I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Cornerstone Research (Las Vegas, NV) in Oct 2016
Interview
It was a 45 minutes interview in a hotel room at Vegas (FMA 2016). I was interviewed by two people from the company (one senior level and one associate level). They both started with introducing themselves and what they do in the company (5 minutes). then they ask about my research (15 minutes) followed up by a real case question (20 minutes).
ps: the interviewers didn't even know my name!!!!
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
You are given 30 orders (some buys and some sells). How do you come up with a fair value for bid-ask spread?
The second question was, assuming you even don't know the labeling (buy or sell), now what is your answer.
I interviewed at Cornerstone Research (New York, NY)
Interview
The first interview was via Zoom, and the second (final) interview was on-site. The first interview consisted of two sessions with different associates. Each session lasted about 30 minutes. The second interview had the same format but just had more sessions throughout the day. I was asked how to go about defending clients' cases given some descriptions of the cases.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Cornerstone Research (New York, NY) in Nov 2025
Interview
I was invited for the first round of the selection process. This involved two one-on-one interviews, each 45 minutes long. There were two types of questions. One about my research and the other was a case study. In both, successive questions built up on previous questions.
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Cornerstone Research (Chicago, IL) in May 2025
Interview
There was first a chat with the interviewers with getting to know you questions, and then a case study based on real cases- you need to know your antitrust, merger and industrial organization knowledge.
Associate applicants have rated the interview process at Cornerstone Research with 3.3 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 58% positive. To compare, the company-average is 69.2% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Associate roles take an average of 24 days to get hired, when considering 66 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Cornerstone Research overall takes an average of 17 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Cornerstone Research as a Associate according to 66 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 36%
Phone interview: 19%
Presentation: 11%
Skills test: 11%
Background check: 9%
Group panel interview: 8%
IQ intelligence test: 2%
Other: 2%
Drug test: 1%
Personality test: 1%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -