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Coaching Spotlight with David Ohrvall
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Q&A: Getting the First 30 Days Right in Case Prep
Why the habits students build early can shape their entire recruiting season.
After coaching case interviews for more than 20 years, one thing I've learned is that early habits tend to stick.
Good habits accelerate improvement.
Bad habits get repeated until they're surprisingly difficult to undo.
The first 30 days aren't about becoming case-ready.
They're about building the habits that will eventually make you case-ready.
Students who get those habits right early tend to improve faster because every case builds on a stronger foundation.
Students who get them wrong can still improve, of course . . . but they may spend October trying to unlearn what they practiced in September.
So for incoming business students, my advice is straightforward:
Slow down. Learn the fundamentals. Get feedback early. And make every case count.
Q: How many cases should students complete during their first month?
A: There's no magic number. I'd rather see 8–10 thoughtful cases with good feedback than twice as many rushed cases where the student keeps repeating the same mistakes.
Before students worry about completing 10, 20, or 30 cases, they should become comfortable with the basic building blocks:
- Answering questions directly
- Organizing thoughts before speaking
- Building clear, case-specific structures
- Explaining the "why" behind an answer
- Doing basic business math accurately
A student who develops these fundamentals over five cases will usually be in a better position than someone who rushes through 20.
The objective isn't to accumulate cases. It's to improve between cases.
Also, doing a case a second time a few days later helps build case fluency.
Q: Should students memorize the standard frameworks?
A: They should understand them, but I wouldn't encourage memorization as the primary strategy.
Interviewers aren't testing whether students memorized a casebook. They're testing whether they can take an ambiguous business problem and logically break it apart.
Study how good frameworks break problems into logical, MECE categories. (This is where my Block, Break & Ask technique is super helpful.) Then practice building structures that are specific to the problem in front of you.
My advice is simple: Learn from frameworks. Don't become dependent on them.
Q: What is the biggest mistake students make early?
A: Practicing bad techniques.
If a student consistently rambles, jumps into calculations without explaining the approach, or forces every case into a memorized framework, every additional case reinforces those behaviors.
That's why early feedback is important.
Practice doesn't automatically make perfect. Practice makes habits.
Q: What should career advisors emphasize during those first few weeks?
A: I'd keep the message simple: Don't panic about volume. Focus on building excellent communication habits.
This may be the most overlooked part of early case preparation.
Students often believe they'll work on communication later, after they get better at solving cases.
I'd reverse that.
Strong candidates learn to communicate their thinking clearly while they're learning to solve the problem.
That means practicing habits like:
- Lead with the answer
- Keep explanations concise
- Signpost the structure of an answer
- Pause before speaking when necessary
- Explain what a number actually means
- Finish with a clear takeaway
These sound like small things. They're not.
When repeated for 30 days, they start becoming automatic.
And that's exactly what you want before interview season gets serious.