Financial Analysis interview preparation

The three statements, working capital, ratios, forecasting, variance analysis, costing, capital budgeting, valuation and the modelling and Excel work that fills the day, plus the fit questions about why this seat. Every question is either traced to a named firm from a public candidate report, or tagged at desk level when we could not trace it — we do not invent attributions.

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Question bank

100 questions, mapped to the firms that asked them

Questions
100
Traced to a firm
42
Firms
28
Updated
September 2026
Asked at
All firmsMoody's7Bain Capital3State Street3Ares Management2BlackRock2D.E. Shaw2Morgan Stanley2Oaktree Capital Management2S&P Global2Bridgewater Associates1Citadel1Franklin Templeton1Golub Capital1Harris Williams1Houlihan Lokey1J.P. Morgan1Jane Street1Marshall Wace1Millennium Management1Morningstar1PIMCO1Sycamore Partners1Truist Securities1Two Sigma1Vanguard1Wellington Management1Wells Fargo Securities1Wolverine Trading1
Topic
All topicsThree statements9Accounting policy and standards5Working capital and cash7Ratio analysis8Forecasting and budgeting9Variance and management reporting7Unit economics and costing8Capital budgeting7Cost of capital and valuation7Markets and rates5Modelling, Excel and data8Business partnering6Brainteasers and estimation4Fit and career10
Level
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Type
AnyTechnicalCaseBrainteaserMarket viewFit
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  1. 094What accounting classes have you taken, and why did you choose your major rather than finance if you are interested in markets?Fit and careerIntermediatefirst roundMarshall WaceFinance · Chicago · 2017

    Say this

    Answer the coursework question concretely, then turn the major question into an advantage rather than an apology. The subtext is whether you are technically prepared and whether your interest is genuine or recent.

    Then walk it

    1. Name the courses and what they covered, not just titles. Financial accounting through to consolidation, cost and management accounting including standard costing and variance analysis, corporate finance, and if relevant taxation and audit. Specifics settle the technical doubt immediately.
    2. If the coursework is thin, say what you did instead and be concrete: a CFA level, a CA intermediate, a modelling course you finished, and the fact that you have built a three-statement model from a published annual report.
    3. Then reframe the major. An engineering, economics, statistics or mathematics background is an asset in FP&A, and the honest version is: the degree gave me the quantitative and problem-structuring side, and I closed the accounting gap deliberately. Then prove the closing with evidence.
    4. Give the origin story for the finance interest, with a date and a trigger. An internship, a family business you helped with the numbers for, a portfolio you actually run, a college finance society you did real work in. A trigger makes it credible; enthusiasm alone does not.
    5. Then connect it to the seat. 'The statistics background is why I gravitate to the forecasting and analytics side of finance rather than the pure reporting side' is an answer that makes the major a reason to hire you.
    6. What not to do: apologise, blame the university's course structure, or claim you have always been passionate about finance since you were twelve. Interviewers discount all three.

    Where candidates lose it

    Being defensive about a non-finance major. The question is an invitation, not an attack. List real coursework or real self-study with evidence, then argue that the other discipline is an advantage in this specific seat.

    Expect next

    • Have you built a three-statement model from scratch?
    • What is the most useful thing your major taught you for this job?
    • Are you studying for any professional exams?

    Reported by candidates at Marshall Wace (Finance, Chicago, 2017). Source: Wall Street Oasis.

Firm tags come from public, anonymous candidate reports on Wall Street Oasis: strong signal, not sworn testimony. Firms are named as the places a question was reported, not as partners of Fin Maverick. Answers are written for this page to show how to think out loud; they are not scripts to recite.