Cambridge Associates, LLC Interview Questions & Reviews

Interview Details An initial telephone screening was followed promptly by an interview. Interview was comprised of a presentation about the company followed by three 30-minute interviews with different department managers. Two of the three interviewers appeared completely disinterested, one displaying an arrogance that bordered on rude, while only the third showed any kind of interest in, or euthusiasm, for my application/interview.

Interview Details I went through a phone screening, which is very in depth, but mainly asked behavioral questions. They are trying to determined if you will be a good fit. Got called back for an open house, which lasted about 2 and half hours. Main thing to focus on is the presentation about the company. The interview will be heavy on what you've gained from the presentation.

Interview Details Submitted resume, cover letter, and transcript through university's career portal. Was contacted within a week via email from the head recruiter based out of their Boston office. Arranged for a phone interview/screening within a week of the email. Phone interview took place on a weekday morning and was projected to last for 20-30 minutes, ended up chatting with the interviewer (a fully-time associate at the office applied) for about 45 minutes total about sports and a their recent company ski trip. Received notification of making it through to the final round within another week. Final round interview took place at their Menlo Park office and consisted of 3 back-to-back interviews (2 behavioral and 1 case) and a 4th "lunch" which seemed to be a sort of fit interview where an associate went to lunch with you. It seemed to check for how well you would function in a social setting with a company associate. Behavioral interviews were fairly standard, no odd questions, mostly based around what you hoped to get out of the company and what you could contribute. Case interview was very low-stress and collaborative. Potentially dinged because of a lack of demonstrated interest in their direct line of work (financial consulting for institutional endowments).

Interview Details Applied to the company based on their ad. Received message back in a few days asking a few basic questions. After that was invited in for interview. Met with 3-4 supervisors. Seemed straightforward and pleasant to deal with.
Several week after that received offer

Interview Details Applied through the LinkedIn posting.

Started off with a phone interview which was pretty basic. They asked about my resume and basically just did a walk-through of my credentials. Making sure your resume is legitimate.

I was called back by HR to come to an extensive "open-house" where me and a couple other candidates were given a more extensive overview of the company, what group we were interviewing with, and what the job entailed, historically.

After the presentations, you go through a rotation of three 30-minute interviews. It was interesting, the order is random, each candidate rotated between the same three guys, who were upper management of the group the job was with. Each guy had different personalities, almost like a weird Good Cop/Bad Cop/Neutral Cop routine. One guy was pretty straight forward, asking about my career goals, some basic situations, as well as gauging how committed to the job I would be (see Most Unexpected question). Another guy was pretty tough, seeming to be purposely not as personable, asking in-depth questions about strengths and weaknesses, as well as how I felt my previous interview went on a scale of 1-10 and why it wasn't a 10 (again, see below). The third guy was very personable, lauding my resume and providing a really good back and forth while discussing my qualifications.

I felt this three-way dynamic was probably more pre-orchestrated than anything, as a means of gauging candidates from multiple angles, and was actually pretty creative, if true.

Sadly, despite what I thought was a really positive conversation all the way around, I got a "going in another direction" email a few days later.

Interview Details Background:
The position is for their newly opened Beijing office

I send my resume through email. Three weeks later, I recieved a phone call to set me up for a phone interivew and to inform me the approximate length of the interview (30 mins).

1st round : The call came on time. The interviewer begins with "tell me something about youself" and then perceed to the usual resume runthrough, and then ask a few behavior questions like: what are your strength? Later switch to general questions about the company just to see if you have done any research on the company and investment consulting industry in general. "what are Cambridge Associates' competitors?", "why do you want a career in investment consulting?"
My general impression is that they want to see if you are serious enough about the a career in investment consulting. the entire process took about 17 mins. I was told the decition will take a week, but I got a call the next day informing me that I have advanced to the 2nd round.

2nd round: the 2nd round consists of a written test and a case study ( not the case study you see for management consulting firms) More behavior questions but this time it goes really deep. you have 20 mins for the written test. I was given two topics. One is to write some afterthought on the recent finance related news I read, and the other one is to write the steps you will take to communicate with institutional clients. I took choice number one.
The case study has lots of materials. One of the consultant walks me through the entire process. It was about how to pick stocks, managers for institutional clients. ( sharpe ratio, diversifcations, athrimatrical means, covarience, effiency porfolio frontier) There were many graphes to get you going, but i kept thinking afterward that it is almost impossible to keep saying the right answers if I did not major in Finance. Afterwards, I met the other two staff ( small operation) mostly they want to see if you are a good fit for the firm and if you want to stay in Investment Consulting for long. (behavior questions go deeper)

Again, I was told the decition will take a week, but I got a call the next day informing me that I have advanced to the next round.

3rd round: By this stage, I guess the job has come down to only a few candidates (3 or 4) and I know that I have to distinguish myself, but I really don't know how. I know everyone on the shortlist must have the same problem. Anyhow, I prepare the best I could. The first half of the interiew was with someone I think would be the direct supervisor of this position. The qustions are like the ones I encountered on the 2nd interiew, but some easy questions related to Finance as well. The other half of the interview was with the director of the consulting group. Again, More behavior questions like round 2.

Overall, the interviewers were very pleasant and respectful. Most questions are aimed to discover whether your goals and interests are in line with the company's.

Interview Details Phone interview, 3 on-site 1:1 interviews going over your resume and background-- very basic. Final round on-site interview was very long. Some of it was informational and you had the opportunity to speak with current associates which was great. Unfortunately, some of the 'upper level' people you interview with at this stage ask some strange questions and aren't so nice. Would not have wanted to work for them.

Interview Details I applied online and received an email to set up a phone screening the next day. The next round, which was one week later was with the hiring manager. This lasted about 30 min and we talked about my experience, education and how it would help the company.

Interview Details Phone interview - Basic HR questions
1st meet up - HR interview + Manager interview
2nd round - Test + Manager + Director + team members interview