Most candidates treat a free consulting toolkit as a shopping cart. They open eight tabs, save three PDFs, and call it prep. From the interviewer's chair, that produces nothing I can score. I built CoachNed's week-one kit so you would leave the week with artifacts, not a fuller downloads folder: a resume with numbers, a dead-or-alive firm list, a PEI bank, one tree, one sizing sheet, one scored case, and one drill. The page is public at /resources/consulting-toolkit-bundle. It is written out on the site, not a zip. After this article you will have a seven-day sequence with hour caps and a binary "done" check for each day.
Demand for this kind of work keeps rising. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects management-analyst employment to grow 9 percent from 2024 to 2034, with about 98,100 openings a year on average. That is not a reason to panic. It is a reason to stop decorating your desktop and start producing the eight things the kit actually contains.
What is in the kit (and what is not)
Ned built the kit for week one of serious prep. Eight pieces, in order. Nothing else belongs in the first seven days.
| # | Piece | Target time | "Done" looks like |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Resume + cover letter | 90 min | Three bullets with a real number; one office line that is not tourism; one free grade |
| 2 | Application tracker | 15 min | Five firms you would accept; two killed; deadlines on the rest |
| 3 | PEI bank | 45 min | Twelve one-liners; two stories you could tell at dinner |
| 4 | Profitability tree | 20 min | Revenue vs cost first split; one branch sized enough to matter |
| 5 | Market-sizing sheet | 15 min | Equation, 3–5 assumptions, 1–2 sig figs, one sanity check |
| 6 | First scored case | ~45–60 min | A completed scored case, not a skimmed prompt |
| 7 | First drill | 25 min | One skill family only (structure or math) |
| 8 | Sunday tracker ritual | 20 min | Deadlines updated; next week's single risk named |
If you skip item 6, you did not use the toolkit. You collected stationery.
Firms are blunt about what the room tests. McKinsey's interviewing page says most client-facing candidates face a personal experience interview and then a problem-solving interview, and it asks you to prepare detailed personal examples with your specific role and the actions that mattered. BCG's case-interview prep page says the case is a realistic business challenge where structure, questions, data, quick math, and clear communication matter more than one "right" answer. The kit mirrors that split: PEI bank and behavioral depth on one side, tree, sizing, scored case, and drill on the other.
The seven-day plan
Budget about seven focused hours across the week. That is not a recruiting season. It is enough to know whether you have a packet and a first score, or only optimism.
Day 1 — Resume and letter (90 minutes)
Open the resume and letter pages linked from the toolkit. Rewrite three bullets so each contains a number a partner would believe (revenue, cost, headcount, conversion, cycle time). Write one cover-letter sentence that names an office and a reason that is not "vibrant city." Then run the resume grader once.
Done when: three numbered bullets exist, the office line exists, and you have one grader pass. Stop at 90 minutes even if the wording still feels imperfect. Polish is week-three work.
Day 2 — Tracker (30 minutes, including buffer)
Add five firms you would actually join. Kill two. Put a deadline on every survivor. Wharton's 2025 career report shows consulting took 28.2 percent of accepted full-time offers for the Class of 2025, with a $190,000 median base. That share is why "I'll apply everywhere later" is a poor plan: the calendar fills before your tracker does.
Done when: the list has five live rows, two explicit kills, and dates you can see without opening email.
Day 3 — PEI bank (60 minutes)
Fill twelve one-liners in the PEI workbook linked from the toolkit. Expand only two into dinner-length stories (role, decision, friction, outcome). McKinsey asks you to come ready with personal examples in depth; I stop listening when the story is a slogan ("I am a leader") with no decision I can probe.
Done when: twelve one-liners are written and two stories survive a "would I tell this to a stranger over pasta" test. Do not memorize scripts. Probe readiness beats polish.
Day 4 — Profitability tree (45 minutes)
Steal the kit's default tree, then customize it to a fictional client you invent for the day. Decision: why is profit down, or how do we grow it. First question: revenue or cost. Second: which branch is large enough to care. If 80 percent of the swing is mix, mix appears in the first 20 seconds.
Then run a learning case (BrightTrail is linked from the toolkit) to force the tree into sentences, not a memorized diagram.
Done when: you can draw the tree from memory in under two minutes and you have finished the learning case once.
Day 5 — Market-sizing sheet (30 minutes)
Write the five-step sheet on paper until it is boring: define the market unit, write the equation, list three to five defendable assumptions, multiply with one or two significant figures, sanity-check against a company or GDP share you know.
Worked, short, original: refrigerated meal kits in Denmark. Roughly 2.7 million households. Assume 18 percent ever buy kits, 40 percent of those buy monthly, average basket €45. That is about 2.7m × 0.18 × 0.40 × 12 × €45 ≈ €105m annual spend. A national grocer's meal-kit line at €20–30m revenue would be a believable share. Stop. The point is the method, not the decimal.
Done when: one paper sizing exists with equation, assumptions, answer, and a one-line sanity check.
Day 6 — First scored case (60 minutes)
This is the day the kit either becomes prep or remains stationery. Take the safest first scored case (EV Charging Guided) or the live-room version (CopperCup Voice) from the toolkit links. Sit for the full run. Read the scores. Write three bullets: what leaked, what held, what you will drill tomorrow.
Done when: you have a completed scored case and a three-bullet debrief. Skimming the prompt does not count.
Day 7 — One drill family and the tracker ritual (45 minutes)
Pick structure if your tree was a slogan. Pick math if the equation showed up late. Twenty-five minutes on one family. Then twenty minutes on the tracker: move deadlines, kill one more firm if needed, name the single risk for next week (packet, PEI depth, or case score).
Done when: one drill family is finished and the tracker names next week's risk in one sentence.
Hour budget you can reproduce
| Day | Focus | Hours | Artifact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | Resume + letter + grade | 1.5 | Numbered bullets, office line, grader note |
| Tue | Tracker | 0.5 | Five firms, two kills, deadlines |
| Wed | PEI bank | 1.0 | Twelve one-liners, two dinner stories |
| Thu | Tree + learning case | 0.75 | Custom tree, finished learning case |
| Fri | Market-sizing sheet | 0.5 | Paper equation + sanity check |
| Sat | Scored case | 1.0 | Score sheet + three-bullet debrief |
| Sun | Drill + ritual | 0.75 | One drill family + next-week risk |
| Total | ~6.0 | Eight kit pieces, none decorative |
Six hours is my estimate for a first pass. If Day 6 runs long, protect it; steal from Day 5 polish, not from the scored case.
Worked example: Priya's Monday-to-Sunday ledger
Priya is four weeks from first deadlines. She blocks the hours above on a calendar, not a to-do app she ignores.
Monday she rewrites three bullets: "Cut onboarding cycle time from 21 to 14 days for 120 hires" is fine; "improved onboarding" is not. Tuesday she lists McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Deloitte S&O, and Strategy&, kills two stretch offices she would decline, and dates the rest. Wednesday she writes twelve PEI one-liners and expands a conflict story and a drive story. Thursday she customizes the profit tree for a fictional regional bakery chain and finishes the learning case. Friday she sizes meal kits in Denmark on paper. Saturday she completes EV Charging Guided and writes: "Structure held; math slow on mix; synthesis soft." Sunday she drills math for 25 minutes and writes on the tracker: "Next week risk = math under time."
By Sunday night she has six hours of proof. A peer who "downloaded the toolkit" on Monday and opened nothing until Friday has zero hours of proof. In a typical first-round slate of eight, I can usually tell which camp someone is in within the first five minutes of the PEI and the first structure of the case.
Ned's rule. If you cannot name the artifact the hour produced, the hour did not count. Reading is not an artifact. A scored case, a numbered bullet, a killed firm, and a dinner-length PEI story are.
Practice this week on CoachNed
Open the week-one toolkit and run Days 1–7 in order. If you want the shortest first case rep before you commit an hour, use /start for three typed turns with instant scores. For the live-room version after Day 6, use /interview (CopperCup, about 18 minutes, seven-score debrief). For PEI pressure after Day 3, use /behavioral. Everything is open for seven days, no card; then $120 for a recruiting season or $49 a month.
CoachNed is independent and is not affiliated with McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Deloitte, or any firm named above.
Frequently asked questions
Is CoachNed's consulting toolkit a downloadable zip?
No. It is a public page at /resources/consulting-toolkit-bundle: resume, letter, tracker, PEI bank, profitability tree, market-sizing sheet, first scored case, and first drill, written out with the links attached. Ned built it that way so the sequence is the product, not a file dump.
How many hours is week one supposed to take?
About six focused hours across seven days if you respect the caps in the table above. Stretch Day 6 if needed. Do not stretch Day 1 into a resume redesign that steals Saturday's scored case.
What if my interview is already scheduled next week?
Compress. Day 1 becomes a 45-minute packet check, Days 2–3 become one PEI evening, and Days 4–7 become tree, sizing, scored case, and drill. Skip networking templates until after the round. The kit is a sequence, not a mandatory calendar.
Do I need all eight pieces before I open a case?
You need the tree and the sizing sheet before the scored case, or the case will teach you nothing you can name. Resume and tracker can slip a day if interviews are already booked. The scored case cannot slip if you want the week to count.
Is a free toolkit enough to get an offer?
No. It is enough to leave week one with a packet and a first score. Offers come from volume, feedback, and firm-specific rounds after that. The kit's job is to stop you from spending week one collecting PDFs.
Sources
- Management Analysts — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook — 9% projected employment growth 2024–34 and ~98,100 annual openings. Checked 2026-09-24.
- Interviewing at McKinsey — PEI plus problem-solving interview structure and guidance to prepare detailed personal examples. Checked 2026-09-24.
- BCG Case Interview Preparation — official description of the case as a realistic business challenge where reasoning quality matters. Checked 2026-09-24.
- Wharton MBA 2025 Career Report (PDF) — consulting at 28.2% of accepted offers and $190,000 median base for the Class of 2025. Checked 2026-09-24.