My advice? Start memorizing the riddles.
Consulting jobs require case interviews - they're pale imitations of actual projects that translate loosely at best. And every company uses them.
Trading jobs ask probability questions - they're idealized versions of what traders do all day, requiring tangential (at best) skills like mental math and memorizing niche formulae. And (almost) every trading firm will ask them.
Tech jobs ask leetcode questions - they're vaguely correlated with tech skills (you can't learn leetcode without learning to program, I guess?). And (nearly) every company asks them.
All of these industries put up somewhat-arbitrary filters just to get a manageable signal, however imprecise, on the endless morass of new grads trying to break in. They ask them because they work: the pool of candidates who pass them are of a higher average quality than the pool who fail.
They're biased, arbitrary, and often quite silly. And they've persisted for a half century. Get used to 'em.
Consulting jobs require case interviews - they're pale imitations of actual projects that translate loosely at best. And every company uses them.
Trading jobs ask probability questions - they're idealized versions of what traders do all day, requiring tangential (at best) skills like mental math and memorizing niche formulae. And (almost) every trading firm will ask them.
Tech jobs ask leetcode questions - they're vaguely correlated with tech skills (you can't learn leetcode without learning to program, I guess?). And (nearly) every company asks them.
All of these industries put up somewhat-arbitrary filters just to get a manageable signal, however imprecise, on the endless morass of new grads trying to break in. They ask them because they work: the pool of candidates who pass them are of a higher average quality than the pool who fail.
They're biased, arbitrary, and often quite silly. And they've persisted for a half century. Get used to 'em.