About Florian Smeritschnig

The Origins of StrategyCase

I prepared for my first consulting application the way almost everyone does. I bought the well-known books, worked through Case in Point, memorized the frameworks, and drilled case after case.

I was rejected.

What I did not understand at the time was where that advice came from. The people writing the most popular case interview resources had largely never worked as consultants, or had last sat in a real interview decades earlier. They were teaching a version of the case interview that no longer existed, and I had followed it faithfully.

So I threw it out and started over. Instead of memorizing structures, I worked on the underlying skills: breaking a problem apart from first principles, forming a view with incomplete information, reading data for what it actually says, and communicating like someone who solves problems for a living rather than someone performing an interview.

I reapplied. That time I got the offer, and I spent the next five years at McKinsey, working on client problems and sitting on the other side of the recruiting process.

Building the Alternative

Everything I have made since starts from the same premise: interviews test skills, so preparation should build skills. Not template recognition, not case volume.

A case method built from the evaluation, not from the textbooks. Structuring from first principles, hypothesis-driven reasoning, data interpretation, and consultant communication, taught in the order they actually develop.

The first dedicated preparation for the McKinsey Solve assessment. When McKinsey introduced the test, nothing existed for it. I built the first resource, and it has been updated continuously since as the games have changed.

Real PEI coaching. The McKinsey Personal Experience Interview was being treated as a generic behavioral round by almost everyone. It is not, and it is scored against specific dimensions.

Firm-specific preparation beyond McKinsey. I expanded to candidate-led case interviews for BCG and Bain, recruitment tests for other firms, fit and behavioral interviews as well as application advice, networking strategies, offer negotiation and career coaching to offer a full end-to-end service for my clients.

Where Things Stand Now

I have scaled back 1:1 coaching to make room for other commitments, so most people now work with me through the courses rather than in sessions.

The free Case Interview Foundations course covers the fundamentals of case and fit interviews at no cost.

The Case Interview Academy is the complete paid program, with the full method plus thousands of practice drills.

Coaching still runs, with a limited number of clients each month.