Are you interviewing to be a venture capital analyst or associate?
Venture capital interviews are amongst the hardest in the world. There’s no one-size-fits-all way of approaching a VC interview. Every firm will have its own process, overseen by a few Partners who run the show.
However, there are some key principles which apply across all VC interviews, which can take the stress out of preparation.
You have to balance a sharp understanding of the startup ecosystem, technology and trends, with a reliable case study methodology and passionate motivational questions.
This article is about how to understand, prepare for, and excel at VC interview questions.
We’ll cover:
What VC interviewers are looking for
The 4 Question Categories to Prepare
How to Stand out and De-Commodify Yourself
(This is about how to win at interviews. It’s not about how to land an interview, or what to do after interviews. For that, check out articles on How to write a 🔥 Venture Capital Resume CV, How to land a VC interview through networking, & Negotiating your salary and your carry)
Picture this: Patricia is a VC Principal and has a busy day packed with meeting world-class CEOs, digging deep into financial models, going to networking coffees, and assessing hundreds of pitch decks.
She’s also been asked to interview 20 job applicants for a junior position.
She already knows that at least 75% of the interviewees just aren’t going to make the cut. They’re not going to show passion or deep understanding. There’s going to be a lot of uninspiring, boring, and repetitive conversations.
However, she would love to see a candidate who is positive and engaged. Someone engaged in the future of technology, the latest innovations, and the markets where these might flourish. Someone who is opinionated, brings ideas to the table and can help keep the firm at the cutting edge.
Patricia will be asking herself:
“Is this person going to help me to invest in companies that I otherwise would not have invested in without them?” ~ Erik Torenberg
Your goal is to make your interviewer feel something when they interact with you: Leave them a sense of excitement that they might get to work with you.
To achieve that, you need to know what questions are coming and how to leave them impressed.
There are probably 78,342+ questions which you could be asked in a VC interview.
Rather than preparing for thousands of possibilities, your time is better spent focusing on the areas which will have the largest impact on your performance.
There’s 4 key categories of questions which you can expect:
Behavioral Questions
Markets, Tech, and Trends Questions
Technical Investment Questions
Case Studies
1 Behavioral Questions
These questions focus on your motivation for and understanding of the role as well as essential soft skills that you need.
You’ll typically be asked a range of questions on your past experience. The main goal is to understand whether you are a good personal fit for the role, and to see how you think.
There’s a couple of obvious things to prepare:
Do your research into the firm you are applying to.
Have concise stories about your career path, past experience, and future ambitions.
For compelling motivational answers, give clear simple stories with 3-4 key talking points. Don’t waffle.
There’s also some less obvious things to prepare:
Develop a strong case for how your experiences map onto the VC skillset specifically.
Create honest (but not deal-breaking) explanations of your weaknesses ahead of time.
Make your experience stories more memorable by making them more human. Don’t just recount a simple STAR framework, instead add emotions: your fears going into the task, and reflections coming out the other side.
2) Markets Trends and Industry Discussion
A large part of a VC’s job is staying up to date and aware of all the latest happenings and trends in the industry.
They want to know about and spot the biggest opportunities before anybody else.
The interviewer wants to see that you are able to hold a conversation and have a view about the industry. This is a minimum requirement to being an effective VC.
If you want to stand out, you want to present well-defended original opinions about an industry that help them think differently. Show them that you can bring novel value to the team.
The easiest way to do this is to pick 2-3 subsectors to know deeply and specialise in.
Ideally, you do this months before your interview so that you begin to build up a unique perspective, and discuss at a level that only someone embedded in startups all the time would have.
Don’t pick a vertical like “fintech” - that’s far too broad. Go for specific niches such as consumer investment tech or B2B insurtech. Be aware of the key players, influential trends, and have a view on the next 5-10 years.
Importantly, practice discussing these topics with friends. Its no use being book-smart if you’re not able to discuss trends in an interesting way.
3) Technical Investment Questions
You’ll also get questions digging into your technical understanding of the VC investment process. There’s no clever hack to preparing for these.
This is where varied experience in venture-backed startups can really help - you’ll have been surrounded with these concepts already.
If you don’t have a lot of that, you need to do your research and get comfortable with the technicalities.
4) Case Studies
The most effective way to assess someone’s ability to do a job, is to simulate the job.
That’s why case studies will always be a really important part of VC interviews.
They can vary widely by firm and by interviewer.
Typically, you’ll be asked to prepare something ahead of time which you then get to present.
Sometimes, you’ll be asked on the spot in the middle of a discussion. In this case, don’t be scared to take your time. You’ll be assessed on the quality of your answers, not how long you think about them for.
In other cases, it can be something in between. For example, you might be asked to prepare a slide deck in a 2 hour timeslot, after which they assess your slide deck and decide whether or not to invite you for an interview where you get to present it.
In all cases, its more about how you think than the answer you get to.
What are the key drivers you identify? How do you reason logically? How do you communicate this reasoning clearly?
They want to see that you have strong opinions, lightly held. This means that you have conviction of your views, but these are based on evidence and can therefore change with new evidence.
A case study interview is not a natural skill. Except for a select few, the exceptional candidates are those who practice, practice, practice.
The best practice is with other really smart people like you who are going through the same process. You can give each other feedback and help each other get to the next level.
Practising and preparing the questions above will put you in a strong position to perform well at interview.
However, recruiting decisions at small VC partnerships are ultimately made on emotions.
The feelings that you leave on the interviewer will be the most memorable and arguably the most important impact you will have.
First Impressions
Standing out starts with the first interaction. It can be useful to practice your introductions, and the first moments of your interview with friends, or by recording yourself on camera and playing it over.
Whilst its crucial to be yourself, you can optimize for the positive, confident, and excited parts of your personality to make sure those shine through.
The ability to confidently put across ideas and debate are super key, as summed up by Mark Suster:
“We want somebody who is ready, willing andable to debate techwith us.Where do you think things are heading?What is the future of social media, digital television or mobile computing.” ~ Mark Suster
De-commodifying yourself
Every question is an opportunity to stand out and be a bit different.
When you approach a question which you might be asked, ask yourself:
What answer would I give without too much thought (assume this is what everyone else will answer on average)
What answer can I give that makes me appear more interesting, thoughtful, and sharp?
Pull your answers back to why you personally are excited, and why you are a great fit. Give personal examples, anecdotes, and emotional stories with every story to make it more memorable.
This starts from the first question: How are you doing?
Difficult Questions
If your interview is going well, you can expect to be asked hard questions.
Most people feel compelled to answer straight away. However, you should feel at liberty to take your time.
Take 10-20 seconds to think.
If you have the calm and confidence to drink a glass of water after they ask you a hard question, you’ll look more calm and composed. You’ll be more at ease.
And they’ll see that. It will make you stand out.
Some specific advice to keep your answers concise, clear, and confident:
Answer using the Pyramid principle, so that you can flexibly change the length of your answers. Do this by starting with high level concepts and gradually introducing complexity. This allows you the flexibility to gauge the interviewer’s interest and wrap up the answer earlier or later.
Keep in mind that confidence and humility go well together in VC. Be confident in your opinions, and confident in your uncertainties. To an extent, its better to be confident and wrong than it is to be unconfident and right. Why? Because investing is a relationship game and people need to believe in you. Its no use being right all the time if nobody has confidence in you.
Interview like you belong
Most importantly, its all about how you leave them feeling.
Don’t go into the interview as a junior looking to impress. Instead, treat them as equals.
Engage in a discussion.
Great interviews feel like an awesome conversation, not a 1:1 Q&A. If they ask you a challenging question, ask them it back. Make it a two-way street.
And when you do ask them questions, ask them challenging questions they will remember. Questions that communicate that you are assessing them. Questions that dig deep.
Once you’ve positioned yourself as someone that brings value to the firm, they’ll be desperate to have you onboard.
Key takeaways: How to convert interview into an offer
First of all, make sure you’re well prepped across the four main dimensions of VC interviews:
Behavioral questions: Build personal, emotional, and memorable answers
Market Trends and Industry Discussion: Practice discussing tech with friends to get beyond the “book-smart” stage
Technical Investment Questions: Know your way around investment economics
Case Studies: Take your time and practice talking through your reasoning out loud
Then, seek to stand out and make your interview a memorable experience through:
Strong first impressions
Be interesting on every question
Take your time on difficult questions
Interview like you belong
If you apply all of the above, you’ll be well on your way to converting your interviews into offers. But don’t fret if you’re not yet! It often takes practice to master the venture capital interview.
