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Demystifying the Case Interview Workshop This document provides the basics that you need to know on case interviews. It covers three fundamental varieties of case questions and provides keys to success.

The Harvard Business School Management Consulting Group Case Interview Guide

The Tuck University Guide to Case Interviews  This guide provides information on how to prepare for and approach case interviews using strategic tools and frameworks.  Several examples from various fields including economics, finance and accounting, and market analysis are presented.

Preparing for your Case Interview from the consulting firm A.T. Kearny

The Cornell University Case Book Great resource on how to approach the case interview from a consulting perspective. The case book contains several example cases so you can practice.

For an overview of the credit crisis timeline, see this wikipedia entry on the Subprime Crisis Impact Timeline.

The New York Times has a very nice overview of the financial crisis which it updates continously. There are also several links to related stories on their page on the Credit Crisis.

Portfolio Magazine has a highly informative and entertaining article “The End” by Michael Lewis, author of Liar’s Poker, Moneyball and others. In the article, Mr. Lewis describes his interviews with Meredith Whitney of Oppenheimer Funds to find out who saw the financial crisis coming, how they knew and what they did about it. He ends up interviewing Steve Eisman, who explains how the ratings agencies looked the other way when structurers were putting BBB and worse loans into CDOs that were eventually rated AAA, and comes face to face with his former CEO, John Gutfreund. Fascinating reading.

The website The Baseline Scenario, by Professor Simon Johnson who was formerly with the IMF, provides an introduction to the credit crisis, with links to a section on “Financial Crisis for Beginners”. His free seminar series at MIT Real Time Deep Dive into the Global Crisis as it Evolves is available from his page, or see it here

Michael Lewis’ books on amazon.com:

Liars Poker

MoneyBall: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

The NY Times has a nice collection of articles about the credit crisis entitled Credit Crisis — The Essentials. On this page, you will be able to follow the developments from the origins of the crisis through the bank failures and seizures to the latest updates. There is a Credit Crisis Navigator, which is a list of documents and reports from various sources that the editors have compiled for more in-depth background.

 One book that seems very timely right now is FIASCO:  The Inside Story of a Wall Street Trader by Frank Partnoy.  I am reading it right now, and the author details how derivative transactions were structured to obtain AAA ratings from the ratings agencies that they didn’t otherwise deserve.  It really foreshadows the CDO meltdown.