Nera Economic Consulting Interview Questions & Reviews

Interviewed Jul 2011 in New York, NY (took a day)

I had a five one on one interviews.

Two of them were purely "fit" and resume interviews, which I was asked the typical questions ("Why do you want to work at NERA?", questions about things on my resume, etc.). They are particularly interested in past research that you have done. I was asked very specific questions, so make sure that you know your research in and out. When I was explaining one of my papers, I was stopped every time I used a term that was not self-evident and asked to explain that term.

One interview was a spreadsheet analysis, in which I was asked to find mistakes on a spreadsheet. This part was very easy. Many of the mistakes were not just research related. Some of them were simply typos but they want you to notice those as well. I was then asked how I could weaken the argument that was being made, given the mistakes that I found.

The other two interviews were case studies. One was based on a group realizing that research which went into figuring out how to price an insurance policy was flawed. I was then asked various questions about how issuance policies are priced. The interviewer was a very vague and, intstead of asking for answers, beat around the bush. At one point he wanted me to explain the time value of money but asked questions that had nothing to do with it. The second case study was about the mispricing and misrating of mortgage backed securities. This study was better but the interviewer was still very vague about what he was looking for.