Strategy Simplified
Strategy Simplified is here to demystify the consulting industry and help you land your dream job in management consulting. Hosted by the expert team at Management Consulted - the world's largest resource for consulting news and interview prep - each episode covers topics related to the consulting world, from interview preparation and case study techniques to networking strategies and industry trends. Whether you're just starting your career or looking to make a transition, Strategy Simplified is the go-to resource for anyone looking to break into the consulting industry. With actionable advice, insider tips, and real-life success stories, this podcast is the ultimate guide to simplifying your career strategy and landing your dream consulting job.
Episodes
80% of AI projects fail.
Only 10 to 20% of enterprise AI pilots reach production, and 2 firms break down why.
Ugo Philippart of Emerton Data calls his firm the fire squad companies phone after an AI project has failed. Damien Chan of Adastra says over 75% of its pilots make it.
Both measure performance from day 1. Most teams wait until a system is underperforming. That gap turns a pilot into a failed project.
And if you...
Midway through a practice case, one of George Cary's clients did the math and said 90,000 when he meant 900,000. George didn't care.
After 5 years and 100+ interviews at McKinsey, George will tell you the right answer is the bare minimum.
The offer comes from how you got there and what the answer means for the client.
In this episode, he walks through the 3 case math mistakes that cost strong candidates the offer, even...
Divya spent 8 years at McKinsey. She sat down with Sanya, a senior at Penn, and ran a case with her, live.
Divya told her afterward it would've passed a McKinsey Round 1.
Listen to learn how Sanya did it – built her structure, worked the math, and landed on a recommendation.
Then Divya breaks down what worked and what she'd tighten up.
Resources:
Over half the firms in our latest consulting industry survey said demand is outpacing their ability to hire and deliver. Healthcare, energy, PE – the same story across the board.
The bottleneck is capacity. Firms can't staff fast enough to keep up with the work already in their pipeline.
And that reshapes the picture for mid-market firms getting squeezed from both sides and the candidates those firms are fightin...
Applications for the Case Competition World Cup close this Sunday, September 13, at 11:59pm PT.
More information:
This is an opportunity to get in front of top employers, including Accenture, EY-Parthenon, KPMG, Kearney, Charles River Associates, OC&C Strategy Consultants, and more.
Connect With Management...
BCG is racing to hire forward deployed engineers – and the application window closes September 17.
This year's pay range for campus hires is $110,000 to $190,000, up from $110,000 to $160,000 last year. Same job, new title, $30,000 more at the top of the range.
Big Tech has cut entry-level hiring by more than half since 2019, opening a window for BCG to hire AI talent it usually couldn't afford. That window won'...
Deloitte, PwC, IBM, and 4,500 other companies use Adobe Experience Cloud products.
And they can't find enough people who know how to implement them.
Nick Hilton, Tyler Tu, and Brian Au from Adobe's Customer Experience Certifications team named the Adobe jobs they're struggling to fill: MarTech analysts, implementation consultants, solution architects.
Langston got callbacks from McKinsey and BCG. His first instinct: 10 hours a day of studying for three weeks straight, a fast route to burnout.
He'd applied to MBB once before and gotten nothing. But this time, two interviews landed in his inbox.
Katie walked him off the cramming ledge and built a plan around the time he actually had. Three weeks is enough – if you spend it right.
Resources:
Paul Edwards has led more than 1,000 private equity deals. AI took the grunt work, and now Stax consultants are getting promoted faster.
He leads the PE practice at Grant Thornton Stax. Inside the firm, that's 3 to 4 more projects a year for every consultant.
But the one thing AI still can't do, he says, is teach curiosity. You either bring it or you don't.
That's the exact bar Stax is judging this fall in the Case Com...
Most consulting interviews let you drive the case. McKinsey doesn't.
McKinsey is one of the only firms that runs interviewer-led cases – the interviewer leads the case, not you.
So candidates who prep the way BCG or Bain expects walk in ready for the wrong format.
And the case is only half your score – the PEI (Personal Experience Interview) is the other half.
Ex-McKinsey coach Mark Di Giorgio breaks down wh...
Most candidates prep for the McKinsey PEI like a regular behavioral interview.
McKinsey built it to do more than that. One story, and up to 25 follow-up questions testing whether what you said the first time still holds.
That's why memorized answers fall apart under the PEI. Scripted stories crack under repeated follow-ups. The ones that hold up are built to survive being asked the same thing five different ways. ...
Every firm on our new 2027 Top Enterprise AI Consulting Firms ranking wants to hire the same person right now. And none of them can find them.
Namaan calls it the unicorn hire: technical enough to deploy AI, business-minded enough to define the problem, and clear enough to explain it to a non-technical client.
That's the same skill behind telling deployment from transformation, the mistake costing firms deals ri...
Last year, 500 students on 100 teams competed in the Case Competition World Cup. Before they saw the case, coach Divya – 8 years at McKinsey – taught them the first move that separates winning teams from the rest.
It's the day 1 answer: a hypothesis you lock in before you have the data, even though it feels premature. But skip it, and teams start boiling the ocean – expanding the question until ther...
A private equity firm bought a paint company. Turned out their sales reps were handing out 50% discounts to any contractor who asked nicely.
That's the kind of blind spot 3 PE leaders talk through in this episode – what actually happens once a private equity deal gets underway.
Carl Evander (OC&C), Sean McDevitt (Arthur D. Little), and Dave Clement (Simon-Kucher) break down how a deal actuall...
If your case framework doesn't pass the toothbrush test, it's too generic for McKinsey, Bain, and BCG.
Ex-Bain coach Abi Chen walks through the toothbrush test, the 3 mistakes that cost most candidates their offer, and the 4-step process to build strong frameworks.
Finally, she walks through two full framework examples – an M&A case and a pharma product launch.
Resources:
Bates White let us inside a real economic consulting case interview.
Annie Olecki, a senior consultant in Bates White's antitrust practice, ran a live case interview with a volunteer from the MC community. And economic consulting cases don't look like the strategy cases at McKinsey or Bain.
The case: a phone manufacturer suing its battery suppliers for price-fixing. The candidate has to size the damages, then revise t...
Namaan talked to dozens of PE practice leaders for our 2026 ranking. Almost every one said the same three things: 1) Cross-practice integration. 2) Strategy through execution. 3) Deep sector expertise.
Strip the logo off 7 of 10 firms and you can't tell them apart. That's the sameness problem.
And it's expensive. Sponsors stop evaluating and default to relationships, brand, and price instead.
On this episode of T...
Most 2nd-year MBA candidates have 2 to 4 weeks to get case interview-ready this cycle, not the usual 6 to 8.
More cases won't close that gap for McKinsey, Bain, and BCG.
Former Bain interviewer and LBS MBA Mitali Jalan compressed her prep into under 4 weeks and landed her offer. This session is her plan for doing it on a short runway.
The fix isn't more volume. It's knowing what to drill, and when. Listen for:
- Mital...
McKinsey screens candidates with a video game – McKinsey Solve – before they ever see a case interview. Most candidates either try to copy other people's answers or panic because they don't know what it's measuring.
So here's the breakdown: what Solve is, what McKinsey is testing for inside it, and how to approach it.
The answer isn't Solve-specific prep. It's the same problem-solving fundamentals that car...
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.
You'll learn:
- Why McKinsey calls it "...
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