During the PhD · Interviews

How industry interviews work

Interviewing is its own skill. Strong candidates fail it all the time, not for lack of ability, but for lack of practice.

6 min read · By Marc Sleiman

Interviewing is its own skill, separate from being good at your job, and nearly everyone needs to practice it. Strong economists fail industry interviews all the time. Usually it is not because they lack the knowledge. It is because they have never answered these kinds of questions out loud, under time pressure, to someone who is not an economist. The good news is that this is the most trainable part of the whole process.

There is no single process

Students often ask me “what does the interview look like?” as if there were one answer. There is not. The process depends on the kind of employer, the size of the firm, the team and sometimes the individual hiring manager. A central bank, a litigation consulting firm, a management consulting firm, a large technology company, a think tank and a ten-person startup will each test you differently. The first thing to do when you get an interview is ask exactly what the process will be. The second is to prepare for that process, not a generic one.

Here is what to expect from the main types of employers. Treat these as typical patterns, not rules; every organization adapts them.

Government, central banks and international organizations

These employers often follow a calendar and format close to the academic market. Many post through the AEA job listings in the fall, hold short first-round interviews in December and January (often around the January ASSA meetings or by video), and then invite finalists for a full day on site. That day usually includes a research seminar of an hour or more, a series of one-on-one meetings and meals with staff. The seminar and your answers to questions carry a lot of weight, and meals are part of the evaluation, not a break from it. They want to know whether you can produce careful research and explain it to colleagues outside your own field. Some government agencies also use formal federal hiring procedures with structured applications and longer timelines.

Economic consulting

Firms that support litigation, regulation and mergers usually start with a resume and cover-letter screen, sometimes through campus recruiting or the AEA market, followed by first-round interviews with consultants and economists. Later rounds often bring you to the office, or a virtual equivalent, to meet several people at different levels. Expect questions about your research, about how you would approach an economic question in a real case, and about working with data. Some firms add a data or writing exercise. Throughout, they look for clear thinking, plain-language communication, attention to detail and the ability to work on a team. Internships are a major pipeline into these firms, and a strong summer often leads to a return offer.

Management consulting

Large management consulting firms often have dedicated tracks for PhD candidates, but the core of the process is the case interview: a business problem you work through out loud, typically in thirty to forty minutes, from structuring the problem to a recommendation. Interviewers evaluate structure and prioritization, business intuition, quick and accurate math (market sizing, break-even calculations), and above all a clear, direct recommendation without academic hedging. Expect behavioral or “fit” interviews as well. Case interviews reward practice more than any other format: candidates commonly practice dozens of cases with a partner before their interviews.

Large technology and data-driven companies

Here the process is usually the most structured. A typical sequence is a recruiter call, sometimes an online test or take-home data exercise, one or two technical video interviews, and then a final round of several interviews in one or two days covering technical skills, a case or product question, behavioral questions and often your research. Some large companies hire you into the company first and match you with a team afterward, which can add weeks. Others hire for one specific team from the start.

Think tanks and research institutes

Because the work is closest to academic research, the process often is too: a writing sample or job-market paper, a research presentation, and conversations with researchers about your agenda. Expect more emphasis than in academia on policy relevance and your ability to write for non-specialists. Some ask for a short policy memo or a writing exercise.

Startups and small firms

The process can be short and informal: a conversation with the founder or a team lead, a call with one or two colleagues, and sometimes a small paid project or take-home task built around a real problem they have. Decisions can come within days. There is less structure to prepare for, so your pitch, your portfolio and your ability to show you can be useful from week one matter more.

Banks, insurers and other large corporations

Economist and analytics roles in finance, insurance, retail, energy, healthcare and transportation companies vary widely. Some follow structured, multi-round processes with technical and behavioral interviews and sometimes a presentation; others are closer to a conversation with the hiring manager and the team. Many include questions about the industry itself, so learn how the company makes money before you interview.

What every process is testing

Underneath all these formats, employers are trying to answer three questions. Can you do the work: do you have the technical and analytical skills the role needs? Can you communicate it: can you explain your reasoning clearly to the people who will use it? And will you work well here: are you someone they would want on their team, who will take the job and stay? Every interview format you face is a different way of asking those three questions, which is why the pitch, the writing and the behavioral stories on this site matter as much as the technical preparation.

The formats you may face

Each has its own page with real questions, what the interviewer is looking for and how to structure a strong answer.

• Behavioral: your past behavior as evidence of how you will work. Every company does this.
• Technical: causal inference, experiments, metrics and statistics: the core of most economist and data scientist interviews.
• Coding and SQL: pulling and shaping data, and sometimes basic algorithms.
• Case or product questions: an open-ended business problem to work through out loud.
• Your research: a presentation or a deep discussion of your job-market paper.

What a good interview looks like

You rarely need a flawless performance. Different interviewers weigh different things, standards vary from team to team, and any single interview has some randomness in it. A candidate who is solid across the board and excellent in one or two areas usually does better than one who is brilliant in one room and weak in another. If an organization you really want does not work out, many let you apply again after some time has passed.

What interviewers in every setting reward is the ability to think clearly out loud, ask good clarifying questions, say plainly when something is outside your expertise, and explain your reasoning to someone outside your field. What they consistently penalize is bluffing, rambling and answering a different question from the one they asked.

A preparation plan

Start practicing long before you have an interview scheduled. Interview preparation starts before you apply, because applied experience gives you the stories and examples you will need.

Six months or more before

Build the foundations: SQL, Python or R, and a review of the statistics and causal inference you have not used since your first year. Start collecting stories for behavioral interviews from your research, teaching and applied work.

Two to three months before

Practice questions weekly. Do SQL problems a few times a week. Work through the technical question bank out loud, explaining your answer as if to a colleague. Draft and rehearse your three behavioral stories and your two-minute research summary.

The last four weeks

Do full mock interviews with another person, ideally someone who has interviewed candidates. Research each company: use its product, read its engineering or data science blog, and look up the people interviewing you. Prepare your questions for each interviewer.

Sources and further reading

The descriptions above combine several sources with my own experience: the Stanford Department of Economics Ph.D. Placement Guide for government and research employers; Yale Office of Career Strategy, Breaking into Economic Consulting: Advice from Yale PhD Alumni (2025); Road to Offer, Case Interview for PhDs; Scarlet Chen, Tech Industry Jobs for Econ PhDs, Part 4 (2020); and Susan Athey and Michael Luca, “Economists (and Economics) in Tech Companies,” Journal of Economic Perspectives (2019).