Strategy Simplified

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. Yo...

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...

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 on...

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 so...

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 s...

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 resha...

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...

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, Namaa...

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 BC...

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 – i...

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. An...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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: W...

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 off...

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 off...

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...

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 t...

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 ca...

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...

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 Einstei...

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 exa...