Hacking the Case Interview

Not just failed—completely bombed it.

Let me take you back to when I was a junior at Duke, sitting in a Starbucks the week before Christmas.

While my friends were home with their families, I was grinding through my 87th practice case, convinced I was doing everything right.

I had bought every book. Case in Point. Case Interview Secrets. I had memorized every framework. I did practice cases with anyone who would sit with me.

I thought I was ready.

Then I got to my final round at Bain.

The partner gave me a case I'd never seen before: a retail client worried about sales channel cannibalization.

I froze.

None of my memorized frameworks from Case in Point fit. I tried forcing a profitability framework, but it was all wrong—I was missing major key areas.

The partner could tell I was struggling. I could see it in his face.

Then came the math round.

A manager asked me to estimate how long it would take to flood the Grand Canyon.

I didn't have the right approach for handling calculations with massive numbers. I fumbled through it, made errors, had to restart twice. It was painful to watch myself fail in real-time.

I knew I'd blown it before I even left the building.

The next day, I got the call.

I remember exactly where I was—folding laundry in my dorm room. I saw "Bain & Company" on the caller ID and my stomach dropped.

"We've decided to move forward with other candidates."

I stood there with a t-shirt in my hands, trying to sound professional while my heart sank.

That rejection crushed me.

Not just because I didn't get the offer. But because I'd worked so hard and still wasn't good enough.

I spent my entire winter break in that coffee shop. I sacrificed time with my family. I did everything the books told me to do.

And it didn't matter.

Here's what I realized later:

I wasn't practicing wrong because I was lazy. I was practicing wrong because I was following the wrong system.

I was working hard. But I was working on the wrong things.

So I decided to figure out the right things.

I talked to every McKinsey, BCG, and Bain consultant I could find. I asked them what actually mattered in interviews. I deconstructed every case I'd done and figured out where I went wrong.

I built my own system from scratch—one that actually worked for any case type and any math problem.

When I re-recruited for full-time roles in my senior year, I landed offers at Bain, BCG, Oliver Wyman, and Accenture.

Same person. Different system.

That system became this course—the exact system I wish I had back in that Starbucks.

It's the same system that's helped 3,000+ students land offers at McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and other top firms with an 82% interview-to-offer conversion rate.

You don't have to waste 100+ hours and your interview shot learning this the hard way like I did.