How to Prepare for the LBS Masters in Finance Interview
The London Business School Masters in Finance interview is a conversation, not a test. It is conducted by an MiF alumnus or a senior member of the admissions team in your own region, it is built around your motivation, your CV and your behaviour under pressure, and it typically runs anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours. There is no prepared presentation to deliver and no technical exam to pass. By the end of this guide, you will know what the interview actually covers and how to prepare for each part of it before your invitation arrives.
I am an official INSEAD interviewer and INSEAD alumna, and I have coached specialist Masters applicants across London Business School, INSEAD and HEC Paris through the move from written application to live interview. What I see most often with LBS MiF candidates is technical over-preparation and career-narrative under-preparation. That imbalance is what costs otherwise strong candidates their offer, because the LBS interview is weighted heavily towards fit, motivation and maturity.
What you need before you start
A finalised one-page CV, no older than a month, with every line ready to be discussed in detail
A one-page summary of your career goals covering your immediate target role, your target sector and your five-year direction
Six to eight prepared examples from your work and life, structured so they can answer leadership, teamwork and conflict questions without being rewritten on the spot
A view on the current macroeconomic environment and at least one recent market development you find genuinely interesting
Three strengths you want to demonstrate repeatedly across your answers rather than simply assert once
Two or three questions for your interviewer that could not be answered by reading the programme page
For the wider application picture, see a complete guide to the LBS Masters in Finance and my comparison of LSE, LBS and Imperial for Masters in Finance.
What is the LBS Masters in Finance interview actually like?
It is a structured professional conversation led by someone who has already read your full application. LBS interviews are conducted by alumni or senior admissions staff of the MiF programme, and they take place in the region where you are based, and depending on interviewer availability you may be asked to travel to complete yours. No one is admitted to the programme without a personal interview.
That single fact shapes everything about how you should prepare. Your interviewer is usually a working finance professional who graduated from the programme, not a trained assessor reading from a script. They are forming a judgement about whether they would want you in their cohort. The interviews that go well feel like two professionals comparing notes. The ones that go badly feel like a candidate reciting.
How long does the interview last, and who conducts it?
Expect between 45 minutes and two hours, and plan for the longer end. One admitted candidate's interview ran a full 1.5 hours, conducted by an MiF alumnus from the 2021 class who was working as a Senior Manager in FP&A. Another candidate was allotted 45 minutes and ended up running to roughly an hour and fifteen, and several report conversations running past two hours.
The practical implication is straightforward. Prepare enough material to sustain a long conversation, and do not treat your prepared answers as a script you will get through in order. If your preparation only covers 30 minutes of content, the remaining hour is improvisation, and that is precisely the stretch where interviewers form their strongest impressions.
How do you build your "why finance, why LBS, why now" answer?
Build it as three separate arguments that connect, not as one memorised speech. Your interviewer will open by asking you to walk through your background, and your motivation will surface within the first few minutes.
The failure mode I see constantly is a candidate explaining why they want a career in finance without ever explaining why the London Business School Masters in Finance specifically fits their plan. Every MiF interviewer has heard the generic version many times over. Name the programme's structure, its post-experience positioning, its London placement, or a specific elective when you explain fit.
The "why now" component matters more for the MiF than for most programmes, because this is a post-experience degree. You need to be able to say why this year, at this point in your career, rather than two years earlier or three years later.
How do you prepare for the CV walkthrough?
Go through your CV line by line and ask yourself whether you could discuss each entry in real depth if pushed. Candidates consistently report that the conversation is anchored on the resume, with the interviewer working through professional history and picking up on specific points from the application.
Because LBS interviewers read your full file in advance, they also know where your application is weakest. A career gap, an unusual sector move, a modest test score, a background outside finance: assume the interviewer has already noticed and has a question ready. Prepare a direct, unapologetic answer for each one.
One question deserves particular attention if you are moving into finance from another field. One candidate with a high-tech background reported that the hardest question of the interview was simply why he was interested in finance, and that the answer needed to be genuine, specific and supported by an actual story rather than a stated preference.
What behavioural and situational questions should you expect?
Expect the standard competency set, delivered conversationally rather than as a formal list. One admitted candidate described being asked a series of situational questions about his work, his leadership traits and how he had resolved conflict within his team, alongside questions designed to gauge his motivation for the programme and what he would bring to the classroom.
The contribution question is the one candidates under prepare. What you bring to the cohort needs a concrete answer rooted in your specific sector experience, geography or technical background, not a general statement about being collaborative. In a class where work experience ranges from three to eight years and averages around six, everyone in the room has something to contribute. Your job is to say what yours is in a sentence.
Structure your examples using STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) or SOAR, then practise delivering them in two to three minutes. Longer than that and the conversation stops being a conversation.
How technical does the LBS MiF interview get?
Lightly, and it depends heavily on who interviews you. This is the point where the draft I most often see from candidates goes wrong. The MiF interview is not a banking technical screen, and preparing for it as though it were will consume time you needed elsewhere.
One successful candidate reported only a few technical questions, focused on the macroeconomic environment of high inflation and high interest rates, and on his outlook going into the following year. Another was asked to define derivatives, options, value at risk and proprietary trading, and noted that the right approach when you do not know something is to say so plainly and express genuine interest in learning it rather than inventing an answer. A candidate who interviewed at both LBS and HEC Paris described the LBS conversation as mainly motivational with several questions on current news coverage, while the technical valuation questions on leveraged refinancing, beta and CAPM came up at HEC instead.
So: refresh the core concepts, and be able to hold an informed view on markets. Do not build your preparation around walking through a DCF live. If you have named a specific model or technique on your CV, be ready to explain it, but the depth expected is professional fluency rather than a modelling test.
How should you frame your career goals?
Specifically enough that your interviewer can picture the job. One candidate's account makes the standard clear: saying you want to work in finance is not sufficient, saying investment banking is better but still too broad, and the expectation is that you have researched the departments within your target firm type and can say something substantive about the role you want.
Two further points that follow from this. First, know the real differences between finance sub-roles, because the daily reality of a trader, a salesperson and a research analyst diverge sharply, and describing finance as one homogeneous industry signals that you have not looked closely. Second, be ready to defend your long-term plan rather than restate it. Interviewers will sometimes push back and suggest your answer sounds boilerplate, and simply conceding the point is the worst available response.
What questions should you ask at the end?
Ask two or three questions that only this person could answer. Your interviewer is usually an MiF graduate with a real career and real opinions about the programme, which is an unusual asset in an admissions process.
Ask about their own path through the programme, how the cohort's seniority affected the classroom, or what they would do differently. One candidate observed that most of his questions produced both an official answer and an off-the-record one, and that the off-the-record version was consistently more useful. Avoid anything answerable from the programme page, and avoid anything too personal.
Common mistakes I see
Preparing for a technical exam instead of a career conversation. Candidates spend weeks on valuation drills and walk in with a thin, generic answer to why they want this programme now.
Underestimating the length. An interview that runs 90 minutes or more will exhaust a 30-minute preparation. Depth of material matters more than polish on your opening.
Answering "why finance" without answering "why this Masters in Finance." Interviewers identify the generic version within the first few minutes.
Apologising for a non-traditional background instead of building an argument from it. The MiF class is deliberately diverse in sector experience. A risk, regulatory, technology or industry background is an asset if you can explain what it brings to the cohort.
Treating the interviewer as an assessor rather than a future colleague. The person opposite you is deciding whether they would want you in their class. Rapport is not a soft extra here, it is part of what is being evaluated.
Prepare for the LBS Masters in Finance with expert help
Preparing well for the LBS Masters in Finance interview means preparing for a long, searching career conversation supported by genuine market awareness, not the other way round. If you want hands-on coaching through your CV walkthrough, your motivation narrative and your behavioural examples before your interview date, I work personally with every client from strategy through to final rehearsal. You can start that process with me here.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a presentation in the LBS Masters in Finance interview? There is no prepared presentation to deliver. LBS's own admissions guidance describes the interview simply as a personal interview conducted by an alumnus or senior admissions staff member, and the great majority of candidate accounts describe a motivational, CV-led conversation. A small number of older candidate debriefs mention an interviewer handing them a topic to structure on the spot, with the interviewer explicitly more interested in how the candidate organised their thinking than in subject knowledge. Prepare to think out loud under mild pressure, not to build slides.
How long is the LBS MiF interview? Typically 45 minutes to two hours. Published candidate accounts include one interview of 1.5 hours, one that was allotted 45 minutes and ran to about an hour and fifteen, and several that exceeded two hours. Plan for the longer end.
Who conducts the LBS Masters in Finance interview? An MiF alumnus or a senior member of the MiF admissions team, based in the region where you live. Depending on interviewer availability, you may be asked to travel to attend.
Is the LBS MiF interview technical? Only lightly, and it varies by interviewer. Expect questions on the current macroeconomic environment, definitions of core instruments and concepts, and anything you have listed on your CV. It is not a banking technical screen, and candidates report that admitting you do not know something is a better answer than improvising.
Does everyone who applies get an interview? No. LBS states that only the strongest applicants are invited to interview, and that no one is offered a place without a personal interview.
What is the single biggest mistake candidates make? Preparing for the interview as a knowledge test rather than a fit conversation. The interviewer is assessing whether you are someone they want in the cohort, whether your goals are realistic, and whether your motivation for this specific programme holds up under questioning.
Verified against London Business School admissions guidance, September 2026.
