r/Cluely

Industrials coverage, Charlotte. Applied late September through the campus portal. Four stages, about seven weeks from application to offer.

HireVue: Four questions this cycle, two minutes each with 30 seconds to think. Everything I read from last year said three, so that threw me for the first one.

They asked why banking, why Wells Fargo, and a competing deadlines story. The last one was to name an industrial company I had been following that year and say why, and that is the one people fumble. If you have not actually read anything about the sector it will show immediately.

First round: 30 minutes on the phone with an Associate who was clearly working off a checklist. Resume walk, then a DCF walk, then how you get from EBITDA down to free cash flow, then the classic one where you write down inventory by 10 and take him through all three statements.

The question that actually mattered came at the end. Why Wells Fargo over a bank with a bigger M&A league table position. I do not think there is a clever answer to that. I talked about the balance sheet and the financing side and he seemed satisfied.

Superday: Four rounds onsite in Charlotte, 30 minutes each, straight through with no break.

The Associate round was the most technical. A paper LBO at 5x in and 5x out with half debt, then senior secured versus unsecured and which one prices tighter, then how a revolver draw moves through the model.

A VP did a mix of technical and fit. When I would use a DCF over comps, then the leverage question, two identical companies where one carries more debt and which one has the higher equity value. He also asked about a time I disagreed with someone on a team.

A second VP from a different coverage group spent almost the whole 30 minutes on markets. Where rates were sitting and what that had done to industrial issuance that year, then pitch him a company in the sector that should get acquired.

The MD round was really just fit. Why Charlotte, what I actually thought an analyst does all day, and walk him through the hardest thing on my resume.

Outcome: Got rejected nine days later, though one. Ask me any question you want and I'll do my best to answer.

Had this realization yesterday. I don't think I've ever seen an online investment banking interview where the person didn't cheat / have some sort of assistance.

I've seen everything from a friend holding answers, to Cluely, of course, to various homemade vibecoded invisible software, but never just a singular fair interview.

Why is cheating so normalized in banking interviews?

I'm a 45M who's been unemployed for the last 6 months. I've been desperately searching for a job in the CS field for the past few months. I got laid off from my last job because of budget cuts and company restructuring, even though I was pushing considerably more than the team average.

I got to the office fully prepared (I'd studied for about 2 weeks) and waited for my interview in an adjacent room. Then nothing for 12 minutes straight, complete loss of time, so I just decided to get up and leave. Look, I can understand something unexpected coming up and them having to make a few last-minute adjustments, but robbing people of valuable time without giving them any updates is a huge sign of disrespect.

I even had the receptionist call me the day before to confirm the appointment.

996, overtime culture, and so much more have completely taken over, and it's unbelievable that this kind of thing is still happening today…

Question for all the interviewers: What percentage of people you're let's say 95% sure are using Cluely actually get flagged and banned from the company?

Like do kids (especially interns) get away with cheating every day or do a lot of people get flagged, rejected, blacklisted, etc.? Asking for a friend….

Three stages, and there was no first round.

Recorded video: Seven behavioral questions.

From what I remember: Why Wells Fargo. Tell me about a time you missed a deadline. What would you do if a client asked for something you knew was wrong. Tell me about a time you changed someone's mind. You get three attempts per question.

Then a preference survey by email asking me to rank coverage groups and locations. I put NYC first, then Charlotte.

Superday: Three interviews, 30 minutes each, over Zoom. Everyone sat in a waiting room first and got dropped into breakout rooms.

MD, technical: walk me through a DCF. How do you get to free cash flow. What is the Gordon Growth formula and what happens to your value if you move the terminal growth rate up 50 basis points. Explain working capital and what a build in working capital does to cash.

Associate, technical and macro: Where is the 10-year right now. What has happened to tariffs this year and what does it do to a client's cost structure. Difference between senior and subordinated debt, and who gets paid first in a restructuring. What is gold doing (weird question lmao).

Global head, behavioral: no technicals at all. Resume, why banking, what I do outside of school, and one long stretch about a team project that went badly.

Where I am now: Six days post-Superday. HR called and said the decision would come "early next week" so expect about a week and a half of waiting time. I know two people heard the same day they interviewed and the rest of us are sitting here.

Questions ?

Before beginning any of this, I'm a 19M at a sorta top college ?? (about T30 in the country for CS). Here are all the ways I've seen people use Cluely in real life, ranked from best to worst:

1. Meta Glasses This apparently works, but I'd say it's pretty risky with younger interviewers. There's a good chance they've already seen videos about people using Meta glasses (and what they look like). However, not a lot of interviewers are young so if you get the chance to get their identity before the interview, go for it.

2. Having the Cluely tab open when the interviewer isn't there Probably the simplest way. You can have Cluely ready on another tab/window and use it when the interviewer isn't looking. The obvious downside is that you have to be pretty careful about him walking around.

If you're nervous/laugh easily, I wouldn't recommend that one.

3. Invisible earbud I've heard of people using an invisible/small earbud so they can hear Cluely's responses. This seems like one of the harder setups to pull off naturally (you need to buy the earbud, set it up, etc).

Though if you can get it to work, it’s unlikely you’ll get spotted mid way.

Those are basically all the methods I've heard about so far. If anyone has tried other setups, please let me know, I’m always curious.

I’m a 26M software engineer, and my office is located next to the in-person interviewing rounds. I just witnessed a kid shamelessly use Cluely 2 meters away from the interviewer and answer all the questions.

Every time the interviewer walked around the room, he still pretended to type and just closed the window.

Kid is an absolute legend. He will go far without a doubt.

I have a technical interview in 2 days. I need it for a day and I am willing to compensate for the usage

In that case do you use a TTS feature or AI that replicates your face with eyes close?

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

One of my friends used to work on a small cheating detection team at JPMorgan (it was briefly opened about a year ago) that was designed to identify third-party tools used in interviews. He just told me that after no significant progress for a few months, the entire team was transferred to different teams.

Some people even got moved to different offices.

This is not, in any way, an invitation to cheat. 😉😉

I want to quit interviewing so bad, but my manager won’t let me. I deal with kids cheating all day, and I have never been able to prove it. Sometimes I feel like they’re just doing it to ragebait me.

I know they’re using it, but our technical team has no flipping way of detecting it reliably, so I just sit here pretending that they’re using their brain to solve the questions.

You should be able to stay at a company while quitting a specific team…

Just finished the Bank of America IB interview process and figured I’d write down what each round actually looked like since I couldn’t find much detail on the process beforehand.

HireVue: Five questions with thirty seconds to prepare and three minutes to record. Four were standard behavioral prompts, a team goal and a failure and a conflict with a coworker. The last one asked me to discuss a current global event, how it was affecting the markets, and why that mattered for the role, and it was the only one that needed anything beyond a prepared story.

First round: Thirty minutes with an analyst on the coverage team (stayed on the surface really). They ask questions like: Walk me through your resume, what EBITDA is and why bankers use it, how you would value a company. Several people I spoke to never had this round at all and went from the HireVue straight to the Superday.

Superday: Four thirty minute interviews back to back, analysts up to an MD, with two interviewers sitting in on a couple of them.

The analyst rounds carried the technicals and they built on each other, opening with three statement linkage and a ten dollar increase in depreciation, then a paper LBO, then a MOIC and IRR question on a five year exit at the same multiple. Senior versus subordinated debt came up as well, which no other bank asked me. The senior rounds were fit, mostly why Bank of America over another bulge bracket and a recent transaction with the rationale behind it.

Outcome: Interviewed Thursday, offer Monday. Candidates recruiting through the core schools got a shorter version of the same day, one technical block and one behavioral, an hour in total.

Happy to answer questions about any round.

Pretty upset about this. I upgraded to Pro+ in the app because the plan said $79.99/month. I clicked upgrade and was immediately charged $884.72 for almost a full year. I don’t remember seeing a clear annual total or confirmation screen.

I emailed support the same day and got an instant reply from their AI agent refusing the refund. I sent them the screenshot and asked for a human review.

Has this happened to anyone else? Did you manage to get a refund or talk to a real person?

Basically title. How do I use cluely to my advantage. Also does this work with tech interviews. What if I need to share my screen

Hi everyone. Does anyone know which AI model Cluely currently uses to generate its answers?

Also, would it be possible for Cluely to add a feature where users can connect their preferred AI model or existing account. such as... ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro or other AI providers.

and choose which model will generate the responses?

It would also be great if users could still customize the system prompt or instructions based on their specific use case.

For example:

-Select a preferred AI provider or model

-Connect through an account or API key

-Create and save custom prompts

-Switch between models depending on the task

Is something like this already possible, planned for the future, or technically feasible with Cluely?