UBS Investment Banking (IB) Summer Analyst Interview Guide

UBS splits its investment banking summer analyst hiring along geographic lines more sharply than most of its bulge bracket peers, from when applications open through what the final round contains. Two automated rounds stand between your application and any live conversation, and the recorded video interview asks for a market view before you've spoken with a banker. Where you apply decides what comes last: the New York Superday and the London assessment center test different skills.

This guide breaks down each stage of the UBS IB summer analyst interview process, what interviewers look for, and how to prepare with real example questions, actionable tips, and resources.

UBS investment banking summer analyst interview process

The UBS investment banking summer analyst interview process raises the seniority of who evaluates you at every stage, moving from automated scoring, to a recruiter reviewing your recording, to an analyst or associate call, to VPs and MDs in the final round. The technical bar climbs with it, so a definition that carries the first call won't hold up when a VP asks you to build the model behind it.

The online assessments expire 7 days after the invitation email arrives, so move quickly through the early stages.

Here's an example of what the interview process can look like:

• Online application: Resume, transcript, and program-specific questions submitted through the UBS careers portal
• Online assessments: A culture match questionnaire plus numerical, verbal, and logical reasoning tests
• HireVue video interview: 6 to 8 pre-recorded questions with about 90 seconds to prepare and 2 minutes to answer each
• First-round interview: A 30-minute call with an analyst or associate covering your resume, motivation, and foundational technicals
• Final round: A Superday of back-to-back 30-minute interviews in the US, or an assessment center built around a timed case study in London and Singapore

The full cycle runs about 2 to 6 weeks from application to offer.

UBS IB summer analyst recruiting timeline

UBS runs its investment banking summer analyst recruiting on separate regional calendars, and the gap between them approaches a full year. US applications open roughly 15 to 17 months before the internship starts.

London, EMEA, and APAC open much closer to the start date, generally 8 to 11 months out. A candidate applying in New York in January and a candidate applying in London in September can be competing for internships that begin the same summer.

Key application dates

• US applications open: December to January for an internship starting the following June, roughly 15 to 17 months ahead
• US application deadline: Rolling, with the class typically filled by late spring
• London and EMEA applications open: August, with more roles posted through September
• London and EMEA application deadline: End of September for most Global Banking postings
• APAC applications open: Varies by office, and Australia and New Zealand run on a December internship start instead of June
• Switzerland: Fixed start dates in February, July, and September, with applications opening several months ahead of each
• Recruiting policy: Rolling review, with roles advertised for an initial 4 weeks and closing once seats fill

Typical response times by stage

• Application to assessment invitation: 1 to 2 weeks, and often automatic within days
• Assessment completion window: 7 days from the invitation email, with no extensions and no retakes
• Assessment to video interview invitation: Days to 2 weeks for shortlisted candidates
• Video interview to final round invitation: 1 to 3 weeks
• Final round to offer: Same day to 3 weeks, decided on a rolling basis
• Application to offer: About 4 weeks on average

Programs that accelerate UBS IB recruiting

UBS runs early-insight programs that feed directly into summer analyst offers, and they open before the main application window. Getting into one shortens the process considerably.

• Investment Banking Insights Day: A New York event for second-year students, held in January, where attendees can interview for a summer analyst offer
• Tomorrow's Talent and Spring Insight: A UK program with applications opening in September and insight weeks running in spring, feeding into summer internship offers
• Investment Banking Challenge: A case competition in Australia that fast-tracks strong participants to accelerated interviews

UBS online assessments

The UBS online assessments combine a culture match questionnaire with a set of cognitive reasoning tests, and they sit between your application and the video interview.

The culture questionnaire is a situational judgment test that scores your responses against UBS's behaviors of collaboration, challenge, and integrity. It presents workplace scenarios, some delivered as video, and asks you to rank responses from most to least effective.

Reasoning tests cover numerical, verbal, and logical questions under time limits. Expect chart and table interpretation on the numerical section, dense passages on the verbal section, and pattern sequences on the logical section.

You get one attempt at every assessment, and the full set takes around 75 minutes.

The online assessments evaluate:

• Values alignment: Whether your responses reflect collaboration, challenge, and integrity in workplace scenarios
• Numerical reasoning: Your speed and accuracy interpreting charts, tables, and financial data under a time limit
• Verbal reasoning: How precisely you read dense text and draw conclusions the passage supports
• Logical reasoning: Your ability to identify patterns and apply rules to unfamiliar sequences

UBS HireVue video interview

The UBS investment banking summer analyst video interview is a pre-recorded round on HireVue that runs 6 to 8 questions, with about 90 seconds to prepare and 2 minutes to answer each. Expect wording that differs from the examples you'll find online.

What separates this round from a standard behavioral screen is the question mix. Expect commercial and market awareness content alongside the behavioral and motivational questions. A prompt asking for your read on a recent deal or market move carries as much weight here as your answer on why you want the job.

Heavier technical work waits for the live rounds. Prepare a market view you can deliver without notes, and save full model walkthroughs for the first-round interview and the Superday.

Interviewers look for:

• Structure within a time limit: Whether you deliver a complete answer inside 2 minutes without running long or finishing too early
• Commercial awareness: Your ability to discuss a company, a market move, or a recent deal with specifics attached
• Motivation specific to UBS: Whether your reasons for applying point to something concrete about UBS's business
• Technical baseline: How comfortably you handle a valuation or accounting question without notes
• Delivery to camera: How clearly you present, including pacing, eye contact, and energy

Recently asked questions

Here are some real interview questions reported by candidates:

• Tell me about yourself.
• Why are you interested in UBS?
• Why investment banking?
• Pitch me a stock, and walk me through how you'd build the pitch.
• Tell me about a time you made a risky decision.
• Tell me about a time you received positive and negative feedback.
• How do you stay current with financial trends? Discuss a recent financial event and its impact on the economy.
• What are your strengths and weaknesses, and what skills will help you succeed here?

First-round interview

The UBS first-round interview for the IB summer analyst role is a 30-minute call covering your resume, your motivation, and foundational technicals. Some candidates take it with an associate, others with a pair of analysts, and some skip the round entirely and go from the video interview to the final round.

The technical portion usually takes up the second half of the call and stays close to the fundamentals. Expect a DCF walkthrough with follow-ups on your assumptions, along with enterprise value questions and the bridge to equity value. Accounting questions stay at the level of the 3 statements and how a single change moves through them.

Interviewers look for:

• Resume fluency: Whether you can walk through your background in 2 minutes and defend every line on the page
• Foundational technicals: How well you handle DCF mechanics, valuation methodologies, and enterprise value questions without prompting
• Motivation: Whether your reasons for targeting UBS survive follow-up questions
• Concision: How efficiently you answer when the interviewer is moving quickly
• Coverage knowledge: Whether you know what the group you're applying to advises on and who its clients are

Sample questions

Here are some real interview questions reported by candidates:

• Walk me through a DCF and explain the assumptions behind it.
• What's the difference between enterprise value and equity value?
• What's the difference between unlevered and levered free cash flow?
• What kind of company could have a negative enterprise value?
• Talk me through a recent UBS deal and what UBS's role was.

Superday and assessment center

The UBS investment banking summer analyst final round takes 2 forms depending on where you apply, and the difference changes what you need to prepare: New York runs a Superday; London and Singapore run an assessment center.

The New York Superday is 3 back-to-back 30-minute interviews with associates and VPs, sometimes including an MD, and the whole event often finishes inside 2 hours. Interviewers move quickly, so a single block can cover your resume, a valuation question, and your read on a recent deal.

The London and Singapore assessment center spans a longer day and runs on 45 to 60 minute blocks. It adds a timed M&A case study and often a group exercise, where a small group of candidates works from shared material and has to reach a recommendation together while assessors watch how you contribute.

Some assessment centers add market awareness as its own block alongside the case study, behavioral, and technical sessions. Bankers in these regions lean on the group and case work, so how you reason through a task with other people in the room carries as much as your technical recall.

Behavioral themes from the HireVue round come up again in Superday and assessment center interviews, this time with live follow-ups. Expect questions on risky decisions, feedback you've received, friction inside a team, and where you want your career to go over the next 5 years.

Interviewers look for:

• Technical depth: How far you go into DCF construction, WACC, terminal value, and accretion or dilution math
• Market awareness: Whether you can discuss a recent deal or market move and explain what it meant for the buyer or the seller
• Story consistency: Whether your examples hold together when you tell them more than once
• Composure: How you respond when a question moves past what you prepared
• Team fit: Whether bankers finish the day willing to put you on a live deal

Recently asked questions

Here are some real interview questions reported by candidates:

• What are the 3 main valuation methodologies?
• Take me from revenue to unlevered free cash flow.
• How is terminal value calculated, and what happens if the growth rate approaches WACC?
• How do you calculate cost of equity, and what is the discount rate?
• Who has a higher WACC: McDonald's or a local high-end bistro?
• Explain deferred tax assets and deferred tax liabilities.
• In an LBO model, what levers can increase IRR?

Case study

The UBS case study appears in the London and Singapore assessment centers, and candidates typically get 30 to 60 minutes with an M&A prompt before a discussion block of about 30 minutes with someone from the investment banking team. The format is a working discussion. You'll defend your reasoning under questioning, and you won't need slides or a formal deliverable.

Prompts center on a transaction: whether an acquisition makes sense, what the target is worth, and how the buyer should approach it. For example, you may be asked to name 2 companies that should merge and explain the logic, so be ready to build a case from scratch as well as react to one you're handed.

Come prepared to state a recommendation, 2 or 3 supporting arguments, and a view on what would change your mind.

Interviewers look for:

• Case judgment: Your ability to read an M&A prompt quickly and defend a clear recommendation
• Prioritization under time pressure: Which details in the prompt you build your recommendation on and which you set aside
• Valuation reasoning applied to a specific target: How you pick a method and justify it against the situation in front of you
• Response to challenge: Whether you hold a defensible position or revise it when the interviewer asks follow-up questions
• Clarity without slides: How well you carry a recommendation through conversation alone

How to prepare for the UBS investment banking summer analyst interview

1. Write 6 to 8 behavioral stories and build 2 versions of each: Cover risky decisions, feedback you've received, teamwork friction, and leadership. Every story needs a 2-minute recorded version for the video round and a longer live version that holds up when an interviewer follows up on the part you compressed.
2. Network to get seen, and prepare to be screened anyway: Networking gets your resume attention at UBS, but summer analyst candidates rarely skip the video round because of it. Treat every conversation as a source of specifics you can use later in the process.
3. Prepare a stock pitch you can deliver in 2 minutes: Pick a company you can value, name your thesis in the first sentence, and attach 2 or 3 numbers to it. Have a second name ready for the live rounds, where bankers often ask what else you've been following.
4. Work valuation and accounting end to end: Practice building a DCF out loud from revenue through terminal value, and explain how a single change flows across all 3 statements. Bankers keep asking follow-ups until you run out of answer, so push into WACC, cost of equity, and the LBO levers that move IRR.
5. Map your answers to UBS's three keys: UBS organizes its culture into Pillars, Principles, and Behaviors, and the Behaviors carry the most interview relevance: collaboration, challenge, and integrity. Choose examples where you raised a concern and then worked the issue through with the team.
6. Build your "Why UBS" from UBS's own reporting: Pull the most recent quarterly results for Investment Bank revenue and pre-tax profit, then find 2 deals the group you're applying to advised on. Anchor your answer in the wealth management integration and the strength of the Asia ex-Japan franchise. Those structural arguments hold from cycle to cycle.
7. Practice defending a case out loud: Work through M&A prompts by committing to a recommendation in the first 10 minutes, then building 2 or 3 arguments underneath it. Name what evidence would change your mind. The interviewer will push on your reasoning before the block ends.
8. Practice under recording and time pressure: Run mock interviews with the camera at eye level and a timer visible to match the conditions of the video round. Book time with an expert coach when you want someone to push back on your technicals the way a VP will.

About the UBS investment banking summer analyst role

The UBS investment banking summer analyst program is a 10-week paid internship for undergraduates in their second-to-last year, and it feeds directly into the Graduate Talent Program. You're placed in a single division for the summer instead of rotating, and your group shapes your entire experience.

UBS runs the program across its main investment banking centers, including New York, London, Zurich, Hong Kong, and Singapore. IB summer analysts typically work on:

• Financial modeling: Building and maintaining valuation models, comparable company analyses, and precedent transaction screens
• Pitch materials: Preparing sections of client presentations and marketing documents under analyst and associate direction
• Industry research: Tracking companies, deals, and market moves across the group's coverage area
• Deal support: Assisting live transactions with data room work, diligence tracking, and process management

UBS investment banking summer analyst requirements

UBS recruits summer analysts who are 1 year out from graduating, so the internship lines up with a full-time start the following year. UBS runs each program on local hiring cycles, so work authorization for your applying region matters.

Program length and start dates vary by region. Australia and New Zealand run their internships from December, and Swiss internships last 3 to 6 months with fixed starts in February, July, and September.

Additional resources

• Investment Banking Interview Course
• Investment Banking Fast Track
• Investment Banking Interview Prep
• How to Answer "Why UBS?"
• How to Answer "Why Investment Banking?"
• UBS Investment Banking Interview Questions
• Investment Banking Interview Questions

FAQs about the UBS investment banking summer analyst interview

Does UBS use a HireVue video interview for summer analyst roles?

UBS uses HireVue for a pre-recorded video interview as a standard stage in its investment banking summer analyst process, sitting between the online assessments and the live rounds. You record answers on your own without an interviewer present, and are allowed unlimited practice recordings before you submit your real answers. UBS describes the video interview as part of most role processes, so check your application status page to confirm what your specific process includes.

How many questions are in the UBS HireVue video interview?

The UBS HireVue video interview typically includes 6 to 8 questions. You get roughly 90 seconds to prepare and 2 minutes to answer each one. The mix covers behavioral, motivational, and commercial questions, so expect a request for your market view alongside the standard behavioral prompts. UBS changes the wording between cycles, which means question lists you find online won't match yours exactly.

Can you retake the UBS HireVue video interview?

UBS doesn't allow retakes of the pre-recorded video interview once you submit it, and the same applies to the online assessments. You can record unlimited practice takes beforehand, and that's the only place to correct a weak answer. Use practice mode until your pacing fits inside the 2-minute answer window with a few seconds to spare. If a genuine technical failure interrupts your session, contact the UBS recruiting team directly instead of the platform's support line.

What happens at a UBS Superday?

A UBS Superday in the US consists of 3 back-to-back 30-minute interviews with associates and VPs, sometimes with an MD included. Each block mixes behavioral questions with technicals, and the technical questions go deep into DCF construction, valuation methodology, and accounting. Candidates in London and Singapore attend an assessment center instead, which runs longer and adds a timed M&A case study and often a group exercise. Behavioral themes from the HireVue round come up again in these live rounds.

How long does the UBS investment banking summer analyst interview process take?

The UBS investment banking summer analyst process typically runs 2 to 6 weeks from application to offer. How far ahead you apply depends on the region. US applications generally open in December and January, roughly 15 to 17 months before a June start, while London, EMEA, and APAC open 8 to 11 months out. UBS reviews on a rolling basis and closes roles once seats fill, so a missed window usually means waiting a full year.

What does UBS look for in a summer analyst?

UBS assesses summer analyst candidates against its own behaviors of collaboration, challenge, and integrity, and those show up in the culture questionnaire and again in the behavioral rounds. Interviewers want candidates who raise a concern directly and then work the issue with the team instead of going quiet or forcing the point. Commercial awareness is important across every stage, from the video round through the final interviews. Say plainly when a question moves past what you know. UBS treats admitting a gap as a strength and bluffing as a weakness.

Do UBS online assessment scores count in the US?

UBS states that its online assessments are in a piloting phase in the US and that scores there don't affect your application. Candidates applying elsewhere are scored normally, so the assessments function as a live filter outside the US. Complete them either way and inside the 7-day window. An incomplete assessment stalls your application regardless of region, and a pilot can end between cycles, so confirm the current status with your recruiter.

How much does a UBS investment banking summer analyst make?

UBS pro-rates summer analyst pay from its first-year investment banking analyst base, and the exact figure moves cycle to cycle. Check the job posting itself for the current number. New York pay transparency law requires employers to state a real salary range in the listing, so a live UBS posting for the role carries the most reliable figure available to you.