Between the online application and the offer, a summer internship in investment banking involves four to six distinct stages spread over two to four months. Each one eliminates candidates on different criteria. Here is the full sequence and the preparation each filter requires.
📝 Prerequisite: this guide assumes you have validated the eligibility conditions and identified the application windows.
Process overview
1. Online application — form + resume — indicative pass rate: 5-15%
2. Online assessment — numerical / logical / games — 1 to 3 weeks after — 40-60%
3. Asynchronous video interview — HireVue or equivalent — 1 to 2 weeks after — 30-50%
4. Assessment centre — group, in person — 2 to 4 weeks after — 30-50%
5. Superday / final round — 3 to 6 interviews — same or next day — 20-40%
Rates vary considerably by firm and desk. The overall order of magnitude is stable: out of a hundred applications submitted, a handful reach the final round.
Firms sometimes publish the stage breakdown themselves: see for example the programme pages at Goldman Sachs 🔗 and the J.P. Morgan Summer Analyst Program 🔗.
Stage 1: the online application
What is actually assessed
The form is not a formality. It feeds a tracking system that applies filters before any human reading: graduation year, work authorisation, sometimes a declared academic threshold.
A significant share of rejections at this stage has nothing to do with profile quality — it comes from a badly filled field or a resume the machine cannot read.
The cover letter
Still requested by some European firms, often optional on the Anglo-Saxon side. When it is requested, it is read, and three elements are expected:
- Why this career, with a concrete trigger.
- Why this firm specifically — a recent transaction, a team, a sector positioning.
- Why you, with quantified evidence rather than a list of adjectives.
⚠️ Disqualifying: a competitor's name left in a recycled letter. It happens more often than you would think, and there is no recovery.
💡 The upstream lever: a structured, ATS-compatible resume conditions everything else. An excellent candidate filtered at stage 1 never learns why they were rejected.
Stage 2: online assessments
Sent automatically after application, with a generally short completion window — often 48 hours to a week.
Formats encountered
- Numerical reasoning: reading tables and charts, percentages, ratios, under severe time pressure.
- Logical reasoning: figure sequences, deduction.
- Situational judgement tests: workplace scenarios with multiple-choice answers.
- Gamified assessments: timed cognitive exercises measuring risk-taking, working memory and information processing.
How to prepare
The difficulty is not mathematical — the level is secondary school. The difficulty is time. Expect often under a minute per question.
- Practise under real conditions, timer running.
- Work on mental arithmetic with percentages and ratios; that is where the gains are.
- Do it on a computer, with calculator and paper at hand, as on the day.
- On gamified tests, do not try to "guess the right profile": inconsistencies are detected.
Stage 3: the asynchronous video interview
The format most disconcerting to European candidates, because there is nobody on the other side.
How it works
You receive a link, generally valid for 48 hours. The platform displays a question, allows a short preparation time — often 30 seconds — then records your answer for a limited duration, typically one to two minutes. The number of questions and takes varies: at Morgan Stanley, candidates report a format with four questions and two takes each, to be completed within 48 hours.
These interviews are frequently pre-scored by automated tools before human review, on content and answer-structure criteria.
Typical questions
- Walk me through your resume.
- Why investment banking?
- Why our firm?
- Describe a situation where you worked under pressure.
- Tell me about a recent transaction that caught your attention.
The preparation that makes the difference
- Record yourself beforehand, about ten times. The gap between the first and tenth take is considerable.
- Structure every answer — STAR method for behavioural questions.
- Keep it short: a well-built 90-second answer beats a rambling three-minute one.
- Get the technical setup right: front lighting, neutral background, camera at eye level, wired connection if possible, professional dress.
- Look at the lens, not at your own image on screen.
🎯 Often neglected: prepare a strong answer to "why our firm". It is the most frequent discriminator at this stage, and the easiest to work on — reading the last twelve months of deal announcements is enough.
Stage 4: the assessment centre
A largely European feature, rarer in the US. Half a day to a full day, in person or by video.
The exercises
- Case study: analysis of a transaction or corporate situation, followed by a debrief. What is assessed is the structure of the reasoning, not the accuracy of the final number.
- Group exercise: a discussion among five or six candidates on a set topic. Classic trap: trying to dominate. The behaviour sought is the one that moves the group forward — reformulating, bringing in a silent participant, managing time.
- Individual presentation: five to ten minutes before a panel, often with limited preparation.
- Competency interview: in-depth behavioural questions.
What is being observed
Less technical performance than working style: clarity of expression, reaction to contradiction, ability to concede a limit without falling apart.
🤝 To work on: the soft skills expected in finance play out precisely here — this is the stage where a technically strong but rigid profile gets dropped.
Stage 5: the superday
The final round. Three to six consecutive interviews of 25 to 40 minutes, with increasingly senior counterparts — analysts, associates, VPs, sometimes MDs.
Typical split
- Fit / behavioural: background, motivation, coherence of the plan.
- Technical: accounting, valuation, DCF, multiples, capital structure.
- Markets and sector: current events, recent transactions, an argued view. For markets or asset management roles, a structured investment pitch is frequently requested.
Survival rules
- Adapt the level of detail to your counterpart. An analyst tests fine technique; an MD tests coherence and composure.
- Stay consistent. The fifth interview counts as much as the first, and that is where energy drops.
- Own what you do not know. "I do not know the exact answer, here is how I would build it" is worth infinitely more than a confident fabrication.
- Prepare two questions per interviewer, not generic ones.
📊 The foundation to master: valuation questions and investment banking interview preparation cover most of the expected technical content.
Stage 6: the offer
Offers often come very quickly after the superday — sometimes within 24 to 48 hours.
Two things to anticipate:
- Response deadlines are short. Some firms allow only a few days. Know in advance how you would arbitrate between your targets.
- A rejection is not final. Reapplying the following year, or targeting an off-cycle role in the same team, is common. Always ask for feedback, however brief.
The real process timeline
Expect two to four months between submission and offer, with high variability. Under rolling admissions, an early application can receive an offer before other candidates have even taken their online test.
The practical consequence: do not pause your search while waiting for an answer. Run processes in parallel.
Conclusion
Each stage filters on a distinct criterion: the form of the file first, then execution speed, then communication, group behaviour, and finally technique. A candidate who prepares only the technical side — the most common reflex — is eliminated well before getting a chance to demonstrate it.
Effective preparation therefore follows the order of the process, not the order of perceived difficulty. You secure the machine gate first, then work on delivery, then on technical content.
And the very first filter remains the most mechanical: a resume the tracking system cannot read never reaches a recruiter. FinanceCV produces a document whose structure is designed to be parsed correctly, without forcing you to choose between aesthetics and machine readability.
Ready to start your applications? Create your finance resume for free and clear the first stage.