ChannelPulse
Consulting cases
A case interview looks like a business puzzle and is scored like a structured-thinking exam. This track takes the round apart step by step — the seven phases and what each one is actually collecting, issue trees and why MECE is a property of arithmetic rather than a slogan, mental math you can do out loud without a calculator, the four case archetypes that cover most of what gets asked, and the fit questions McKinsey scores separately from the case.
Nobody is graded on getting the "right" answer, because most cases do not have one. They are graded on whether a stranger could follow your logic, whether your arithmetic survives a sanity check, and whether the last sixty seconds contain a decision instead of a summary.
The method
Three lessons that cover the machinery every case runs on, regardless of industry or question type. What the seven phases of a case are and how long each one gets; how to build a structure that is genuinely exhaustive rather than merely tidy; and how to do the arithmetic out loud, accurately, with a pen.
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What a case interview actually tests
A case is seven phases with a rough clock on each, and almost every avoidable failure is a timing failure — four minutes of clarifying questions, a framework nobody could follow, or a recommendation that arrives as the interviewer is closing their notebook. This lesson is the structure, the minutes, and what each phase is collecting. Free -
2
Issue trees, and what MECE actually means
MECE gets taught as a slogan and applied as a vibe. It is neither. This lesson builds structures the way practitioners actually do it — starting from an equation, because equations cannot have gaps or overlaps, and only reaching for topic buckets when the problem stops being numerical. Free -
3
Case math without a calculator
Quantitative work is 30–50% of case time and the place a single arithmetic slip does the most damage. This lesson is the nine formulas that cover almost every case, the shortcuts that make them doable with a pen, how much accuracy each shortcut actually costs, and the four-step way to say a calculation out loud so the interviewer can catch your mistake before it compounds. Free
The case archetypes
Four question types cover the large majority of what actually gets asked — why profit fell, how big a market is, whether to enter one, and whether to buy a company. Each lesson takes one archetype apart into the tree you draw, the arithmetic you run, and the two or three places candidates reliably lose the case.
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Profitability — why the number moved
The most common case type by a wide margin, and the one where a good tree does most of the work. Profit is an equation, so the diagnosis is mechanical — find which term moved and by how much — and the interesting part is what candidates skip: sales mix, which can drag a margin down while every price, volume and cost stays put. 26 min · app -
2
Market sizing, and deciding whether to enter
Sizing questions have no data in them, which is the point — you are being watched build a number out of assumptions you can defend. This lesson covers the five-step sizing method, top-down against bottom-up, the replacement-cycle trick for durable goods, and then the entry decision that a market size exists to serve. 25 min · app -
3
Mergers, acquisitions and price
A deal case is a valuation question wearing a strategy costume. The structure is stable — why buy at all, is this target any good, what are the synergies worth, what could go wrong, and what is the most you would pay — and the arithmetic at the end is what decides it, because most acquisitions destroy value by overpaying for synergies that never arrive. 26 min · app
Fit, synthesis and closing
The analysis is only half of what gets scored. This module covers the three parts of a consulting round that sit outside the math — the recommendation you deliver at the end of the case, the McKinsey Personal Experience Interview and its ten-to-twenty-five follow-up questions, and the fit questions that open and close every round.
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Synthesis and the final recommendation
Nearly every case ends with "so what should the client do?" The answer has a fixed shape — conclusion first, then exactly three reasons, then risks and next steps as an add-on — and the most common way to fail it is to give four reasons, or to lead with the reasoning and make the interviewer wait for the point. 22 min · app -
2
The McKinsey PEI
A twenty-five-minute behavioural interview that asks one question and then follows it with ten to twenty-five probes on the same story. Depth, not breadth — which is why a rehearsed answer that works everywhere else falls apart here, and why the preparation is a story bank rather than a script. 24 min · app -
3
Why consulting, why us, and closing the round
The question you are guaranteed to be asked, that almost nobody prepares, and that senior partners keep asking in final rounds even though they know you have already answered it three times. It is a structure test disguised as small talk — and the questions you ask at the end are part of the same segment. 23 min · app
Work through it with feedback
Reading the pattern is step one. The app runs you through it — editable code cells, the question bank, and a mock loop that grades your answer.
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