehensive, clearly written case prep book available (and I've seen many others). If you want to be really comprehensive, do as many practices cases (consulting company websites have interactive ones) as you can find.
After reading Case In Point, I flipped through the frameworks and ivy case system before each of my interviews. Going through the frameworks and doing some back of the envelop math the night before my interviews really helped get me in the right frame of mind. Unlike any other case-prep book, Case in Point covers almost every type of case you will encounter, takes you through how to structure your answers, and gives you tons of practice with "back-of-the-envelop" math problems. The majority of cases in the book are from real past interviews with the top firms. This latest edition greatly expands on past editions with structure maps, more math-based cases, and newer, more complex cases from recent interviews.
I used Case in Point and I have many friends who used Case In Point to prepare and then get offers with the top firms. Well worth the $20.
 The best book on the market February 6, 2006
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
I think it's the best book on the market. But this book cannot cover all. So, I recommand to read the other books which have different styles. For example, Ace Your Case or Crack The Case.
-GOOD-
1. Ivy Case System can give you a guideline. It's worth reading.
2. It explains well how to proceed - defining the problem, setting the goal and so on.
3. This book has many cases than the other books. And they are categorized.
-BAD-
1. All books on the market regard the case as a quiz on the desk. But the real case is a simulation of REAL consulting practice. For example, you may have to suggest HOW you support your hypos in real case interviews.
2. All books on the market do not emphasize the consultant's thinking process. For example, MECE and hypo-driven approach. This book also do not clearly show which issue tree the interviewee uses and how he eliminate his hypos.
3. Ivy Case System is too hard to remember. In this point, Crack The Case is better.
4. The cases are too short to see the interaction. One case is just 2~3 pages. So, it has some distance from the REAL interview. Ace Your Case is better in this point.
Best prep book that I have read December 29, 2005
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
Pros: The book is the best prep book on case interviews that I came across while I was preparing for a job in management consulting. It is very clearly written. It does not confuse or drone with much irrelevant information. Humor is a plus. Buy this book first, then worry about adding other books for extra practice.
Cons: The limitation of the book is that it is a book. For example, the cases that I faced at my interviews were more interactive where additional information (charts, figures) was presented to me when I had already made some headway into the case, and not in the beginning. This would require an interactive software (such as the interactive cases found on McKinsey, BCG, and Bain websites).
Overall: The best you can get. Even without the interactive ability, it helps you develop a way to think about a "case".
Suggestion to author: I would have also liked that the book to help develop thinking about "second-order structure" in a case, which, I realize, is very broad and depends a lot on the case itself. The first-order structure is covered in the ivy system.
Very helpful in landing a consulting job April 7, 2008
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
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.
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