For most applicants, the first three rejections in banking come from software. Before any banker reads your CV with intent, you pass through automated screens: aptitude tests, situational judgement tests, sometimes game-based assessments and a recorded video interview. Candidates consistently under-prepare for these because they feel like formalities. They are not. They are where the majority of the applicant pool exits.
Here is what each filter is actually doing, from the side that set the thresholds.
What the filters are for
A popular London or Hong Kong summer programme attracts thousands of applications for a class measured in dozens. No team can interview even five percent of that. The online layer exists to cut the pile to a number humans can process, cheaply and defensibly. That framing matters: the tests are not trying to find the best candidates. They are trying to remove enough of the pool. Your goal is not to excel; it is to clear every bar.
Aptitude tests: numerical, logical, verbal
- The format is the difficulty. The maths itself rarely exceeds percentages, ratios and chart reading. What kills people is doing it in under a minute per question, under time pressure, in an unfamiliar interface. Familiarity is the whole game: practise until the format is boring.
- Thresholds are blunt. Banks typically apply a percentile or score cut. Nobody averages your test into a later impression; on the hiring side I almost never saw a test score again once a candidate reached interviews. Pass and it vanishes. Fail and nothing else you wrote gets read.
- Do them fresh. The saddest rejections are strong candidates who took the test at midnight on deadline day after three others. Treat each test like an exam slot: daylight, silence, paper for workings, no second screen.
Situational judgement tests: answer as the bank, not as yourself
SJTs show workplace scenarios and ask what you would do. Candidates fail them by being honest. The test is not asking what you would do; it is asking whether you know what the bank's model professional would do. That person escalates risk early, never covers up a mistake, protects the client relationship, checks with a senior before improvising and chooses the team over personal credit. Answer every scenario from that persona and the SJT becomes one of the easier filters.
HireVue and recorded video: an interview, not a video essay
The recorded interview is where preparation pays most visibly. A typical format gives you a question on screen, short preparation time and 1-2 minutes to answer to a camera. On the review side, these are watched quickly, often in batches, sometimes with algorithmic assistance on structure and clarity. Three things decide your outcome.
- The first 20 seconds. Reviewers form a view fast. Lead with the answer, then support it. The rambling wind-up that survives a live conversation dies on video.
- Prepared stories, compressed. The questions are overwhelmingly predictable: your motivation, a teamwork story, a challenge you overcame, why this bank. Your 'why investment banking' answer and your 90-second CV story, both covered in their own articles, should be rehearsed to the camera before you sit the real thing.
- The production basics. Eye line to the lens, light on your face, quiet room, phone off, laptop charged. None of this earns points. All of it can lose them.
The mistakes that repeat every season
Taking practice tests for the wrong publisher's format. Sitting the real test as your first attempt. Reading SJTs as personality quizzes. Recording HireVue answers in one take without ever watching yourself back. And the most common of all: leaving every filter to deadline week, which stacks four high-stakes assessments into three exhausted evenings. The filters reward candidates who treat them as the real process, because they are the real process.
Once you clear the software, humans take over and the rules change again: that stage is covered in the superdays and assessment centres article. If you want your recorded answers and test plan pressure-checked before you sit them, the IBD Recruiting Review does exactly that in one session.
FAQ
How are online tests actually used by banks?
As gates, not grades. Banks apply threshold or percentile cuts to shrink the pile; once you pass, the score is rarely seen again and interviewers almost never reference it.
How should I answer situational judgement tests?
As the bank's model professional, not as yourself: escalate risk early, never cover mistakes, protect the client, check with seniors before improvising and choose the team over personal credit.
What matters most in a HireVue interview?
The first 20 seconds of each answer. Lead with the answer, keep to prepared stories compressed into 60-90 seconds, look at the lens and fix light and sound before recording.
Former Executive Director in TMT Investment Banking at Nomura and M&A banker at BNP Paribas. Top-rated mentor with 300+ sessions. About
