Know the firm. Know the questions.
Walk in prepared.

"Why do you want to work at [firm]?" sounds simple. It's the most common opening question at Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Clifford Chance, and virtually every competitive graduate employer. And it's the question that eliminates the most candidates — not because they can't answer it, but because their answers are generic.

"I'm passionate about finance and your firm is a market leader" could apply to any bank. "I want to work with smart people on interesting problems" could apply to any consulting firm. Recruiters hear these answers dozens of times per day. They're looking for specificity — a deal the firm worked on, a conversation with an employee, a specific aspect of the culture that resonates with your experience.

The problem is that genuine firm-specific research takes hours. Reading annual reports, press releases, Chambers rankings, employee reviews, and LinkedIn profiles to build a complete picture of one firm — then doing it again for every firm you're interviewing with. Most candidates run out of time and default to surface-level research from the firm's homepage.

Intervyo's research brief synthesises all of this into a structured document in 15 seconds. Firm overview, division structure, recent deals, key people, competitor positioning, culture, interview style, question themes, talking points, things to avoid, and a model "Why this firm?" answer. It doesn't replace your own research — it gives you a framework that would take hours to build manually, so you can spend your time adding personal connections and refining your stories.