I've gone through a couple of processes at this point and it seems like interview questions rarely match the 400 question guide. The more basic ones did (walk me through a DCF, $10 of depreciation etc) but the more difficult ones seemed a lot more like mini case studies or asking a basic question and then digging deeper and deeper on it.
Any tips on good resources for these kinds of questions?
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Goated my brotha
Do you have an alternate link/able to PM me the PDF? Can't find it anywhere online and am unable to purchase directly from WSP. Would be greatly appreciated!!
DM the link please - really could use it
Could you pm me the pdf or alternate link? Thanks a lot!
The best resource is actually learning / understanding the fundamental concepts of accounting / corporate finance rather than trying to memorize the answers verbatim. Your approach might have worked years ago when the guides first came out, but nowadays firms obviously know these exist and avoid asking questions directly from the guide exactly for that reason. At the end of the day, interviewers can ask whatever they want, but you'll soon realize that most questions are just an extension of core finance concepts and none are actually that difficult if you truly understand the content.
If I’m a sophomore currently looking to learn everything. What is the best process of understanding the content? What resources can I use. To provide further context, I attend a liberal arts college so not a typical finance background.
While there's many ways to skin the cat, I've found that academia often provides the best foundational skillset (time / resource permitted). I'd caveat that when I say academia, I don't necessarily mean in a classroom setting - there's tons of resources at your fingertips today which you can leverage (i.e. courses on Udemy, Coursera, etc.) which are arguably better than in-person lectures, as it:
1) Lets you learn at your own pace
2) Provides flexibility to manage your schedule based on other conflicts / priorities
3) Take courses outside of the scope of your major (i.e. for liberal arts majors who don't get access to accounting / finance courses), and
4) Re-watch certain sections as many times as you need to fully grasp certain concepts
Anecdotally, I never learned well in a lecture-style setting. My preference has always been to read textbooks from beginning to end, which I can crank out in a week's time vs. wasting an entire semester. The reason why I'm such a big proponent of academia despite not attending many in-person classes is because mastering concepts in accounting / finance (and practically anything else in life) requires repetition. Quizzes / exams exist for a reason, and skimming BIWS 400 questions and expecting to nail IB interviews just isn't practical.
Now I can appreciate that given how accelerated recruiting timelines are today, you simply may not have time to sit through an entire online course. However, the key takeaway still stands. Read through the resources you have access to more than once, do every single practice question and ask yourself if you truly understand the concepts (and what if certain #s or metrics in the question changed), and leverage your resources (i.e. WSO) to see if there are other questions people are getting that you haven't tackled before.
From an application perspective (i.e. modelling on the job), the best thing I've ever done was building a 3 statement model from scratch. I have no issues with leaning on those online modelling classes offered by BIWS, but I also see it as a crutch. It makes the entire process very mechanical (akin to putting together a piece of furniture), and the student is rewarded based on completion of the model rather than actually learning why things are the way they are. If it's your first time and you feel lost, go back to step 1) and get a stronger understanding of accounting / finance concepts. Otherwise, watch the course from beginning to end without opening an Excel spreadsheet, and try to build something out afterward from a clean slate and revisit the notes / course as needed.
Read Rosenbaum and Pearl and take notes
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