EY · Live Interview
EY's first-round live interview is where strong written applications become offer pipelines or go nowhere. Below: the real questions EY asks, what they're testing for, and how to practise live until it feels routine.
EY Pack
One-time payment. Yours for the whole application season.
Applying to several firms? The Season Pass is a yearly subscription covering every firm, $199 a year, cancel anytime.
The format
The live first round sits immediately after the resume screen, OA and HireVue, and is the gate to the superday.
A 45-60 minute virtual interview, either one continuous session or two back-to-back 30-minute blocks (one behavioral/fit, one case or technical).
Client-facing professionals from your service line: Senior Consultants or Managers (Consulting/Tech), Managers or Senior Directors (EY-Parthenon/SaT). Recruiters rarely run the live round.
Almost exclusively single-interviewer (1-on-1); panels are reserved for the superday.
Duration. 45-60 minutes total.
Rounds at this stage. One coordinated hurdle that passes you directly to the superday.
Format breakdown
Phone, video, and in-person each have distinct mechanics. The interviewer scoring rubric is the same, but the operational preparation is different.
Pure audio phone screens persist as a legacy term but are mostly for off-cycle or experienced hires. If audio-only, slow your speech ~10-15%, signpost structure verbally and avoid long silences.
Most first rounds run live on Microsoft Teams or HireVue Live (not the pre-recorded assessment). Test your Teams client 24 hours prior, use a neutral background and front-facing light, and frame at eye level.
Rare, usually restricted to on-campus interview (OCI) days at target schools or regional hubs (1 Manhattan West, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco). Bring three resume copies in a padfolio.
Question categories
Question types cycled through the interview. For each, a real example, what the firm is screening for, plus weak and strong answer signals.
Tests your understanding of EY market positioning and why professional services over industry or peers.
“Why do you want to join EY specifically over our Big Four peers?”
What they test. Specific, researched motivation
Weak answer. Generic platitudes like "EY is a prestigious global brand with great learning opportunities" that fit any competitor.
Strong answer. Connects a specific EY initiative (the EY.ai investment, a Microsoft or SAP alliance) to personal goals and names EY professionals spoken to while networking.
“What do you understand about our corporate purpose, 'Building a better working world', and how does it manifest in your goals?”
What they test. Cultural and purpose alignment
Past behavior as the predictor of future performance: leadership, adaptability, resilience and teamwork.
“Tell me about a time you had to manage competing priorities with tight, overlapping deadlines.”
What they test. Time management and triage
Weak answer. Tells the story in "we", rambles past 3 minutes without structure, or gives no measurable outcome.
Strong answer. Uses CAR or STAR, spends ~70% on the actions you personally took with precise verbs, and ends with a quantified result.
“Give me an example of a time you failed or made a mistake on a project. What did you do to remediate it?”
What they test. Ownership and learning
Narrative ability plus whether you read the news and grasp how macro trends hit clients.
“Walk me through your resume.”
What they test. Concise narrative
Weak answer. Reading line-by-line in a monotone for 3-4 minutes, focused on responsibilities not achievements.
Strong answer. A chronological story capped at ~90 seconds, framing each role as a deliberate step toward EY and ending "which brings me here today".
“What is a major macroeconomic trend affecting US mid-market corporates right now, and how should EY advise them?”
What they test. Commercial acumen
Strong answer. Identifies a specific revenue driver or cost pressure (for example, high cost of capital slowing CRE refinancing or M&A volumes) and ties it to an EY service line.
Varies completely by service line; curveballs test composure when prepared scripts are stripped away.
“SaT: Walk me through how a $10 increase in depreciation flows through the three financial statements.”
What they test. Accounting mechanics
Strong answer. Flawless three-statement linkage including the tax shield: net income falls by the after-tax amount, depreciation is added back on the cash flow statement, and the balance sheet stays balanced.
“Consulting: A US airline faces a 12% profitability drop despite stable passenger volume. How would you structure the investigation?”
What they test. Custom MECE framework
Strong answer. A tailored profit-driver framework (revenue mix, operating-expense scaling, capacity utilization/load factor) rather than a generic 4Ps or Porter Five Forces.
“How many individual window panes are there in downtown Manhattan?”
What they test. Market-sizing composure
Strong answer. Acknowledges the prompt calmly, establishes a clear estimation methodology and reasons out loud to a defensible number.
Technical depth
EY does not expect seasoned industry experts but requires solid baseline skills, and the technical bar varies significantly across practices.
Three-statement accounting linkage (e.g., a $100 cash inventory purchase, then a $150 sale), the three valuation methodologies (DCF, comps, precedent transactions, with precedents usually highest due to control premium), LBO levers (debt paydown, multiple expansion, EBITDA growth), and a recent US deal you can discuss with a view.
Interviewer-guided, modular cases. Break profitability into revenue (price x volume) and cost (fixed vs variable) drivers; use the market-sizing formula (population x penetration x frequency x price) with US baselines (340M population, 80-year life expectancy, 2.5-person households).
Practical fundamentals such as relational (SQL) vs non-relational (NoSQL) databases and when to recommend each, data and analytics lifecycle and agile delivery.
The rubric
The interviewer is checking against a scorecard. Knowing the categories is half the battle.
Aggregation. A single coordinated gate: passing both the behavioral and the case/technical components sends you to the superday.
How to practise
Conversational mocks that read your Resume, ask EY-specific questions, push back when answers are weak, and produce a scored report.
Lazard · IB Analyst
Technical Interview · Resume-aware
Interviewer
I see from your Resume you completed Insight Program at Lazard. Walk me through a deal you observed during that placement.Interviewer
You mentioned trading comps. Walk me through how the peer set was selected, what criteria were used, and were there any borderline cases?Full report when you end
Why candidates fail
Specific failure patterns documented across past applicants. Most are avoidable with focused preparation.
A copy-paste "Why EY"
Generic praise that fits any Big Four peer is an immediate downgrade.
Resume read line-by-line
A monotone 3-4 minute walkthrough of responsibilities leaves the interviewer to connect the dots themselves.
Memorized frameworks
Forcing a SWOT or the 4Ps onto a complex operations case, or stumbling on basic accounting mechanics.
Visible panic on curveballs
Long awkward silences, defensiveness or "I do not know how to answer that" signals you may struggle in high-stakes client meetings.
What works
Concrete moves drilled by candidates who clear the cut, drawn from applicant accounts and recruiter feedback.
Know your resume cold
Be ready to explain how each past role translates directly to the EY analyst day-to-day, capped at ~90 seconds.
Tailor the framework
Build a custom MECE structure for the specific client problem and state a clear hypothesis before diving in.
Bring a recent deal or macro view
Have a US M&A deal or macro trend ready, with acquirer, target, size, rationale and your own opinion on the price.
Ask senior-level questions
Close with insightful questions about the interviewer specific client experiences.
From past applicants
Anonymised candidate accounts of how recent EY applicants handled the live round. Each covers prep, the experience, and the outcome.
Strategy and Transactions, Summer Analyst (US)
Prep. Drilled three-statement mechanics, DCF and LBO levers out loud, and prepared a recent US deal with a point of view.
Experience. The round was a continuous 50-minute Teams session: a crisp resume walkthrough, a "why EY over peers", then a depreciation-flow technical that built into a follow-up on the tax shield. Reasoning out loud through the follow-ups mattered as much as the final number.
Outcome. Advanced to the superday.
What gets you through
FAQ
It is a 45-60 minute live interview, usually on Microsoft Teams, that sits between the HireVue and the superday. It is almost always 1-on-1 with a client-facing professional from your service line (a Senior Consultant or Manager for Consulting and Tech, a Manager or Senior Director for EY-Parthenon and SaT). It can run as one continuous session or two back-to-back 30-minute blocks, one behavioral/fit and one case or technical. The term "phone screen" is largely legacy; pure audio calls are now mostly for off-cycle hiring.
Yes, completely. Assurance and Tax lean behavioral and situational. Consulting uses interviewer-guided, modular cases built on a profit-driver structure, with the occasional market-sizing guesstimate. Strategy & Transactions and EY-Parthenon are the most technical: three-statement accounting mechanics, DCF, LBO levers, valuation methodologies and a recent US deal you can discuss. Across all of them, EY rewards a custom, tailored framework and clear reasoning out loud far more than a memorized one.
For SaT, drill the three-statement linkages (including the tax shield), DCF, the three valuation methods and LBO levers out loud until automatic, and prepare a recent US deal with a view. For Consulting, practice building custom MECE profit-driver frameworks and market-sizing with US baselines (340M population, 2.5-person households). For Tech, know practical fundamentals like SQL vs NoSQL. Then rehearse a 90-second resume walkthrough and a specific "why EY". Intervyo runs realistic, firm-specific mock interviews with conversational follow-ups and instant feedback on accuracy and delivery.
The other rounds
Live interview is one of four rounds. The Pack covers all four end to end.
EY Pack
Live AI mocks tuned to EY, scored after every session. One Pack covers HireVue, online assessments, live interviews and the superday.
Get the EY Pack · $89Intervyo is not affiliated with or endorsed by EY. Interview questions are sourced from past applicants and the firm's published guidance; verify on the firm's careers site. Sector: Big 4 / Professional Services.
EY Pack
$89 one-time