Sales and Trading Superday: Every Stage From Application to Offer

Goldman Sachs asks most of its campus applicants for a HireVue video interview of about thirty minutes, then invites the ones it wants to a superday of two to five interviews. Its student process for India reads differently: a written or online test, group discussions, then final round interviews. The video interview never appears.

Deutsche Bank splits along the same kind of line. Its recorded video interview is for candidates in the UK and Asia-Pacific; elsewhere, the same step is a live virtual interview. Its Situational Judgement Test runs in every region except the US and India.

So the most useful fact about the sales and trading superday is that there is no single version of it. The stages rhyme from bank to bank, but the tests, the video round and the shape of the final day all move with the bank, the programme and the region. What follows is each stage in order, what it tests, and what ten dealer banks say about their own process.

The process at ten dealer banks

Each bank describes its process on its own careers pages, in its own words. Here is what each says, stage by stage, with "not published" wherever a bank says nothing.

Read across any row and the shape is familiar: a screen of some kind, a recorded or live interview, then a final round with several people. Read down any column and almost nothing lines up. Citi's early careers page goes straight from a skills evaluation to a one-on-one first interview, with no recorded round in between, while Bank of America attaches its HireVue interview to the application itself.

Morgan Stanley's student interview page is advice on telling your story and researching the firm, not a list of stages. BNP Paribas's careers pages for Finland set a floor rather than a sequence: at least two interviews for any job, with more interviews or tests for some roles. HSBC is the most precise of the ten, down to how long each stage takes.

One bank, more than one process

The Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank splits are worth laying side by side, because they show where the differences come from. It is not the bank's name that sets the process. It is the programme and the country the application is for.

The practical consequence is simple. A forum account of last year's superday at one bank's New York office tells you little about the same bank's process in India or London, and a friend's account of one division's final round may not match another division's. Goldman Sachs says as much about its own superday: the number of interviews depends on the division.

The vocabulary moves too. HSBC calls its final round an assessment centre, and a Super Day in the US.

The stages in order

Strip out the bank names and most processes run through the same six steps, in the same order. Not every bank uses all six, and some fold two together: HSBC puts video responses inside its online assessments.

1. The online application. A CV, eligibility questions and, at some banks, written answers to competency questions.
2. Online tests. Short assessments of judgement, working style and reasoning.
3. The recorded video interview. A handful of questions answered to a camera, against a clock.
4. First-round interviews. One or more live conversations, by phone, by video or in an office.
5. The final round. A superday in the US, an assessment centre in the UK, Europe and Asia.
6. The decision. An offer, or not, once the bank has reviewed everything.

Each step looks at something different, and the banks' own descriptions say what.

The questions asked inside those interviews are a separate subject, covered desk by desk in Fixed Income Interview Questions. What follows here is the machinery around them.

The online application

Goldman Sachs counts three steps before anyone applies: plan your timeline, choose your path, and connect with the firm. Submitting the application is only the fourth. The order is a hint worth taking. By the time the form opens, a candidate should already know which division and which desk family they are applying for, and why.

The form itself can be quick. HSBC puts ten to fifteen minutes on its online application: simple eligibility questions, and possibly a copy of your CV. Bank of America pairs the CV upload with competency questions and a video interview, so its first screen asks for more than a CV. Citi describes the step as submitting an application through its online portal, and J.P. Morgan's four stages begin with Explore and Apply.

The choice made on the form matters more than it looks. At a bank that runs different processes by region or programme, the box you tick decides which tests and which interview format come next. Citi says outright that its final stage depends on the programme and location selected.

Before submitting, settle three things:

• The division, and what this bank calls it: Markets at J.P. Morgan, FICC and Equities at Goldman Sachs.
• The office and region, since the process can change with the country.
• The desk family you will talk about, the thread every later interview pulls on. The fixed income trading desks hub sets out what each one trades and for whom.

Online tests: judgement, working style and reasoning

The online tests are where the dealer banks differ most, and where the vocabulary is least standard.

Barclays sets two short interactive assessments that can be taken on any type of device, built to show your typical working style. Deutsche Bank's version is longer and split by region: a Situational Judgement Test, run everywhere except the US and India, checks whether your values and behaviours line up with the bank's, while Behaviour and Ability Assessments test personality style and critical reasoning.

HSBC's assessments mix formats too: audio or video content, mock emails, data tables and graphs, and written articles, answered with short written and video responses. J.P. Morgan says standardized assessments are used for certain positions, and Citi asks candidates for its EMEA and Services programmes to take a skills discovery survey.

Read together, these describe tests of judgement, behaviour and reasoning rather than market knowledge. Deutsche Bank does name a technical interview, and places it at the final stage. That does not make the tests easy to prepare for, but it changes how:

• Read the bank's stated values before a judgement test. Deutsche Bank says its test checks alignment with its own.
• Take the reasoning tests in one sitting, somewhere quiet, with a calculator and paper to hand if the format allows them.
• Treat a test with video content, like HSBC's, as a first interview: dress for it and prepare two or three motivation answers in advance.

One naming trap at Deutsche Bank: its Insight Programmes are a separate, earlier set of short programmes for first- and second-year students, not a stage of the graduate or internship application.

The recorded video interview

The recorded interview, often called a one-way or on-demand interview, is the one stage candidates search for by the vendor's name. Two dealer banks name HireVue as the platform on their own pages. Goldman Sachs calls it the first interview and says it takes about thirty minutes. Bank of America gives candidates practice time and asks for clear, concise answers.

J.P. Morgan describes an on-demand recorded video interview without naming a vendor, and Deutsche Bank uses a pre-recorded interview in the UK and Asia-Pacific, with preparation time after each question appears and before the recording starts.

HireVue's own guidance for candidates sets out how the format runs. Each question appears on screen with thirty seconds to read it and prepare, then up to three minutes to record the answer. Most video assessments include between five and eight questions. Before the real ones, candidates can run several ungraded practice questions, as many as they need to feel comfortable.

30 sec

to read and prepare

for each question

3 min

to answer, at most

for each question

5 to 8

questions

in most video assessments

Run the arithmetic and the shape of the session is clear:

• One question takes at most 0.5 minutes of preparation plus 3 minutes of answer, or 3.5 minutes.
• Five questions take at most 5 × 3.5 = 17.5 minutes.
• Eight questions take at most 8 × 3.5 = 28 minutes.

That squares with the thirty minutes Goldman Sachs tells candidates to set aside. The pressure sits inside each answer, not across the session.

The practice questions are the only ones HireVue itself promises you can repeat. Candidates describe different rules for real questions at different banks, so treat each recorded answer as final unless the invitation offers a second take.

Answering inside three minutes

Three minutes is a ceiling, not a target. An answer that lands in about two minutes leaves room for the one example that makes it memorable, and the thirty seconds of preparation are better spent choosing that example than drafting sentences.

A structure that fits the clock:

• Open with the answer in one sentence: the desk, the reason, the view.
• Give one concrete example: a trade you followed, a market move you can explain, a time you changed your mind.
• Close on the seat you applied for, so the answer ends where the interviewer's interest is.

Prepare the motivation answers first, because they carry into every later round. The desk-by-desk version of the most common one is worked through in Why Fixed Income.

A sales candidate and a trading candidate should not give the same answer either. A sales answer should lead with the client and the idea, a trading answer with pricing and risk. How the sales seat's interview differs from trading's is laid out in Fixed Income Sales.

First-round interviews

After the screen, most processes move to a live interview. Bank of America's first and second rounds, where they apply, run by phone, on-demand video, on campus or at a Bank of America office; only its final round names who conducts it, typically representatives from the business area you applied to. Citi's first interview is one-on-one. J.P. Morgan says only that the process differs by position and that candidates can expect to meet several people across multiple rounds.

BNP Paribas's floor of at least two interviews sits here too, and Deutsche Bank's candidates outside the UK and Asia-Pacific meet their interviewer live, over video, rather than recording answers.

The detail that matters most is who is on the other end. When the interviewer comes from the business itself, a first round is already a conversation about the desk, and a generic answer about liking markets reads as exactly that. The strongest first-round candidates sound like they have already chosen a seat.

The superday

The US name for the final round is a superday, and Goldman Sachs gives the clearest description of one: a series of final round interviews, typically between two and five for campus hires depending on the division, with a cross-section of people a candidate could end up working with. The range is the point. Two candidates at the same bank can have different days because they applied to different divisions.

HSBC is the one bank that sets the two terms side by side. Its guide calls the three-hour assessment centre a Super Day in the US, and says it is mostly virtual, though sometimes held in person at one of its offices.

A cross-section means interviewers from more than one desk, and each will test the choice from their own seat. A rates trader may ask why rates; a credit salesperson may ask why not credit. The day rewards candidates whose story holds up from every angle:

• Know which division and which desk family you are there for, and be able to defend it to someone from a different desk.
• Carry a market view with a level in it: a yield, a spread, the most recent central bank decision.
• Prepare a question for each interviewer that fits their seat, not the bank in general.
• Keep the answers consistent across the day: the same desk, the same reasons, every time.

The market-view and brain teaser questions a superday draws on are collected in Sales and Trading Technical Questions, and the bond math behind them in Bond Math Interview Questions.

The assessment centre

In London, across continental Europe and in Asia, the final round usually goes by another name, the assessment centre, and it tends to mix interviews with other exercises.

Superday, the US name

• A series of final round interviews
• Two to five interviews at Goldman Sachs, varying by division
• A cross-section of people a candidate could work with

Assessment centre, UK, Europe and Asia

• Interviews plus other exercises, in person or virtual
• Two or three stages at Barclays, one of them a motivational interview
• Group or presentation exercises at some banks

Barclays runs its assessment centre in person or virtually, in two or three stages, including a motivational interview with a member of the leadership team. Deutsche Bank's final stage combines competency assessments, case studies and a technical interview. Citi's final stage, depending on programme and location, is multiple interviews, an assessment or a case study exercise. Bank of America's final recruiting stage varies by line of business and sometimes adds a group component or presentation exercise.

The group exercises are where the format differs most from a US superday. Some assessment centres set a pitch: read short write-ups of two investment ideas, then argue for one. Goldman Sachs's process in India puts group discussions before its final round.

Treat a group exercise as a test of how you work with other people, since that is the one thing a solo interview cannot show. Build on a good point someone else makes, keep an eye on the time, and make sure the group reaches an answer.

When the desk is decided

Every sales and trading candidate eventually asks the same question: when do you find out which desk you will sit on? Candidates describe two models.

At some banks, a summer analyst is placed onto a specific desk before the final round, so the superday is a set of conversations about a desk that is already assigned. At others, the programme rotates interns across teams and the desk is settled once the internship has started. Ask the recruiter which model applies before the final round, because the preparation differs:

• Placed before the final round: go deep on that one desk, its products, its clients and a current view, and expect every interviewer to test it.
• Rotational: prepare a first-choice desk with a real reason, plus a credible second, and show you understand how the desks differ.

Either way, naming a desk you cannot defend is worse than naming one you can. A candidate who says rates and then cannot talk about the Federal Reserve's last decision has made the interview harder, not easier.

After the offer

The last step is the shortest to describe. J.P. Morgan says it reviews everything from the application and, if the skills and experience are a match, contacts the candidate with an offer. Citi's final step is simply Offer Extended. Bank of America says application status is communicated as candidates progress, and that a hiring manager will share in-office expectations with anyone offered a role.

What follows depends on the programme. Goldman Sachs's Summer Analyst Program runs nine to ten weeks, with orientation, training and real responsibilities. The practical questions after an offer go to the recruiter who made it:

• Is the desk assigned now, or after a rotation?
• When is the start date, and is there training before it?
• What are the in-office expectations for the programme?
• How long is there to accept?

Pay is the other question. What the seat pays, desk by desk and city by city, is in Fixed Income Trader Salary.

A recruiting cycle, stage by stage

The calendar is structural, and it runs early. US bulge-bracket summer applications open in the December about eighteen months before the internship. For the 2027 class, that was December 2025.

A careers page that says applications are open tells you little about where the cycle is, because that line can stay up well after the main window. Check the dates on the specific role, and apply early in the window rather than at its end.

Bank-by-bank programmes, and the UK's off-cycle and graduate scheme routes, are covered in Sales and Trading Internship.

How to prepare, in order

The order matters because each stage filters for the next, and the early ones are the easiest to lose through lack of preparation rather than lack of ability.

1. Find the bank's own description of its process, for your programme and region, and write down the stages it names.
2. Pick the desk family and the reason before the application, and check it against Fixed Income Trading Desks.
3. Take any practice test the bank or platform offers, and read the bank's stated values before a judgement test.
4. Rehearse recorded answers to a thirty-second and three-minute clock, and watch them back.
5. Build the technical base: bond math, worked through with the bond calculator, and the market questions in Sales and Trading Technical Questions.
6. Run the interview readiness check a week before the final round, and use the other preparation tools for the gaps it finds.
7. Ask the recruiter how the desk is decided, then prepare one desk deeply or two credibly.

The bottom line

The superday is the stage everyone names, but it is the last of five or six, and no two dealer banks describe the same set. Goldman Sachs runs a different process in India from the one on its main student page. Deutsche Bank records video interviews in two regions and not in others. Morgan Stanley's student page offers advice rather than stages.

Read the version your bank publishes for your programme and your region, practise the format as well as the content, and treat a forum account of someone else's day as one data point, not the process.