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FTI Consulting interview prep · Updated Aug 2026

FTI Consulting interview: how to prepare (2026)

FTI is an advisory firm, not a strategy firm, and the question is what to do in the next five weeks, not the next five years. Here is what that changes about the answers you have been practicing.

The FTI Consulting format
Five segmentsVideo interview firstSuperday of 3 to 6Cash flow math
The short version
  • Your segment decides your interview. Corporate Finance and Restructuring runs the closest thing to a classic case. Economic Consulting screens far more technically. Prepare for the segment, not the logo.
  • A pre-recorded video interview comes early. FTI's own 2026 US entry-level posting describes two questions with one minute to answer each, sent within days of applying.
  • The superday is the real gate. Recent candidate accounts describe roughly three to six back-to-back interviews mixing behavioral, technical, and case, often with senior managing directors.
  • Finance beats frameworks. Restructuring cases live on liquidity, burn, and the 13-week cash flow. A memorized strategy framework will not carry you.
  • Start with one full case out loud. Reading another framework guide is the comfortable option. Speaking a structure while someone pushes back moves your score.
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FTI Consulting interview at a glance

Stage or element What to expect
Firm structure Publicly traded on the NYSE under FCN, with five segments that each recruit on their own terms
First filter Pre-recorded video interview. The 2026 US entry-level posting lists two questions, one minute each
Online assessment Numerical, verbal, and logical tests for some roles, most consistently reported in Europe
Interview rounds Commonly a behavioral first round, then a superday of roughly three to six interviews
Case format Clearest in Corporate Finance and Restructuring. Elsewhere it becomes a technical or written exercise
Signature content Liquidity, distress, and damages rather than growth strategy
Timeline Calendar driven. The 2026 UK graduate scheme opened in September and ran assessment centres in December

How does the FTI Consulting interview process work?

1
You apply to a segment, not to the firm.FTI's 2026 US entry-level Corporate Finance and Restructuring posting describes a preference form arriving within two business days, asking for your preferred market and practice area. You are sorted before a human speaks to you, so the segment on that form is the interview you get.
2
The pre-recorded video interview.The same posting describes a video sent within two business days of the preference form, with two questions and one minute to respond to each. Candidate reports describe the predictable pair, some version of tell me about yourself and why FTI. Rehearse to the clock before you apply.
3
Online assessments, where they apply.Numerical, verbal, logical, and situational judgment tests appear in candidate accounts, most consistently for European graduate schemes. Treat this stage as possible, not certain.
4
First round.Commonly one or two interviews of 30 to 60 minutes with senior consultants or managers, weighted toward behavioral questions with light technical probing. In restructuring, candidates frequently report basic three-statement accounting questions. Some 2026 reports also mention questions about how you use AI tools.
5
The superday.The stage people underestimate. Recent accounts describe roughly three to six back-to-back interviews with directors and managing directors, often on site. Some describe a superday that is mostly behavioral with one technical interview, others a heavier case load.
6
Assessment centre, in Europe.FTI's 2026 UK graduate scheme in Strategic Communications published a distinct path: application, pre-recorded video with a 48 hour window, a virtual interview, then an in-person assessment centre in London. That calendar beats any US-sourced guide.

Which segment are you applying to?

Answer this before you prepare anything else. It is the highest-leverage question in FTI prep, and most guides skip it.

FTI is organized into five segments, confirmed in its own 2026 quarterly reporting: Corporate Finance and Restructuring, Forensic and Litigation Consulting, Economic Consulting, Technology, and Strategic Communications. Different work, different buyers, different people screened for.

Corporate Finance and Restructuring. Where a recognizable case interview lives. Expect liquidity, cash burn, capital structure, and distress. The recurring spine across prep sources is the 13-week cash flow: diagnose the burn, stabilize, then restructure. Add three-statement mechanics, because interviewers here ask accounting questions a strategy candidate never sees.

Economic Consulting. The most technical screen at the firm and the least case-like. Sources consistently describe regression interpretation, damages estimation, antitrust and market definition, and statistical significance, and candidates here more often report a technical assessment. The work supports court testimony, so precision is scored harder than polish.

Forensic and Litigation Consulting. Financial statement analysis pointed at fraud, investigative reasoning, and tracing damages through evidence. Prep sources call this the least standardized format, which means the shape depends heavily on your interviewer.

Strategic Communications. Not a case interview in any traditional sense. FTI's own 2026 London graduate posting states that excellent writing, grammar, and numeracy skills are tested as part of the assessment process. Plan for a written exercise, not a profitability case.

Technology. The least documented of the five. The work centers on e-discovery, data, and information governance, and candidate accounts point toward technical questions rather than business cases. Treat any claim about this segment, including this one, as low confidence.

The practical rule: case practice is the right investment for Corporate Finance and Restructuring. For Economic Consulting or Technology it will not cover the technical screen.

What makes the FTI interview different?

It is an advisory firm, not a strategy firm. The work is often problems that need solving right now, in distress, in litigation, or under regulatory pressure. You will be asked what to do in the next five weeks, not the next five years.

Technical depth is not optional. At generalist firms you can carry a case on structure and judgment. In FTI's finance-facing segments an interviewer will ask how a write-down flows through three statements.

The behavioral load is heavier than expected. Multiple 2026 accounts describe superdays that were mostly behavioral, testing whether you can sit in a room with a distressed client.

Case lead style is genuinely unsettled. Some 2026 prep sources describe FTI cases as candidate-led. Others call them structured or interviewer-led, especially in Economic Consulting. FTI publishes no format, so prepare for both: open with your own structure, then hand control back when the interviewer takes it.

What does an FTI restructuring case sound like?

InterviewerYour client is a regional trucking company. The lender flagged a covenant breach next quarter and cash is down to eleven million. Where do you start?
CandidateRunway before strategy. Eleven million against the weekly burn tells me how many weeks I have, and that decides which options are on the table. Can I get the weekly cash outflow?
InterviewerCall it two point two million a week, roughly flat.
CandidateSo about five weeks. That rules out anything that pays back in a quarter. I would split the burn into payroll, fuel and maintenance, lease payments, and supplier terms, then rank them by how fast each can move rather than how much it saves.
InterviewerSuppliers are already at sixty days. Push further?
CandidateCarefully. Stretching past sixty risks a delivery stop, and a trucking company that cannot fuel its fleet loses revenue faster than it saves cash. I would rank supplier stretch below a lease deferral and want the concentration data first.

Notice what is being tested. Not framework knowledge, but whether you compute runway first, sequence by speed rather than size, and name the risk in your own recommendation. That rhythm is only trainable out loud.

Train the case out loud, not on paper.

A live voice interviewer runs the case, probes your answers, hands you exhibits mid-conversation, and scores the interview on 8 dimensions. Your first full interview is free, no card needed.

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What a CaseRound mock gives you
  • A live voice interviewer who probes your answers, out loud
  • Interviewer-led mode free, candidate-led mode on paid plans, so you can drill both
  • Exhibits handed to you mid-conversation, like in the room
  • A score on 8 dimensions plus the full transcript to review
  • Our case library, plus any casebook PDF you upload (Sprint and above)

We train the live business case. Not covered by us or any mock tool: FTI's econometrics and technical screens, modeling tests, written exercises, and the firm's own internal cases, which we do not have.

Which case types show up at FTI?

  • Liquidity and cash flow. The signature FTI case. "The client has eleven weeks of cash. What happens first, second, third?" Speed of impact beats elegance of structure.
  • Profitability under pressure. A margin case, usually framed around a business already in trouble rather than a healthy one optimizing.
  • Capital structure and distressed M&A. Debt loads, covenants, refinancing, and whether a sale beats a workout.
  • Cost reduction and turnaround. Operational levers, org redesign, and performance improvement inside a function.
  • Damages and market definition. Economic Consulting territory. Less a case than a technical conversation about what an effect is worth and how to prove it.

If your structuring still leans on memorized frameworks, read our guide on why memorized frameworks fail first. Those frameworks were built for growth, and these cases are about survival.

What does a strong FTI answer sound like?

Same prompt, two answers. The interviewer asks: "The client has eleven million in cash and burns two million a week. What do you do first?"

A weak answer lists levers without sequencing them:

Weak answerI would look at cutting costs, maybe reduce headcount, and also talk to the lender about the covenant. There are probably working capital improvements available too.

A strong answer computes, sequences by speed, and names the risk:

Strong answerThat is five and a half weeks of runway, so the first job is buying weeks, not fixing the business. Freeze discretionary spend today, because it is immediate and reversible. Second, open the lender conversation this week rather than at the breach, because a waiver negotiated early is cheaper than one negotiated in default. Third, work capital by speed, receivables before supplier stretch, because stretching suppliers risks a delivery stop. Headcount is the slowest lever once you price severance, so I would size it but not lead with it.

The content overlaps almost entirely. The difference is the runway number, the ordering logic, and saying why the obvious lever goes last.

What do FTI interviewers score?

FTI publishes no scorecard, but prep sources and candidate accounts converge on four things:

Numerical accuracy under pressure. Getting the runway number right matters more than the structure around it.

Sequencing by urgency. Prioritizing by speed and implementability instead of theoretical impact.

Financial literacy. Three statements, leverage, working capital. In Economic Consulting, swap that for regression interpretation and economic intuition.

Communication and composure. The explicit criterion in Strategic Communications, and why the superday runs so behavioral elsewhere.

When you practice, score yourself on dimensions instead of on whether you finished. A CaseRound mock scores every interview on 8 dimensions (structure, math, judgment, synthesis, communication, and case leadership among them) and hands you the transcript.

How should you practice for FTI?

1
Fix your segment first.Thirty minutes deciding what you are interviewing for saves three weeks of misdirected prep.
2
Build the finance floor first.Three statements and how they link, working capital, leverage, and what a 13-week cash flow is for. Case practice does not compensate for missing this.
3
Do full voice mocks under pressure.Plenty of candidates know the theory and still stall live. Train the performance: speaking your structure, doing arithmetic while talking, recovering when the interviewer disagrees. You can also upload a casebook PDF and run it live on Sprint and above.
4
Prepare five real stories.Given how behavioral the superdays run, this is not the part to improvise.

Where can you find official FTI prep resources?

FTI does not publish practice cases the way McKinsey and BCG do. There is no official FTI case library, which is why so much online prep for this firm is secondhand and contradictory. What is genuinely official:

The posting you are applying through. FTI's 2026 postings spell out the real stages, including the preference form, the video format, and for the UK graduate scheme the full calendar with assessment centre dates. That beats any prep guide, including this one.

FTI's own published work. Quarterly results and segment commentary tell you which parts of the firm are growing, which is real material for the why FTI answer.

One thing to read carefully. At least one 2026 FTI graduate posting asks candidates not to use AI tools when producing their application, noting it may misrepresent their capabilities. That is about what you submit. Practicing out loud beforehand is different, but read your own posting and follow its wording.

Comparing tools? See how CaseRound compares.

FTI Consulting vs. AlixPartners and Alvarez & Marsal

FTI Consulting AlixPartners Alvarez & Marsal
Interview content Varies sharply by segment, from restructuring cases to econometrics screens Reported as restructuring and performance improvement Reported as restructuring and private equity performance work
Early screen Pre-recorded video, two questions, one minute each Reported to vary by office Reported to vary by office
Case lead style Unsettled in public sources, candidate-led to structured Reported as candidate-led Reported as candidate-led
Over-prepare this Three-statement mechanics and cash flow sequencing Operational levers and pace Valuation and deal context

Other-firm detail is candidate reporting, not published policy.

What happens after the final round?

Campus timelines are calendar driven rather than rolling. FTI's 2026 US entry-level Corporate Finance and Restructuring posting told candidates to expect a status update within a week of the October 1 close, with final decisions by November 14. The 2026 UK graduate scheme ran assessment centres on December 5 and December 8, with offers for a September 2026 start.

Two implications. Silence inside a published window is normal. And because you applied to a segment, a rejection from one part of FTI is not automatically a rejection from the firm, though no policy on moving between segments is published.

Your interview week checklist

  • Your segment written down, with prep allocated to match it
  • Three-statement mechanics and a 13-week cash flow you can explain in a minute
  • Five behavioral stories, spoken out loud, that survive follow-up questions
  • Mental math warm-up daily: runway, burn, percentages, breakevens
  • Three full voice mocks with someone or something that pushes back
  • A one-minute answer to why FTI that names the segment and one real piece of its work
  • Your posting reread once, for the stages and dates that apply to you

Interview this week? One full mock today beats another evening of reading. The first one is free, and Sprint covers 30 sessions for $39.

Frequently asked questions

Does FTI Consulting do case interviews?

In some segments, yes. Corporate Finance and Restructuring runs the most recognizable cases, built around liquidity, cash flow, and distress. Economic Consulting leans toward technical screens instead, Strategic Communications toward writing and numeracy exercises. Ask your recruiter rather than assuming a standard case.

Is the FTI case interviewer-led or candidate-led?

Sources disagree and FTI publishes no format. Several 2026 prep guides call FTI cases candidate-led, where you drive structure and request data. Others call them structured or interviewer-led, particularly in Economic Consulting. Opening with your own structure and then following the interviewer covers either outcome.

How many rounds does FTI Consulting have?

Typically two stages after the video interview: a behavioral-weighted first round of one to two interviews, then a superday of roughly three to six back-to-back interviews with senior people. European graduate schemes replace the superday with an assessment centre.

What is the FTI video interview?

A pre-recorded screen that arrives early. FTI's 2026 US entry-level posting describes two questions with one minute each, sent within two business days of your preference form. The UK graduate posting gives a 48 hour completion window.

How technical is the FTI interview?

More technical than a generalist strategy firm, and how much more depends on your segment. Restructuring candidates report three-statement accounting and cash flow mechanics. Economic Consulting candidates report regression interpretation and quantitative assessments. Strategic Communications tests writing and numeracy.

Do you need finance knowledge for FTI restructuring?

Yes, and it is the most common gap in otherwise strong candidates. You need the three statements and how they link, working capital, leverage, and the purpose of a 13-week cash flow. A candidate who has only done profitability and market entry cases feels the difference immediately.

Can you use a calculator or Excel in an FTI interview?

Assume no calculator in a live case and do the math out loud. Some roles include separate Excel-based or technical exercises as their own stage, and your recruiter will tell you if one applies.

Can a mock interview tool prepare you for the Economic Consulting screen?

No, and be skeptical of anything claiming otherwise. Econometrics screens and modeling tests need real technical study, not conversation practice. What a mock trains is the live business case, which matters in every segment but is only the whole interview in restructuring.

How long should you prepare for FTI?

Four to six weeks if you start with some case exposure. Front-load the finance fundamentals.

Your next interview should not be the real one.

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