How Consulting Changed My Entire Life

Jeff -

If I went with a less click-baity title, it would probably be something like this: “How preparing for management consulting interviews taught me how to problem solve effectively, and how I apply that method in everyday life”

But that wouldn’t have sounded as catchy.

I recently turned 30 and took a bit of time to reflect on the past 10 years. And honestly, the thing that had the biggest impact in how my life turned out was - as sad as it sounds - preparing for management consulting interviews.

For those of you who never had to go through a Case Interview, A typical question would go something like this:

Your client, company A is seeing their profits decline 20% year-on-year. Your job is to figure out why

The “correct” way to answer a Case Interview question like this is to follow these steps:

  1. Clarify the question and buy time to think (e.g. ”What industry is my client in?”)
  2. Ask for 1-2 minutes to structure your thoughts
  3. Break the question down into component parts (”I would break down Profits into Revenue and Costs”). Ideally these parts should be Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive (MECE)
  4. Drill down into each component but asking follow up questions around 4 key areas: Customer, Company, Product, and Competition
  5. Summarize and present your answer

(if you’re actually interested in learning more I recommend this Youtube video that goes through the basics)

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Pro tip: You can comment directly on this post if you have questions or feedback

How did this change my life?

In the short-term, going through 50+ mock case interviews helped me get a job as a management consultant at EY and also helped me land my current job at Google (tech companies generally ask questions that are resemble case interviews).

But it’s really the long-term benefits that have made me appreciate all the hours I put in back in college

As a professional working in tech, the 4 components I memorized (Customer, Company, Product, and Competition) help me with business planning and solving problems at work.

For example, if there’s a new change in the market, I can immediately fall back onto the framework and start asking questions like:

  • How will this affect our users? (Customer)
  • Are there other teams who are affected or who can help us? (Company)
  • How are our products positioned for this change? (Product)
  • What are our lovely friends over at Meta and Amazon doing about this? (Competition)

As a Youtuber in the education space who hopes to teach one day (yup, I’m serious), I use the same 4 components to identify people I am in the best position to help, prioritize the content I create, and which partnerships to explore.

For example, someone at LinkedIn recently reached out to see if I’d be open for a partnership, and my first question was “Which other creators with similar backgrounds to myself have you approached and how was the result?” (technically competition but obviously we’re not competitors).

Implications for you

Should you immediately start to read up on case interviews and consider going into consulting?

Heck no. It’s not for everyone and I left after 2 years.

Is there a framework you can (almost) always fall back on when you are faced with uncertainty and a seemingly unsolve-able problem in life or at work?

Yea. Break the problem down into component pieces, find the root cause, and work from there.

Have a great rest of day and let me know in the comments if you have any follow up questions!