Wall Street banks are hiring summer interns. How to ace your first-round interview.

• Investment banks are hiring for 2026 summer interns, including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.
• First-round interviews are underway in some cases, Business Insider has learned.
• Here's how to ace the HireVue screening process and score a competitive Wall Street internship.

The annual race for summer investment-banking internships is kicking off across Wall Street.

Applications for 2026 summer jobs opened earlier this month at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, RBC, Lazard, and Evercore, according to their website career portals. And some banks have already started sending applicants invitations to complete first-round interviews via HireVue, Business Insider has learned.

"It's a little bit like drinking water from a fire hose," said Meridith Dennes, an investment banking recruiter, of the Wall Street internship process. "There's so much stuff — it's really confusing, and it's changing all the time."

HireVue is a job screening tool many banks use to determine which candidates will get invitations for in-person interviews. Dennes said she is coaching some students who recently received invitations to do HireVue interviews, and Wall Street blogs are filling up with posts by aspiring interns seeking insight into the questions they could be asked. Banks that have been known to use the platform include Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, and Wells Fargo.

Landing a summer internship at a leading investment bank is often the starting point for a high-paying and prestigious career on Wall Street, including for those who move on from investment banking to private-equity dealmaking or hedge-fund trading. The process is super competitive. Indeed, Goldman received so many applicants for the 2024 class that its hire rate dropped to under 1% last year.

To score a spot, you must compete with hundreds of thousands of applicants and nail every stage of the process, including the HireVue interview. Goldman Sachs' head of talent acquisition told BI in a 2023 interview that thjope bank uses HireVue to decide who should attend their "Super Day" — an industry-wide phenomenon for interviewing many job candidates in a single setting.

To help applicants ace this screening, BI has compiled tips from industry insiders, including Dennes, Jaylyn Jones, a former campus recruiter for JPMorgan who now works for Duolingo, and Nathan Mondragon of HireVue. They explain how to channel your favorite influencers as a hack for on-camera appeal, how to navigate some of the software's tools, and what questions you can expect to be asked.

How it works

HireVue is a software that conducts and records one-way interviews. The platform will ask you a question, give you a set amount of time to prepare your answer, and then start recording your response. For banks, the interviews will generally consist of four to seven questions, said Dennes.

After you've been asked a question, you will have 20 to 30 seconds to think about and prepare your answer, explained Jones, who helps the language-learning app DuoLingo find students for software engineering and product management roles. HireVue will give you one to three minutes to answer, depending on the question, she added.

"While they can be a little nerve-wracking, on-demand video interviews are a great way to shorten the hiring process and increase fairness so you can start your first day as soon as possible," Mondragon, HireVue's Chief Innovation Officer and IO Psychologist, told BI via email.

Use practice mode

Most HireVue invitations include a practice feature. Use it to familiarize yourself with all the tools and buttons before your interview begins.

"Utilize the practice questions and other preparation tools offered within the interview platform," added Mondragon. "Only you can see your practice recordings, so use them fully."

HireVue's candidate help center explains it like this: "You can access practice questions by clicking the link from your invitation email and following the prompts until presented with the option to 'Try a Practice Question'. This should not start your interview."

You should also practice answering timed questions while recording yourself well before logging into HireVue, Dennes said.

"The best way to prepare for a HireVue is to take a list of standard questions from your school career center or online and then bullet out your answers," she said. "Then run a mock interview process where you use your phone or a stopwatch and you give yourself 30 to 60 seconds to prepare and 90 seconds to answer."

Practicing with a timer is key.

"You will be surprised at how fast 90 seconds go by if you don't know what you're saying," Dennes said, adding: "You'll be cut off and you won't be able to get to the point."

Move fast and be professional

Dennes suggested that candidates aim to submit their interviews within 48 hours of getting the invitation, even if they have a much longer deadline to turn it in. Think of it this way: Banks want to hire people who really want to work for them.

"If you're one of the first people to submit and you're a strong candidate, it shows you have a commitment to this firm," said Dennes.

Dress professionally and make sure you are seated in a professional setting, Jones and Dennes agreed.

"I recently spoke to a client who told me that a kid showed up in a green flannel shirt. No!" Dennes said. She suggested candidates put on a tie, a dress, or a nice sweater. "I don't know why it's not obvious, but it isn't," she added.

Interviewing at home is OK if you can't find a space that's more professional, but make sure it's presentable, said Jones.

"Filming in your dorm room is totally normal," she said. "But we don't want to see alcohol bottles in the back of your videos, especially if you're presumably not of legal drinking age."

If you have a messy bedroom, blur the background. And sit in a real chair, she said.

"I've seen students do HireVues physically in the bed, like, laying down," added Jones. "I've heard some students say 'Oh I thought it was AI so if I just said enough buzzwords no one was going to watch it.'"

Channel your inner influencer

Even if you aren't the type of person to post a reel or TikTok, pretend you are for a few minutes, Jones said. Channel your favorite influencers or pretend you're FaceTiming a friend or family member. There's a way to speak professionally without coming off as mechanical or boring. That's the energy you should aim for, she said — relaxed, relatable, and energetic.

"There's something about just being able to speak naturally," she said. "Yes, I'm talking to a camera and recording it, but it does not have to be this weird robotic, cue-card vibe."

An easy way to keep up your energy is to remember to smile when speaking and raise the pitch of your voice slightly. Tap into the "Hi guys, welcome back to my channel!" energy of YouTube creators, said Jones — without sounding disingenuous or hokey.

Use bulleted notes versus scripted answers

Use preparation time and the time in between takes to jot down your key talking points rather than trying to write out exact lines to read, the experts said.

"What we want to avoid is the candidates reading word for word a script out loud of the answer," said Jones. "I don't think they realize that we can see their eyes tracking across the screen."

Dennes, the Wall Street headhunter, suggested writing down the questions as they're being asked to make sure you are truly responding to them. Then use those bullet points from the earlier preparation for your answers.

"It's akin to a debate format where you would be asked a question, write it down, and then present your answer."

Take advantage of the redo tool

Many companies give applicants the opportunity to re-record every question at least once, said Jones. Figure out if you have redos before starting and, if so, how many. Then take advantage of it.

A little-utilized trick: There's no time limit between your first take and your redo, so if you don't like your first take, you could spend as long as you want to sit there and think through your answer before recording the second take.

Once you run out of redos, however, the software will submit the last take as your recorded response.

"You can't take it back, you can't undo it, so you really wanna make sure if you're gonna do a redo that you've kind of thought through what you're going to do with that redo," said Jones.

A common mistake, she said, is accidentally hitting "submit" instead of "redo" or "record."

"I had a candidate who accidentally recorded himself Facetiming his friend for help with the answers because he thought he was in between takes."

Research sample questions

Some questions, according to Dennes, may include:

• Give an example of an experience where you've worked within a team.
• Tell us about a time you handled a contentious situation. What was your approach?
• Why [insert bank name here]?
• Tell us about an article you read recently that you were interested in and why?
• What is your greatest weakness?

The "greatest weakness" question is a common fumble, she added.

"You cannot say, 'I am a perfectionist.' Come up with an actual weakness, but one that's fixable or redeemable," she said.

She also stressed the importance of being prepared to answer "Why [insert bank name here]." This is where pre-application networking and coffee chats can really help. It can be advantageous to briefly mention some of the people at the bank you've met or spoken to and what you've gathered in your networking about what makes the firm special and why it aligns with you as a person.

As Lazard's head of recruiting, Danielle Dodgen, told BI in a 2023 interview, this question can often make or break a candidate's chance at moving on to the next round.

"It sounds so simple, but it's really important to be able to convey to the interviewer, 'This is my story, this is how I got here, and this is why I'm pursuing this path,'" said Dodgen. "There are instances where, if candidates haven't put much thought into the 'why,' it's pretty clear to interviewers."

Jones also stressed the importance of relating your experiences and achievements back to investment banking.

"Good candidates are able to give a concise, STAR-method answer that really lays out what they've done, what their actions were, what's the result," she said. "But great candidates then tie it back to the role."