IB First-Round Interviews: Exactly What to Expect

The first round is a screen, and it helps to think of it exactly that way: the bank has a pile of plausible resumes and a limited number of superday slots, and someone has to decide who gets one. Your job in round one is not to be the best candidate the interviewer has ever met. It is to give them zero reasons to filter you out and one or two reasons to advocate for you.

That framing changes the strategy. Superdays reward depth and consistency across many interviewers; first rounds reward clean execution of the predictable. Almost everything you will be asked in a first round can be listed in advance, which means almost every first-round rejection is a preparation failure rather than a talent failure.

The typical format

Formats vary by bank, program, and year, but the common shape is a conversation of roughly 30 minutes, commonly with one interviewer — often an analyst, associate, or VP — and sometimes two. Some banks run a single first round before the superday; others run two, often splitting one toward behavioral and one toward technical. Your invitation email or the recruiter will usually state the length and format, and it is fine to ask if it does not.

Expect a predictable arc: a warm-up and your resume walkthrough, the core fit questions, a block of technical questions, and a few minutes for your questions at the end. Thirty minutes is less time than it sounds — answers that run long are the most common self-inflicted wound, because they crowd out the questions you would have answered well.

• Commonly around 30 minutes, one interviewer (sometimes two), by phone or video — or a one-way recorded format like HireVue at some banks
• Resume walkthrough, 'why banking,' and 'why this firm' appear in nearly every first round
• A technical block drawn overwhelmingly from the core topics rather than obscure ones
• A closing window for your questions — prepare two or three, plus a backup
• Format details vary; the recruiter will usually confirm if you ask

The behavioral-technical split

A common and useful planning assumption is a roughly even split: half the conversation on story and fit, half on technicals, flexed by who is interviewing you and what your resume claims. A finance major with two banking internships should expect the technical share to grow; a candidate pivoting from a non-finance background should expect more time on the story and the 'why.'

The technical block is predictable in scope. First rounds overwhelmingly draw from the core: the three financial statements and how they link, walking through a change (like depreciation) across all three, enterprise versus equity value, the main valuation methodologies, DCF mechanics, and basic accretion-dilution or LBO intuition for relevant groups. First-round technicals are usually asked once and cleanly; the multi-layer follow-up pressure is more of a superday phenomenon, though a strong interviewer may push one level deeper to see how you handle it.

Phone vs video vs HireVue

Live video is commonly the default first-round format. The standard discipline applies: camera at eye level, light on your face rather than behind you, quiet room, and notes kept minimal and glanceable — reading answers is obvious on camera and reads as exactly what it is.

Phone interviews still happen, commonly for off-cycle roles or when a banker is fitting you between meetings. They are more forgiving of notes and harder for energy: without visual feedback, candidates commonly flatten out, so stand up, smile while talking, and keep answers slightly shorter than you would on video, because silence you cannot see is harder to read.

One-way recorded interviews — HireVue is the common name — are used by some banks as the first screen, commonly with fixed questions, limited prep time per question, and one or two attempts. Treat them as delivery tests: the questions are usually standard behavioral and motivation prompts, and the grading (whether human or assisted) rewards structure, energy, and concision. Record yourself answering your prepared stories to a webcam until it feels normal; the skill is real and trainable.

How to prepare in 48 hours

If the invitation just landed and the interview is in two days, do not try to learn finance. Triage toward the predictable, in this order.

1. 01Lock the opening sequence first: a 60-to-90-second resume walkthrough, 'why investment banking,' and 'why this firm' — written as bullets, said aloud, and timed. These three questions appear in nearly every first round and set the tone for everything after.
2. 02Re-drill the core technicals: statement links, a depreciation walkthrough, enterprise versus equity value, the three valuation methodologies, and DCF mechanics. Use active recall — a quiz, not re-reading a guide. The free WACC Buddy quiz at /quiz is built for exactly this kind of rapid diagnosis of weak spots.
3. 03Prepare three behavioral stories — teamwork, a failure or mistake, and leadership or initiative — each tellable in about 90 seconds. Three stories, told well and reused from different angles, beat eight stories you half-remember.
4. 04Research the firm for 30 minutes, not three hours: what the firm is known for, the group you applied to, and any conversations you have already had with its bankers — those named conversations are the strongest single ingredient in a 'why us' answer.
5. 05Prepare two or three questions to ask, ideally ones the interviewer is uniquely placed to answer, plus a backup.
6. 06Do the logistics pass the night before: test the link and audio, charge everything, get the interviewer's name and title if provided, and print or note the schedule. Then stop preparing and sleep — a rested, warm delivery of solid answers beats an exhausted delivery of perfect ones.

What interviewers actually decide in round one

First-round grading is closer to pass-fail than to ranking. The interviewer is answering a narrow question: is this person worth one of our superday slots? In practice that decomposes into a few checks — can they communicate clearly, is the story coherent, do they actually want this job, are the technicals solid enough that they will not embarrass us in front of an MD, and would I be comfortable putting them in front of my team.

That has two practical implications. First, avoiding disqualifiers matters more than producing brilliance: a fumbled core technical, an answer that suggests you have not researched the firm, or visible arrogance each does more damage than a merely average answer ever could. Second, the interviewer is often writing two lines of feedback, not an essay — your goal is to be easy to advocate for. For a deeper look at how that feedback actually gets written and weighed, see the guide on how IB interviews are graded linked below.

If you pass, the next stop is the superday, where the same material gets tested deeper, by more people, under more fatigue. The superday guide linked below covers that day; the best time to read it is before your first round, because knowing where the process leads changes how you prepare for its first step.

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