The Grinder
Cold, impatient, cuts you off mid-ramble.
No. Try again — carefully this time.
Trains: composure when nothing you say lands.
Interview practice for finance recruiting · IB & S&T
A live, spoken mock interview for the exact seat you’re recruiting for. It listens to what you actually say, pushes back where a real interviewer would, and scores you against the rubric the street actually uses.
Free. Runs in your browser. Use Chrome to speak your answers.
9,691 questions · 254 firms · 12 verticals · no scripts
Modeled on how the bulge bracket actually interviews
Not endorsed by or affiliated with the firms shown.
Track, firm, and round — investment banking at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, or Evercore; sales & trading at Goldman, Morgan Stanley, or Citi. Each firm’s interview is modeled on how that firm actually runs its process.
The interviewer speaks; you answer with your voice, like the real thing. It classifies your answer as it comes in — correct, partial, dodged — and decides what a real interviewer would do next: drill the gap, escalate, challenge you even when you’re right, or move on.
Every session ends with a scorecard: five dimensions, a weighted overall, how you measure against the firm’s pass-line, and a question-by-question review against the ideal answer. Objective items — the math, the mechanics — are checked deterministically, not vibes-graded.
You get three prioritized fixes, chosen by impact: a weak dimension that’s heavily weighted for your round outranks a small gap that isn’t. Each fix quotes your own answer and gives the better move.
Personality and difficulty are separate dials. A warm interviewer can still drill several layers deep; a curt one can throw softballs. The firm shapes what gets asked, the persona shapes how it feels, difficulty shapes how hard it cuts.
Cold, impatient, cuts you off mid-ramble.
No. Try again — carefully this time.
Trains: composure when nothing you say lands.
“Why?” on everything, until you break or you don’t.
That’s the textbook line. Why is it true?
Trains: actually understanding what you memorized.
Back-to-back questions, minimal pauses.
Clock’s running. First question.
Trains: thinking speed — very S&T.
Fit-heavy, war stories, zero patience for polish.
I’ve read your resume. Convince me it matters.
Trains: “why should I hire you?” without flinching.
Friendly until the curveball lands.
You said that with such confidence. Should you have?
Trains: not getting sloppy when it feels easy.
Even-keeled, corporate, straight down the middle.
Are you sure? Walk me through it again.
Trains: the realistic baseline interview.
Offers a nudge when you freeze.
Take a breath, and let’s start.
Trains: first reps without the fear.
Five dimensions, scored 0–100, weighted by interview type — a technical round rewards accuracy, a behavioral round rewards fit and delivery. Here is how an IB technical round breaks down:
| Dimension | Signal | IB Tech | IB Behav | IB Mixed | S&T Mkts | S&T Mixed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Technical accuracy | Answer vs. the ideal-answer key; math checked exactly | 45% | 5% | 30% | 40% | 30% |
| Structure & clarity | Leads with the point, full chain, no rambling | 20% | 20% | 20% | 15% | 18% |
| Poise under pushback | Holds a correct answer under “are you sure?” | 15% | 20% | 17% | 20% | 18% |
| Communication & delivery | Pace, filler, hesitation — measured, not guessed | 12% | 25% | 16% | 15% | 19% |
| Fit & motivation | A “why this firm” that isn’t “great reputation” | 8% | 30% | 17% | 10% | 15% |
| Σ each column = 100% · Evercore technical rounds re-weight Technical ×1.15, renormalized | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | |
Overall scores map to bands — 90+ offer-ready, 80–89 strong, 70–79 solid but not superday-ready, below that there’s work to do — and every dimension is held against the pass-line that firm and round actually demand.
Not a copilot that whispers answers mid-interview. A trainer that makes you not need one.
No tool can promise you the offer — and you should distrust any that does. What practice can do: make sure the first time you hear “are you sure?” isn’t in the real room.
A corpus of 9,691 questions across 254 firms, compiled from public prep sources — Wall Street Oasis, Mergers & Inquisitions, IGotAnOffer, Glassdoor — each tagged by firm, vertical, round, and depth, with grading rubrics and the follow-ups a real interviewer uses to test it. Quantitative questions generate numeric variants, so the paper LBO you get today won’t be the one you get tomorrow.
Questions confirmed by people who actually sat the interview get a verified flag, and rank first in selection. That loop — practice, interview, report back — is the whole point.
There are tools that whisper answers into your ear during the real interview. In finance, getting caught with one ends the process — sometimes the career. RepsDesk is the other thing: practice hard enough that you don’t need help when it counts.