Investment Banking interview preparation
Every question below is either traced to a named firm from a public candidate report, or tagged at desk level when we could not trace it. Answers are written the way you would actually say them out loud — answer first, then the mechanism, then the limitation.
100 questions, mapped to the firms that asked them
- Questions
- 100
- Traced to a firm
- 100
- Firms
- 46
- Updated
- September 2026
075What are you seeing in your coverage sector right now, and where is the opportunity over the next 12 to 24 months?LazardMergers and Acquisitions · New York · 2026NomuraGeneralist · San Francisco · 2026
Say this
Answer like a banker pitching, not a student summarising. Name the structural change in the sector, then the deal type it generates, then the specific companies you would call.
Then walk it
- Open with the structural driver. Something like: the sector has too many subscale players and a cost base that only works above a certain revenue level, so consolidation is inevitable.
- Then name the deal type that follows. Structural overcapacity means mergers of equals and take-privates. A regulatory change means carve-outs. A technology shift means acquisitions of capability.
- Then be specific about targets and buyers. Two or three names with a reason each. This is the part almost nobody does, and it is the part that gets you the offer.
- Then the constraint. What is stopping these deals from happening today, financing cost, a valuation gap, antitrust, a founder who will not sell? Naming the blocker shows you are thinking commercially.
- Close with the actual pitch: 'so over the next year I would expect the mid-cap names to be taken out, and the call I would make is to X.'
Where candidates lose it
Giving a sector summary with no deal thesis. Coverage bankers get paid to originate. If your answer does not end with a transaction and a name, you have answered a different question.
Expect next
- Who would buy them?
- What is stopping that deal today?
- Pitch me a company.
Reported by candidates at Lazard (Mergers and Acquisitions, New York, 2026); Nomura (Generalist, San Francisco, 2026). 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.