Investment Banking Interview Questions by Stage (HireVue to Superday)

What investment banking interview questions actually test

Accounting, valuation, M&A, and fit all appear. Treating every prompt as a line to memorise makes follow-up questions harder. Interviewers may ask what changes if an asset is debt-financed or if depreciation is not the only movement. Understanding the links lets you explain the new scenario instead of trying to recall another script.

Use a theme checklist if it helps you see gaps. Then practise out loud with interruptions. For a week-by-week plan built around the well-known 400-question list, see our 400 investment banking interview questions study guide. Pair it with our investment banking interview technical questions guide for depth, not another identical flashcard deck.

How the interview process is actually structured

Most programmes still follow a recognisable funnel, even when banks rename the stages. After the CV screen and online tests (numerical, verbal, or situational judgement, covered in our psychometric test guide), you typically hit a HireVue or video round of three to six recorded questions, heavy on fit and commercial awareness with light technicals mixed in.

From there, many banks add a live technical or first-round call, often with an analyst or associate rather than a senior banker. Our phone interview guide covers what that screen is really checking for. A second round, where it exists, pushes deeper follow-ups and starts cross-checking consistency against what you said earlier. Our second round interview guide walks through that stage. The final gate is a superday or assessment centre: several back-to-back interviews, sometimes with group exercises, case studies, or retests layered in.

UK and US firms often use different names for final rounds. What Americans call a superday may be branded an assessment centre in London. An assessment centre can be broader than a day of thirty-minute interviews, with group tasks, individual case studies, or e-tray inbox simulations. Our superday investment banking guide covers interview-heavy final rounds. Our assessment centre tips guide covers the group and case-study format. The e-tray exercise guide covers prioritisation separately.

Each stage contributes to the decision. In a final round, interviewers may compare notes across sessions, so keep your motivation and examples consistent while answering the question in front of you.

Sample investment banking interview questions by stage

The wording changes by bank and interviewer, but the following original examples show how the emphasis usually develops. Use them to practise explaining your reasoning, not to predict an exact script.

HireVue and behavioural questions

1. Why investment banking, and why does that choice make sense from your CV?
2. Tell me about a time you had to improve work after receiving difficult feedback.
3. Describe a team disagreement. What did you do, and what would you change now?
4. Why this bank and this division rather than another finance role?
5. Choose a recent transaction or market event. Why should this team care about it?

For recorded answers, lead with the direct answer and then support it with one specific example. A concise response with clear evidence is usually more useful than a long history of your interest in finance.

Accounting questions

1. Walk me through a $10 increase in depreciation using a 25% tax rate.
2. A company buys $100 of equipment with cash. What changes at purchase, and what changes over time?
3. Why can a profitable company run out of cash?
4. How does an inventory write-down move through the three statements?
5. If accounts receivable rises by $20, what happens to cash flow and why?

Expect follow-ups that change the tax rate, financing source, or timing. State assumptions before you calculate and keep track of whether each movement affects income, cash, assets, liabilities, or equity.

Valuation questions

1. When would you trust trading comparables more than a DCF?
2. Walk from enterprise value to equity value and explain each adjustment.
3. What happens to a DCF if WACC rises by 1 percentage point?
4. Why might two companies with similar revenue trade at different EBITDA multiples?
5. How would you value a company with negative EBITDA but improving unit economics?

These questions test judgement as well as definitions. Name the method you would use, explain why it fits the company, and identify the assumption most likely to change your conclusion.

M&A and commercial questions

1. Why might a strategic buyer pay more than a private equity fund for the same target?
2. What makes a transaction accretive or dilutive to the buyer's EPS?
3. Choose a recent deal. What was the buyer trying to achieve, and what could prevent the thesis from working?
4. How would higher interest rates affect acquisition financing and buyer appetite?
5. A client receives two bids at the same price. What non-price factors should the board compare?

Commercial answers should connect the event to clients, valuation, financing, or activity in a sector. Avoid stopping at a headline summary.

Superday follow-up questions

1. You said you prefer M&A. Which part of the process interests you, and what evidence supports that?
2. Your DCF gives a value above the trading range. Which assumptions would you challenge first?
3. What would change your view on the deal you discussed earlier?
4. Your teammate disagrees with your recommendation five minutes before a client meeting. How do you respond?
5. Explain the same technical answer without finance terminology, as if speaking to a founder.

Final-round follow-ups often build on your first answer. Pause, identify the new information, and update your reasoning openly rather than defending the original answer at all costs.

Which questions out of the 400 actually matter

The PDF list people search for is a theme bank, not a transcript of what you will be asked. Candidates slice it wrong in two ways: they try to memorise all of it, or they skip it entirely and hope a clean CV is enough. The useful approach is to study it as a map and check it against how far along you are.

Start with the questions you will definitely meet. The first ten minutes of any round normally cover why banking, why this firm, a walk through your CV, a recent deal or market event, and a commercial awareness prompt. Nail those in thirty-second and two-minute versions before you touch a valuation follow-up.

Then tier the technicals by likelihood for your division. Accounting linkages and a basic valuation walkthrough appear everywhere. LBO math matters more for sponsor and PE-linked desks, accretion and dilution for M&A teams, brainteasers and probabilities for markets roles. The list's depth is useful only when your prep time maps to the stage and division you actually applied to.

If a PDF is how you like to study, treat it as a checklist, not a script. Read the famous 400 set as a study guide, mark the questions you can answer aloud without notes, and re-test only the ones you stumble on. Recitation fails on follow-ups; recognition of the theme plus practice aloud is what survives an interviewer who changes the scenario.

Technicals: why they connect instead of sitting in separate boxes

The mistake most self-study makes is treating technicals as a stack of unrelated flashcards. In a good interview they talk to each other. A DCF assumption leans on an accounting fact. A merger question leans on a valuation call.

Accounting and three-statement linkage remains a common technical topic. The aim is to walk a change through all three statements clearly and explain each link.

Take the classic prompt, "walk me through a $10 depreciation increase." Assume a 25% tax rate, no other changes, and that the tax benefit can be used immediately. On the income statement, depreciation expense rises by $10, pre-tax income falls by $10, taxes fall by $2.50, and net income falls by $7.50.

On the cash flow statement, start with net income down $7.50 and add back the $10 non-cash depreciation expense, so cash rises by $2.50. On the balance sheet, cash rises by $2.50 and PP&E falls by $10, leaving total assets down $7.50. Retained earnings falls by $7.50, so the balance sheet balances. The $2.50 cash increase is the depreciation tax shield.

Interviewers then twist the scenario. What if the asset is financed with debt? What if inventory writes up? The real test is whether you can reason forward when one variable changes. If you need definitions while you practise, use the finance glossary alongside tracing the linkages yourself.

Valuation questions ask you to explain, not recite: which cash flows you discount, why WACC matters, what drives terminal value, and when a DCF misleads you. Trading comps reflect current sentiment when true peers exist. Precedent transactions carry a control premium and suit M&A contexts better.

Our valuation interview questions guide covers comps, precedents, and the EV-to-equity bridge. Strong candidates pick the right tool and sanity-check out loud. "That implied multiple feels high because…" is a sentence interviewers want to hear.

M&A and markets questions often start conceptual before they get quantitative: accretion or dilution intuition, why synergies matter, why a strategic buyer sometimes pays more than a financial sponsor. Our investment banking technical interview questions guide covers accounting, valuation, and M&A prompts when interviewers interrupt mid-answer.

Our accretion dilution guide covers EPS accretion on its own. When interviewers push into sponsor maths, the paper LBO interview guide covers the mental-model approach. HireVue sometimes asks definition-level technicals. Superday technicals more often ask you to apply a concept to a mini case.

Behaviourals: not filler, and not a script either

Behavioural questions can decide offers when candidates have similar technical ability. Use STAR (situation, task, action, result) as scaffolding rather than a script. Build four to six examples that cover leadership, a setback, conflict, why banking, and ambiguity under a deadline.

The UK-specific pressure test is the airport test: would an interviewer want to be stuck at an airport with you at eleven at night? Calibration is social as much as technical. Arrogance or Wikipedia recitation loses the room faster than a missed tax shield.

Our airport test finance interview guide covers that fit dimension. Our behavioural questions guide has STAR frameworks across teamwork, setbacks, leadership, and conflict. Prepare a thirty-second and a two-minute version of each story. HireVue rewards brevity. A superday partner may deliberately push for detail.

HireVue and superday, back to back

HireVue is an async filter, not the final exam. Expect three to six questions, roughly one to three minutes of prep per answer, and sometimes one optional retake, though not every bank allows it. Question types mix fit, market awareness ("tell me about a recent deal"), light technicals, situational judgement, and the occasional brainteaser.

Look at the camera rather than your notes. Glancing down reads as evasive. Answer the question first and add context after. Bankers watching are time-poor even on video. Keep two deal talking points you genuinely understand, covering rationale, valuation angle, and sector read-through. Our walk me through a deal guide structures full walkthroughs. Record yourself before the real thing. Most candidates dislike how they sound, and that discomfort is worth having before a bank sees it, not after.

For commercial awareness specifically, structure your answer as what happened, why it matters, then the second-order effect on a sector or deal type. Our commercial awareness guide covers that framework without slipping into headline recitation. For a full playbook on camera and pacing, see our HireVue finance interview tips guide.

Superday and assessment centre rounds are harder because interviewers probe the edges of your HireVue answers. They also check consistency across five or six conversations in one day.

Expect "why banking" repeated on purpose so answers can be compared. Applied technicals often arrive as a live scenario ("a client is acquiring X, how would you think about value?"). Division-specific depth separates M&A from markets from ECM. In group tasks, contribute without dominating. Assessors watch whether you listen as much as whether you talk.

Memorising a giant question list verbatim falls apart the moment a follow-up breaks the script. A different "why banking" story each round gets caught at calibration. Ignoring the quiet person in a group task gets scored against you. Cramming technicals only after the invite arrives leaves you short on stamina. Run at least one complete mock: four to six sessions back to back, before the real one.

Sequencing your prep against where you actually are

HireVue and superday need different preparation. Tie revision to where each live application sits rather than running one fixed syllabus.

A realistic four-week baseline, longer if you have it: week one is accounting linkages daily plus drafting six STAR stories. Week two is valuation and M&A concepts plus recording two HireVue-style answers a day. Week three is applied cases and mental maths plus reading deal news with second-order notes. Week four is a full mock superday, fixing whichever stories felt weakest, and bank-specific "why us" research.

If several applications are moving at once, keeping each bank and stage together can make the next study priority clearer. Finbound can organise company-, division-, and stage-specific tasks around the applications you add.

Investment banking interview questions reward clarity under pressure, not encyclopaedic memory. Learn the frameworks, practise out loud, and align your prep with the stage you are actually in, not the stage you hope to reach in three weeks.

What to do after reading this

Mapping technicals and behaviourals across HireVue and superday? Use a theme checklist if you need one, then practise interrupted answers out loud by stage. For the PDF-style list as a study bank, go to the 400 investment banking interview questions study guide.

Next reads: IB technicals, HireVue tips, and behavioural questions. If you are choosing between divisions, read equity research vs investment banking before you over-index on M&A technicals alone.