went through EY's final round onsite (virtual, via Teams) about six weeks ago for a senior data and analytics role in their advisory practice. breakdown of the day:
Morning session, 9-10:30am: Two interviewers. First 30 minutes was a structured behavioral round, very clearly STAR-format, the interviewers had note sheets in front of them. Second 30 minutes was a brief case walkthrough: they gave me a one-page scenario about a client struggling with fragmented data across business units and asked me to walk through how I'd approach the engagement. No quantitative estimation, more of a structured thinking exercise. Third 15 minutes: open Q&A.
Break, 10:30-11am.
Late morning session, 11am-12:30pm: Technical deep dive with a manager and a senior analyst. I presented a 10-minute overview of a past project (they asked me to prepare this in advance, you'll get that request when you're scheduled). Then live Q&A on it: data modeling choices, SQL query walkthrough, and a question about how I'd explain the model's outputs to a non-technical stakeholder. Brief discussion of tools and EY's tech stack (they mentioned Alteryx, Power BI, Snowflake).
Partner or director conversation, 1-1:30pm (virtual, separate call). This is the one people stress about. It was genuinely more conversational than evaluative. She asked about my career goals over the next 5 years, how I handle feedback, and one situational question about managing a client relationship that went sideways. She was reading the room as much as the answers.
overall scoring signal i pieced together from feedback: communication clarity, client-ready framing, and whether your behavioral examples include clear outcomes (not just 'we worked on it together' but 'we reduced processing time by x%'). the technical bar was real but not the main differentiator.