Aptitude Tests for Investment Banking Analyst Hiring: The Timed Numerical Gauntlet
Investment banking hiring is the most numerically demanding assessment environment in white-collar recruiting. The test stack you face as an analyst candidate at Goldman, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, or any bulge bracket or elite boutique is optimized around one question: can you do accurate arithmetic under time pressure on dense financial data. Everything else is secondary. Your Excel fluency is secondary. Your accounting knowledge is secondary. The cognitive screen comes first, and it is where a shocking percentage of applicants with perfect resumes get cut.
Start Free PracticeThe investment banking analyst hiring funnel
For front-office IBD roles at bulge bracket banks, the funnel typically runs: resume screen, online application with an embedded cognitive test, HireVue video interview, superday. The cognitive test lives inside the application itself at most banks now. You get one shot, and bombing it ends the application.
The most common test at bulge bracket banks is SHL Verify G+. JPMorgan, Barclays, Citi, Deutsche Bank, and others use SHL-delivered numerical and logical reasoning as the first screen. The numerical section is the weight-bearing section for IBD. It is 18 questions in 25 minutes, dense financial tables, and no calculator below a certain level on some firm variants.
GMAT-style reasoning shows up at firms that recruit heavily from MBA programs or require a GMAT for certain tracks. Even where the GMAT itself is not required, GMAT-style quantitative and critical reasoning patterns appear in internal bank batteries and in online application screens.
Kenexa Prove It is the skills testing component. It measures Excel, PowerPoint, financial modeling basics, and sometimes accounting concepts. This usually comes later in the funnel, after you pass the cognitive screen, and it acts more as a competency gate than an aptitude filter. But at some banks, a weak Excel score on Prove It can kill an offer.
Tests investment banking analyst candidates typically face
These are the three pre-employment assessments most common in front-office investment banking analyst hiring.
What IBD aptitude tests screen for
Banks are filtering for one core trait: speed plus accuracy on dense numerical data. Everything in the test stack serves that filter, even the verbal and logical sections.
Numerical reasoning on dense financial tables
SHL numerical items for banking are full tables of revenues, costs, margins, and ratios. You must find the relevant cell, apply the correct operation, and solve in under 90 seconds. This is exactly what you do in a pitch book: pull numbers from a 10-K, compute the ratio, format it into the deck.
Mental math fluency
The test does not give you a calculator on every variant. Even where it does, candidates who lean on the calculator for basic arithmetic run out of time. Fluency with percentage shifts, ratio computations, and compound growth calculations in your head is the differentiator.
Critical reasoning on business arguments
Verbal items on bank screens use arguments about markets, deals, or strategy. The skill measured is spotting assumptions and logical flaws fast. This maps to due diligence work: spotting the weak point in a management argument inside a pitchbook.
Data interpretation under visual noise
SHL charts are deliberately cluttered. Multiple series, dual axes, stacked bars, tables layered with footnotes. The skill is filtering to the signal you need. Pitchbook analysts do this all day.
Excel proficiency under deadline (Kenexa Prove It)
Prove It Excel tests measure formula fluency, shortcut knowledge, data-manipulation speed, and financial-formula familiarity. Not just VLOOKUP and pivots but INDEX/MATCH, XIRR, array formulas, and modeling conventions.
Composure during adaptive difficulty
SHL Verify G+ is adaptive. Banks running it have internal norms set against IBD analyst performance. Score hits pushed by wrong answers make subsequent questions easier but cap your ceiling. Composure while being served hard questions is a measurable skill.
A 14-day prep plan for IBD analyst aptitude tests
Day 1: Lock in which bank's battery you face
The mix varies by bank. JPMorgan uses SHL heavily. Goldman has a custom battery delivered through its application portal. Morgan Stanley uses SHL plus HireVue. Identify your target bank's stack before starting.
Days 2 to 5: SHL numerical reasoning on financial data
This is the single highest-leverage prep for IBD. Drill 20 numerical reasoning items per day at 90 seconds each. Use banking-flavored test banks where possible (company 10-K style tables rather than generic retail or manufacturing).
Days 6 and 7: Mental math drill
Percentages, ratios, compound growth, basic valuation ratios (EV/EBITDA, P/E). Run 10 minutes of pure mental math drills twice a day. The goal is sub-5-second calculation on percentages and simple ratios.
Days 8 and 9: SHL inductive and verbal reasoning
Lower weight than numerical for IBD, but skipping it gets candidates cut. 15 items per day on each section. 60 seconds per inductive, 90 seconds per verbal.
Day 10: GMAT critical reasoning
Use Official Guide question sets. 20 items. The critical reasoning skill transfers directly to the argument-analysis items on bank screens.
Day 11: First full-length SHL mock
One uninterrupted full mock. Score it. Identify your weakest two question families. Plan days 12 and 13 around them.
Day 12: Targeted numerical cleanup
Spend the full session on whatever numerical sub-type cost you most. Usually percentage-change or ratio-interaction items.
Day 13: Kenexa Prove It Excel prep
Only relevant if your funnel includes it. If so, focus on INDEX/MATCH, conditional formatting, pivot tables, and basic financial formulas (NPV, XIRR, PMT). One hour of focused practice gets most candidates to a passing score.
Day 14: Light review, sleep
One short 20-minute drill the morning of. Do the test early if given a window. Mental arithmetic performance drops meaningfully after mid-afternoon for most people.
Sample questions oriented to IBD analyst hiring
These are representative of what you will face. The banking flavor comes from financial data in the questions.
SHL numerical (bank style)
A table shows FY2023 and FY2024 revenue, COGS, and operating expenses for a retail company across three regions. Currency effects moved USD/EUR by 4 percent. Question: what was the constant-currency operating margin change in the European segment? 90 seconds. The trap is forgetting to strip out FX from both revenue and costs.
SHL verbal reasoning
A short passage discusses a company's capital allocation strategy. Three statements follow. You must label each as true, false, or cannot say based on the passage alone. The cannot-say category is usually the right answer for statements that feel intuitively true but are not textually supported.
GMAT critical reasoning
A CFO argues that because the firm's debt-to-equity ratio is below peers, the firm should issue more debt. Which of the following, if true, most weakens the argument? The test rewards spotting that peer benchmarking does not account for risk profile differences.
Kenexa Prove It Excel
Given a dataset of 1000 transactions, compute the weighted average discount rate applied by customer segment, using only formulas (no pivots). You have 60 seconds. The test rewards candidates who immediately reach for SUMPRODUCT rather than constructing a manual helper column.
Related reading
Investment Banking Analyst hiring test FAQs
Banking screens are won on arithmetic speed
Full-length SHL-style practice with dense financial tables and the 90-second pace.
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