Financial Analysis interview preparation

Questions

100

Traced to a firm

42

Firms

28

Updated

September 2026

Asked at

All firmsMoody's7Bain Capital3SSState Street3AMAres Management2BLBlackRock2DED.E. Shaw2MSMorgan Stanley2Oaktree Capital Management2S&P Global2Bridgewater Associates1Citadel1FTFranklin Templeton1Golub Capital1HWHarris Williams1Houlihan Lokey1J.P. Morgan1Jane Street1MWMarshall Wace1Millennium Management1Morningstar1PIMCO1Sycamore Partners1TSTruist Securities1Two Sigma1Vanguard1WMWellington 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

AnyCoreIntermediateHard

Type

AnyTechnicalCaseBrainteaserMarket viewFit

1. 087If a date is a Monday, what day of the week will the same date be a year from now?Brainteasers and estimationIntermediatetechnicalOaktree Capital ManagementGeneralist · Los Angeles · 2022

   Say this

   Tuesday, unless a 29 February falls in between, in which case Wednesday. A normal year is 365 days, which is 52 weeks plus one day, so the day of the week advances by one. A leap year adds two.

   Then walk it

   1. The mechanism: 365 divided by 7 is 52 remainder 1. The remainder is the whole answer, so a year later is one weekday forward.
   2. 366 divided by 7 leaves remainder 2, so across a leap day you advance two, landing on Wednesday.
   3. The condition to state, because it is the actual test: does 29 February fall inside the twelve months between the two dates? So a date in March 2023 to March 2024 crosses the leap day and advances two; a date in March 2024 to March 2025 does not and advances one.
   4. The same modular arithmetic answers the harder version. Ten years forward is ten plus the number of leap days, modulo seven. Ten years with two leap days is 12 mod 7 equals 5, so five weekdays forward.
   5. Say the assumption out loud, that you are on the Gregorian calendar and ignoring the century rule where 1900 was not a leap year but 2000 was. That earns credit because it shows you checked the edge case rather than got lucky.
   6. And the reason these get asked in a credit or corporate finance interview: they are testing whether you reach for the structure, remainder after dividing by seven, rather than counting.

   Where candidates lose it

   Answering Tuesday with no condition attached. The interviewer is waiting to see whether you raise the leap year yourself. Saying 'Tuesday, or Wednesday if a 29 February falls in between' answers it completely in one sentence.

   Expect next

   • What about ten years from now?
   • What day of the week were you born on?
   • How many leap days between 2000 and 2100?

   Reported by candidates at Oaktree Capital Management (Generalist, Los Angeles, 2022). Source: Wall Street Oasis.

2. 092Walk me through your resume. Why us, and who do you see as our competitors?Fit and careerCorefirst roundOaktree Capital ManagementCorporate Finance · Los Angeles · 2022Oaktree Capital ManagementGeneralist · Los Angeles · 2023

   Say this

   Three questions in one, and the third is the real screen. The resume walk is a narrative of increasing relevance, 'why us' must name something only this firm has, and the competitor question tests whether you understand their business or just their brand.

   Then walk it

   1. Resume walk: chronological but with a thread, and 20 seconds per item, more on the last and most relevant one. Each stop answers 'what did I learn that makes me useful here', not 'what was I responsible for'.
   2. Why us: one specific, verifiable thing. Their position in a particular market, a strategy they are known for, a business they built recently, the structure of the role itself. If your answer would work for three other firms, it is not an answer.
   3. Competitors: name three, and place them. Not a list but a map. 'You compete with X on the same mandates, Y is larger but less focused on this segment, and increasingly the competition is Z from a different model entirely.' That last clause is what earns the marks.
   4. Then say something about how they differ, and be prepared to say where they are weaker, carefully. Interviewers respect a candidate who can say 'you are smaller in this segment, which is why the recent hires there caught my attention'.
   5. The research needed is one hour: their website's own description of the business, the most recent annual report or investor presentation, one news item from the last quarter, and the role description read closely.
   6. And connect it back to yourself in one line. 'That is why I want this seat rather than a generalist one' is the sentence that closes the loop and turns research into fit.

   Where candidates lose it

   Answering 'why us' with things that are true of every firm: prestige, culture, learning opportunity, great people. And guessing at competitors. Getting the competitive set wrong is worse than saying you are not sure, because it proves the research was decorative.

   Expect next

   • Where do you think we are weaker than them?
   • Which of our businesses would you want to work in?
   • What do you know about what we actually do day to day?

   Reported by candidates at Oaktree Capital Management (Corporate Finance, Los Angeles, 2022); Oaktree Capital Management (Generalist, Los Angeles, 2023). 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.