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
066If you were in a meeting with the CFO as the lead analyst, what would you ask?Moody'sCorporate Finance · New York · 2018
Say this
I would ask about the durability of revenue, the operating leverage in the cost base, and what could stop them paying the debt. Three areas: quality of revenue, quality of cost, and capital allocation intent.
Then walk it
- Revenue quality: how much is contracted or recurring, what is the retention rate of last year's customers, what is the concentration in the top five, and how is pricing holding.
- Cost and margin: how much of the cost base is fixed against variable, so I know what happens to margin if volume drops 15 percent. That is the operating leverage question and it drives the downside case.
- One-time costs: what charges hit this year that will not recur, and equally, what recurring costs have been classified as one-time. That is the quality-of-earnings question and CFOs answer it carefully.
- Capital allocation: what is the intent on dividends, buybacks and acquisitions, and where does leverage sit in their priorities. A CFO who will defend the rating behaves very differently from one who will lever up for a buyback.
- And the direct question: what keeps you up at night about the next 18 months? The answer, and the hesitation before it, is usually the most informative thing in the meeting.
Where candidates lose it
Asking for information you could get from the filings. A CFO meeting is for intent, judgement and things not disclosed. Asking 'what was revenue last year' wastes the access and signals you did not read the 10-K.
Expect next
- How would you qualitatively assess an entity?
- What would you do if their answers contradicted the filings?
- Which single answer would most change your rating?
Reported by candidates at Moody's (Corporate Finance, New York, 2018). 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.