Succeeding in Your M&A Interview: Excel Tests

Excel tests have become increasingly common in M&A recruitment processes. They typically take place before interviews with deal teams, making them a crucial step to advance in the hiring process. Knowing how they work and how to succeed is therefore essential.

Why Excel Tests Are Part of the M&A Recruitment Process

Banks use these tests for two main reasons:

1. Assessing technical skills

- Interns in M&A spend most of their time working on data analysis and financial modeling.

- Excel is the essential tool for building valuation models, business plans, and LBO analyses.

- Recruiters want to make sure candidates can:

- Manipulate financial data precisely,

- Create both simple and complex formulas,

- Use advanced functions,

- Format work professionally,

- Deliver under tight deadlines.

2. Filtering candidates efficiently

Hundreds of applications are submitted for just a few internship positions. Excel tests act as a first filter to identify candidates who are both technically capable and structured in their thinking.

What Do M&A Excel Tests Look Like?

Duration

- On-site tests: usually 1.5 to 3 hours under exam conditions.

- Remote tests: sometimes longer, with candidates having a few days to send back their models.

Typical content
Depending on the bank and the role, tests can cover:

- Data analysis (e.g., “Calculate revenues from the company’s largest client”).

- Financial analysis (e.g., “How does the gearing ratio evolve between 2021 and 2024?”).

- Building a Business Plan (revenues, costs, and market assumptions – often testing accounting knowledge).

- Company valuation (DCF, trading comparables, etc.).

- LBO models (more frequent in Private Equity recruitment).

- Financing models (common in Leveraged Finance or Private Debt roles).

How to Excel in Excel Tests

1. Respect the deadlines

- The single most important rule: never miss the deadline.

- Banks know the exercise is challenging and don’t expect a perfect model, but they expect candidates to prioritize and deliver on time.

- Example: if asked for a DCF, it’s more important to build the structure of the model correctly than to fine-tune every assumption.

2. Pay attention to formatting
Professional formatting is often overlooked by candidates but is a key evaluation criterion. Recruiters expect adherence to industry standards, especially regarding:

Color coding (standard convention):

- Blue = hard-coded numbers,

- Red = links within the same sheet,

- Black = formulas,

- Brown = links to other sheets,

- Green = assumptions.

Data presentation:

- Use “A” for actual years (e.g., 2023A) and “E” for forecast years (2024E).

- Format numbers properly (e.g., 2,000 in English, not 2 000).

3. Defend your assumptions

Every model is built on assumptions, and interviewers will challenge them.

The key is not to be “right” but to be logical and consistent.