SA Interview Preparation Techniques?

Hey Guys,

Finally after grinding and sending hundreds of cold emails, got my first phone interview set up. I´m freaking out because a coworker of mine grilled me on technicals and I wasn´t prepared. I had gone through the basic part of the 400-question guide and took notes and understood everything but neglected it after internship work took off. I'm trying to come back and ace this interview and was wondering if you guys had any advice for studying? Should I just say the ansewrs to the 400 question guide out loud until I understand it and don't need to read the answer? Or is there a more efficient way of studying/specific things I should be looking at or doing? Also would I need to read the advanced section of the 400 question guide? I'm going for SA and want to do that, but I'm getting anxious because I'm not super strong on the basic stuff itself and want to focus all my time on that.

Any help would be great.

10 Comments
 

Is this for a junior summer internship? If so, I got asked very few questions that were directly from the M&I guide and were more to see if I understood the concepts behind them. I'd go over the M&I guide and then skim over vault guide if you have time.

If you don't have much time, I'd drill the 400 guide and do mock interviews with friends

 

I personally don't think memorizing the answers to questions doesn't do any good. Every interview I've had, they ask follow up questions to make sure you aren't just regurgitating an answer and actually understand the material. You should be able to answer all those questions off an understanding of financial statements, not because you've memorized the answers to those exact questions.

I personally did one of those financial modeling training classes at my college and it helped a lot, so I'd look into some online resources that actually teach the background rather than just memorizing questions and hoping you get asked the same things.

 

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