Land Multiple Consulting Offers
Complete, step-by-step case interview course.
30,000+ happy customers.
Where can I find MBA Consulting Casebooks?
Below, you will find links to download MBA consulting casebooks from 23 different business schools. These casebooks will provide you with over 700 practice cases that you can use to hone your case interview skills. These cases are a great supplement to the practice cases that consulting firms provide.
The year indicates when the consulting casebook was published. Some consulting clubs publish a new casebook each year while others may use the same casebook for multiple years. Therefore, even the older casebooks can still contain valuable practice cases.
If you’re looking for a step-by-step shortcut to learn case interviews quickly, enroll in our case interview course. These insider strategies from a former Bain interviewer helped 30,000+ land consulting offers while saving hundreds of hours of prep time.
Consulting casebooks are documents that MBA consulting clubs put together to help their members prepare for consulting case interviews. Consulting casebooks provide some case interview strategies and tips, but they mostly contain case interview practice cases.
While consulting casebooks contain tons of practice cases, there is quite a bit of variety in the sources and formats of these cases.
Some practice cases are taken from actual consulting interviews given by consulting firms. These are the best types of cases to practice with because they closely simulate the length and difficulty of an actual case interview. Other practice cases may be written by the consulting club’s officers. These cases are less realistic, but can still offer great practice.
The formats of the practice cases in consulting casebooks also vary significantly.
Some practice cases are written in a question and answer format. This type of format makes it easy to practice the case by yourself, without a case partner. Other practices cases are written in a dialogue format. These cases are better for practicing with a case interview partner.
How you should use consulting casebooks depends on whether you are practicing cases by yourself or practicing cases with a case partner.
Practicing Cases by Yourself
If you are trying to practice cases by yourself, you will need to find cases that are written in a question and answer format. Only in this format can you read the question, answer it, and then move onto the next question without getting any case spoilers.
To practice cases by yourself, read the case background. Then, summarize the case information out loud, verify the objective to yourself, and then ask clarifying questions out loud.
You likely won’t be able to answer any questions that you have by yourself, but talking to yourself out loud is good practice because it simulates what you would do in a real case interview.
Afterwards, take a few minutes to write out your case interview framework. Treat this like a real case interview, so don’t give yourself unlimited time to think about how you would structure your approach. When you have your framework written out, talk through it like you are explaining it to an interviewer.
Next, move onto the first case question. For each case question, talk through your thinking out loud as if you were in a real interview. If there is math involved, make sure you talk through your calculations out loud.
Once you have finished answering each case question, provide your final recommendation out loud. Make sure to suggest potential next steps.
Now that you have finished the case, you can review your answers and compare them to the sample answers. Try to identify areas of improvement or things that you could have done better.
For a comprehensive guide on how to practice case interviews by yourself, without a case partner, read this article.
Practicing Cases with a Case Partner
If you are practicing with a case partner, decide who is going to be giving the case and who is going to be receiving the case.
If you are giving the case, read the entire case information carefully. It may be helpful to read through everything twice so that you are familiar with all of the information and can answer any question that your partner asks you to clarify.
As the person giving the case, you need to be the case expert.
You should become familiar with the overall direction of the case. In other words, you should know what the major questions of the case are and what the major areas of investigation are. This will help you run the mock case interview more smoothly.
Depending on whether you want the case interview to be interviewer-led or candidate-led, you will need to decide how much you want to steer the direction of the case.
If your partner gets stuck and is taking a long time, you may need to step in and provide suggestions or hints. If your partner is proceeding down a wrong direction, you will need to direct them towards the right direction.
In general, MBA consulting casebooks are great resources because they are free and provide tons of practice cases to hone your case interview skills. However, there are several caveats that you should be aware of.
1. Similarity to Real Case Interviews
Some cases in MBA consulting casebooks are not representative of actual case interviews because they are written by consulting club officers instead of interviewers from consulting firms.
For example, some cases may be too short or too long in length. Some cases could also be too technical or may require you to have specialized knowledge. If you come across a case that is way too complicated or way too simple, keep in mind that the case may not be representative of an actual case interview.
2. Quality of Sample Answers
While consulting casebooks provide sample solutions, these answers are often not the best or highest quality answers. If you use the answers in casebooks as your benchmark for what a great answer looks like, you may not be learning the best way to answer case interview questions.
3. Ease of Use
Consulting casebooks are all written in different formats and by different people. Therefore, it can be challenging to find cases that you can consistently use to practice cases by yourself or with a partner.
Case information may be written in an unorganized way. The main questions of the case may be hidden in the case background information or in the answers. You’ll have to learn the best way to read and digest each case in each casebook.
Recommended Consulting Interview Resources
Here are the resources we recommend to land your dream consulting job:
For help landing consulting interviews
For help passing case interviews
For help passing consulting behavioral & fit interviews