Uh oh. You Got the Interview at GS, Now What?

We’ve assembled a list of interview questions which Goldman Sachs candidates claim to have been asked in the past. Most of these were asked of candidates joining the firm at analyst or associate levels.  

Goldman Sachs’ questions about you

1. Walk me through your resumé.
2. Tell me about yourself.
3. What are three words you would use to describe yourself and why?
4. If you were a crayon what color would you be?
5. Tell us one thing about yourself that we should not know.
6. What are you passionate about?
7. What do you do in your free time?
8. Are you interested in all these hobbies (on your resumé)? How do you manage your time with them?
9. What are your strengths and weaknesses?
10. Tell us one good thing and one bad thing your friends would say about you.
11. What’s your greatest achievement?
12. Why did you choose your major?
13. Tell us something not on your resumé.

Goldman Sachs’ questions about your motivation

1. Why Goldman Sachs? Why this division?
2. Why do you want this job?
3. Why did you leave your previous job> Why do you want to leave your current role?
4. Where do you see yourself in five years?
5. What motivates you most in work?
6. Why and when did you become interested in finance? Do you have a personal investment portfolio?
7. Is there anything about this job that makes you nervous?
8. Why investment banking instead of Google?

Goldman Sachs’ questions on why they should hire you

1. Why should we hire you to work at Goldman Sachs?
2. What is an asset that you’d bring to the team?
3. Why do you think you are a good fit for this role?
4. What is one characteristic you have that would prevent us from hiring you?
5. What attributes do you have that will be a good fit for Goldman Sachs’ values?
6. What would be your ideal company to work for? What attracted you to this company?
7. How can you add value?

Goldman Sachs’ questions on what you know about them

1. Who is the CEO of Goldman Sachs?
2. If you could recommend anything to the CEO, what would you recommend?
3. What do you like the most about Goldman Sachs, and what do you dislike the most about our company?
4. Who are our main competitors? Why should clients decide to co-operate with us, and not with them?
5. Try to describe what we do in this division of Goldman Sachs.
6. Can you describe our values? Can you describe our culture?

Goldman Sachs’ questions on what you know about investment banking

1. What is investment banking?
2. What do you think are the requirements to make a good investment?
3. What makes a good investment banker and how do you fit those traits?
4. How can an investment bank add value?

Goldman Sachs’ questions on your ethics

1. You catch a friend cheating in an important exam. He’s on his last warning. What do you do?
2. You find out a colleague acted on inside information. Both of you are new to the firm. What do you do?
3. What would you do if you submitted paperwork to your superior and later realized you had made a mistake?
4. If you were arrested for something you believed wasn’t wrong what would you do?
5. What does integrity mean to you?
6. What are the foundations of good business principles?

Goldman Sachs’ questions on your client-focus

1. At Goldman Sachs, we pride ourselves on delivering outstanding client service. Describe a time when you went above and beyond what was required for a client.
2. Outstanding client service is important to everything we do here at Goldman Sachs. Tell me what you’d consider whilst communicating with our clients?
3. How would you deal with a difficult client?
4. A client asks you to make trade or transaction that you knew wouldn’t make them any profit but would in the long term be beneficial for the bank. What do you do?
5. If you had a client that was upset about a situation that was out of your control and they threatened to take their business elsewhere, what would you do?
6. How do you handle a client that goes against company policy?
7. Sell me a phone.

Goldman Sachs’ questions about your approach to teamwork

1. You are new to the team and do not know anyone. What do you do to ensure work efficiency?
2. How would you help team members ease into the job scope?
3. Tell us about a time you had to help someone in a team who didn’t understand what to do.
4. How well do you work in a diverse team? 
5. Describe a situation when you had to adapt to a different culture.
6. You work with someone senior and you disagree with them. What can you do to prove your point?
7. How do you follow authority? How would you respond to a questionable command?
8. Tell me about a time that you dealt with adversity in a team.
9. What would you do if a team member does not listen to you? What if they repeatedly interrupted you in front of other staff?
10. A team member isn’t contributing. You confront them. They still don’t contribute. What next?
11. Are you a leader or a team member, and why?
12. Tell me about a time you showed leadership.
13. Can you tell me a time when you were in a team as a member and not as a leader?
14. Would you apply to a senior position that requires more experience than what you currently have?

Questions when you’re applying to the investment banking division

1. What are the three main ways of valuing companies?
2. How do you value a company with no revenue or profit?
3. How would you value an early stage start-up?
4. Walk me through a DCF. What does a DCF do?
5. Conduct a Paper LBO for a property.
6. You have two companies with the same P/E ratio. What makes their EV/EBITDA different? 
7. What are the adjustments between EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA in a healthcare company?
8. How do you get to free cash flow (FCF) from EBITDA?
9. A non-profit company raises debt. How does it flow through the financial statements?
10. What happens to the WACC of a company in debt?
11. Walk me through accounting statements. How does depreciation effect statements?
12. Explain depreciation.
13. Tell me about a recent M&A transaction and what you think of it.
14. Tell me about debt vs equity financing
15. How do you determine if an acquisition is accretive or dilutive? Give p/e ratios.
16. What is the effect on all three statements after a non-recurring impairment charge?
17. How are financial statements affected in a merger?
18. Why would a liquidation model be relevant right now?
19. What do you know about uncleared margin?
20. You have to choose between two contracts you can sign with a client. The first is a short-term contract that will bring Goldman Sachs $1 million in revenue after a year. The second is for long-term cooperation but will only bring us $100,000 each year. Which deal would you choose and why?

Excerpt from Efinancialcareers. Questions sourced from: Glassdoor, GeeksforGeeks, Leetcode, Blind, Wall Street Oasis, Passmyinterview.com, Interview Penguin, Afzal Hussein, Primal Career.