J.P. Morgan Assessment 2026: Online Tests, Game-Based Assessments and the HireVue Interview

The J.P. Morgan assessment is the selection process the bank uses for its graduate, analyst and experienced-hire intakes: a structured online application with competency questions, online tests (numerical reasoning, and coding for technology roles), a pre-recorded HireVue video interview, and a final round known as a superday, typically four to six interviews with bankers and HR. Some J.P. Morgan intakes have also used game-based assessments, the pymetrics-style format in which short behavioural games profile traits rather than test knowledge. The exact battery differs by division, region and year, so the invitation email is the authoritative source.

What Is the J.P. Morgan Assessment?

J.P. Morgan is one of the world's largest financial institutions, with over $3.7 trillion in assets, and it hires thousands of graduates annually across investment banking, asset management, technology and operations. At that volume, the online stages exist to sift, and the human stages exist to decide. The practical implication is the same as at every large employer: the cheapest place to gain ground is the online tests, and the most common place to lose an offer you had earned is the interviews you assumed would look after themselves.

The other structural point is that J.P. Morgan is not one employer but several. The bank's divisions run their own processes and want different profiles, and a candidate who cannot articulate why they applied to Asset Management rather than Investment Banking is telling the interviewer that they applied to the logo.

The J.P. Morgan Hiring Process, Stage by Stage

1. 1Online application (30-45 minutes). CV and a structured application form with competency questions. The competency answers are read, not just collected. Treat them as written interview answers.
2. 2Online tests (30-45 minutes). Numerical reasoning, and coding tests for technology roles. Difficulty is comparable to SHL or Talent Q data-interpretation items.
3. 3HireVue video interview (30-40 minutes). A pre-recorded interview with roughly five to six questions. Competency and motivational, with a case component in some divisions.
4. 4Final round: the superday (half to full day). Four to six interviews with bankers and HR, mixing technical and behavioural questions.

Which Tests and Publishers You Will Meet

• Publisher background: HireVue, and Arctic Shores for how game-based, behaviour-first assessments are built and scored.
• Practise the construct that sifts: numerical reasoning.
• Division detail, roles and reported assessments sit on the J.P. Morgan company page.

The Numerical Reasoning Test

Expect data interpretation: a table or chart, a question that requires you to find the right figures and apply one or two operations, and options close enough together that a sloppy estimate will not separate them. The specific publisher has varied by year, so prepare the construct rather than a brand. The reasoning is banking-flavoured business arithmetic: percentage change, growth rates, ratios, revenue per unit, currency and unit conversions.

• Read the question before the data. You are hunting for two or three numbers, not studying a dataset.
• Check units and footnotes. 'Figures in millions' and 'excluding one-off items' change the answer, and they are placed there for exactly that reason.
• Use percentage multipliers. A 12% rise is a x 1.12, and chaining multipliers is far faster than calculating each step and adding it back, especially if no calculator is provided.
• Cap each question. Roughly 60-75 seconds. Then guess, flag and move. One question you fight costs you two you would have got right.
• Answer every item. Negative marking is rare at graduate level. A blank scores zero with certainty; a considered guess does not. Our numerical reasoning guide sets out the full formula set.

Game-Based Assessments: What They Are and What They Are Not

Game-based assessments (the pymetrics format is the best-known example, and Arctic Shores builds a comparable one) replace questions with short interactive tasks: inflating balloons for points, matching faces to emotions, deciding how to split money with a stranger, reacting to signals. They do not test knowledge and they have no right answers in the way a numerical test does. They infer behavioural traits from how you play: risk appetite, attention, effort, learning from feedback, fairness, and how you respond to uncertainty.

• There is no score to maximise. Your profile is compared against a model of what the role looks like, so 'take more risk' is not a strategy: for one role that helps and for another it hurts.
• Consistency is the thing you control. The games are designed to detect an inconsistent performance, which is what faking produces.
• Conditions matter more than usual. These tasks are reaction- and attention-sensitive. A tired candidate on a laggy laptop is measurably a different candidate.
• They are not a lie detector, and they are not a personality quiz you can revise for. Play attentively and honestly; the preparation that pays is being rested, undistracted and familiar with the interface.

The HireVue Video Interview

J.P. Morgan's HireVue stage is pre-recorded: five or six questions, a short preparation window each, and a timer. Because there is no interviewer to read, structure is the entire game. Answer behavioural questions in STAR form and put the result in one clean sentence at the end. Speak clearly to the camera lens rather than to your own image on the screen, and treat it as a real interview rather than as a form to be filled in. It is a scored stage, and it is the one candidates most often underprepare.

Worked Example: a Competency Question

The Final Round (Superday)

The superday is four to six interviews with bankers and HR, mixing technical and behavioural questions, run over half a day to a full day. Two things decide it. First, consistency: you will tell overlapping stories to different interviewers, and the notes are compared. Second, energy: the fifth interview should sound like the first, and it is genuinely hard to make that happen without rehearsal.

• Know your division. Investment Banking, Commercial Banking, Asset Management, Consumer Banking and Technology are different businesses. Be able to explain why you chose yours.
• Show client focus. J.P. Morgan's culture is explicit about it. Prepare examples of when you prioritised a client's or stakeholder's needs over your own convenience.
• Demonstrate collaboration. The bank's culture is collaborative and the interviews probe for it. Do not turn every story into a solo rescue mission.
• Technology roles: prepare technically. Medium-difficulty algorithmic problems and system design questions are the baseline, not the ceiling.

How J.P. Morgan Scores You

Reasoning tests are scored against a norm group of comparable applicants and reported as a percentile rather than a raw percentage, so '75% correct' means nothing without knowing who you were compared against. J.P. Morgan does not publish its cut scores, and the bar differs by division, region, role and intake. Any specific threshold you find quoted on a forum is a guess. Game-based assessments are not scored on a pass line at all; they produce a trait profile compared against a role model. Interviews are scored against a competency framework, which is why concrete, evidenced behaviour outperforms general impressiveness.

Your 3-Week Preparation Plan

1. 1Days 1-2: Baseline. One timed numerical test cold. Record accuracy, seconds per item, and whether you lose marks to misreading, arithmetic or the clock.
2. 2Days 3-8: Numerical. Daily short sets: percentage change, growth rates, ratios, multi-step table questions. Untimed first, then timed.
3. 3Days 9-11: Division research. Write half a page on why your division, naming what it actually does and one current market development affecting it. This answer surfaces in every subsequent stage.
4. 4Days 12-15: STAR stories. Build eight to ten stories mapped to client focus, teamwork, communication and resilience. Quantify every result.
5. 5Days 16-18: HireVue rehearsal. Record at least five answers to camera against a timer and watch them back. It is uncomfortable and it is the single highest-return hour in the plan.
6. 6Days 19-20: Superday simulation. Run four interviews back to back with a friend, without breaks, and notice where your energy drops.
7. 7Day 21: Rest. Confirm your setup, your connection and your quiet room. Cramming the night before reliably lowers scores.

Common Mistakes

• Applying to the bank rather than to a division. The fastest way to sound unprepared in a superday.
• Treating HireVue as a formality. It is scored, it is timed, and there is no interviewer to save you.
• Trying to fake a game-based assessment. The format detects inconsistency, and there is no target profile you can reverse-engineer from a forum.
• Blaming the other person in a difficult-colleague story. The question is about your actions. Every sentence you spend on their faults is a sentence not spent on evidence about you.
• Unquantified results. 'It went well' is not a result. 'We delivered two weeks early and cut rework by a third' is.
• Chasing a rumoured cut score. J.P. Morgan does not publish one and it varies by intake.

Frequently Asked Questions