ultimate guide

An overview on asset management interview prep for undergrads: the firms that hire, every question type with sample answers, and a worked pitch.

A one-page finance resume template with a filled sample, section rules, that will get you past the screening round.

The best lesson I know for a consulting case study comes from a cockpit. On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 hit a flock of geese at about 2,800 feet and lost thrust in both engines.

The video call opens at 10:00 a.m. The interviewer, a consultant two years out of college, reads the prompt once: a regional gym chain, flat revenue, profits down by a third.

"I just applied to McKinsey, BCG and Bain. Am I about to take three different tests, and can I study for all of them at once?" That's the question I get most often once a student hits submit on their first consulting application.

A friend of mine from college called me one March about her younger brother, Owen. He was a freshman at a big state school, he wanted investment banking, and he had spent the winter applying to every bank program with "early" or "insight" in the name.

Blackstone received 57,000 applications for 138 entry-level analyst roles in its 2025 class, an acceptance rate of about 0.2 percent, according to Yahoo Finance's report on Jon Gray's comments Undergrads who make it that far rarely lose a private equity interview on the hard LBO question.

If you want one model for hedge fund interview prep, study what David Einhorn did on May 21, 2008.

"Does anyone at a bank actually read the cover letter, or am I writing this for nobody?" A sophomore asked me that on our first call last winter, with four applications open in four browser tabs.

"I want to do consulting because I like solving problems and I want exposure to a lot of different industries."

"What is a case interview, and is it something you can actually prepare for?" That's the question, almost word for word, that a sophomore typed into a first message to WSG last fall after a Bain information session.

A sophomore I work with through WSG, call her M, called me in January with two browser tabs open.

A friend's younger brother, a junior at Michigan spending his spring semester in London, forwarded me an email last year with the subject line "Invitation to Assessment Centre."

Most technical interviews in banking are lost on accounting, not on valuation.

It's 11:40 on a Sunday night and a sophomore I work with through WSG, call him D, sends me his investment banking resume twenty minutes before a JPMorgan application closes.

"Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization." That's what a junior I was prepping for a Morgan Stanley first round said when I asked him what EBITDA was.

Consulting's best-kept secret is that the job is a lobby, not a house.

A junior came to WSG one October, call him S, after striking out of Goldman's Investment Banking Summer Analyst race, figuring his shot at the firm was over.

McKinsey's application deadline for Summer 2027 internships fell on March 29, 2026, roughly fifteen months before the internship starts.

BCG candidates have reported assessment invitations arriving 30 to 90 minutes after submitting an application, with 48 hours to complete.