Compass Lexecon Interview: Two Stages, a Written Case

The two stages, printed word for word in the postings

The London competition analyst posting carries a heading asking what the interview process looks like, then answers it: "Our interview process for Analysts involves two stages. The first stage is one 60-minute interview with both motivational and technical questions. The second stage includes a written case study and a technical interview. All interviews are currently being conducted virtually."

The Brussels posting published the same day carries that paragraph verbatim. So the sentence describes the Analyst role across Europe rather than one office.

That table is the whole point of this page. Two titles, one shared first stage, two different second stages. The Madrid research analyst posting states its own version: "The second stage includes a 75-minute technical interview."

The firm also tells you which door to use. The Research Analyst posting says: "If you are in the process of completing or have already completed a Master's degree in economics, we would encourage you to apply to the Analyst position." Applying to the wrong one costs you the sponsorship route on one side and the written case on the other.

Why the written case study changes how you prepare

A written case study is a different exercise from a live case, and the firm gives it its own line in the sequence. Nothing else about it is published: no length, no format, no subject.

What is published tells you enough to aim. The Analyst role description says you will be "relating those issues to relevant economic theory, and supporting the analysis with solid and persuasive empirical evidence," and the day-to-day list runs through analyzing client data, reviewing literature, running empirical work in Excel and Stata, then "Drafting reports summarising analysis." The written case study sits directly on top of that last item.

So rehearse writing rather than talking. Take a competition question, give yourself 90 minutes, and produce two pages that state a conclusion in the first paragraph, show the calculation that supports it, and name the assumption that would overturn it. Then read it back and strike every sentence that does not move the argument.

The first stage is different again. Sixty minutes covering both motivation and technical questions means roughly half an hour on each if they split evenly. Preparing a reason for economic consulting specifically, with evidence from your own work, is half the round.

A merger pricing figure, worked in dollars

Compass Lexecon publishes no practice case. The numbers below are ours, built in the shape of the competition work its postings describe, so the arithmetic of a merger review has somewhere to land.

The setup. Two regional grocery chains propose to merge. Chain A sells 12 million baskets a year at an average $40, so annual revenue of $480 million. Chain B sells at an average $50 with a 30 percent gross margin, so $15 of contribution per basket. Survey and scanner data put the diversion ratio from A to B at 20 percent: if A raises price, one in five lost baskets goes to B.

Move one: price the internalized loss. Before the merger, a sale A loses to B is gone. After it, the group keeps B's margin. The upward pricing pressure on A is the diversion ratio times B's margin, expressed against A's price. That is 0.20 times $15, so $3.00 per basket diverted, against a $40 price, which is 7.5 percent.

Move two: say exactly what 7.5 percent is. It measures the merged firm's incentive to raise A's price. It is a measure of pressure rather than a forecast of the increase, and treating it as a predicted price rise is the most common error made with this figure.

Move three: turn pressure into a number. Apply a pass-through rate. At 50 percent pass-through the predicted increase is 3.75 percent, so $40 times 0.0375, which is $1.50 a basket.

Move four: size the harm. Across 12 million baskets, $1.50 each is $18 million a year transferred from A's customers, before any offsetting efficiency.

Sanity check before you speak. The $18 million is 3.75 percent of A's $480 million of revenue, which matches the price effect exactly, as it must when volume is held flat. If your answer had come out at $180 million you would have slipped a decimal in the pass-through step. The figure moves fastest with the diversion ratio. At 30 percent diversion the pressure is 0.30 times $15 against $40, so 11.25 percent, and the same 50 percent pass-through puts the annual transfer near $27 million.

The four dimensions we grade a number on

Compass Lexecon publishes no marking scheme. The hundred points below are ours, written by us and read from the code that runs our grader. The firm has never seen them.

What the application asks for, region by region

The materials differ by region, and one of the differences is expensive to miss.

The writing sample is the item to start early. It is a US requirement that Europe does not ask for, and the same posting warns that a missing piece ends the application.

The US postings also name where you can go: the Finance Practice in Chicago and New York, and the Competition Practice in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington DC. The posting asks candidates to say which they want in the cover letter.

On artificial intelligence the firm speaks twice. It tells candidates it can recognize applications written wholly by a model, and it says it may use such tools itself to review applications and resumes, adding that they "assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment."

Six preparation mistakes on this process

1. Applying to the Research Analyst posting with a master's. The firm tells you not to. The second stage is different and the sponsorship route belongs to the other title.
2. Rehearsing only spoken cases. The Analyst second stage carries a written case study. Speaking fluently is no evidence you can draft two pages that hold together.
3. Treating the first stage as a screen. Sixty minutes with technical questions is a real assessment, and it is the only stage both titles share.
4. Assuming the European process applies in the United States. No US posting we read published any interview structure. The firm points North American candidates at its info sessions instead.
5. Leaving the writing sample to the last week. It is a US requirement, it should be sole-authored, and an incomplete application is not reviewed.
6. Preparing a strategy framework. The work described in the postings is competition policy, regulation and damages. A growth framework answers a question these teams are not asked.

Our practice hub shows what else sits here for a specific firm.

What Compass Lexecon does not publish

The North American interview process. Not one US posting we read described a stage. The firm runs virtual info sessions for North American analyst and intern candidates covering, in its own words, "navigating our interview and application process," and the content of those sessions is not online.

Anything about the written case study. No duration, no format, no subject, no whether it is done live or taken home.

The number of interviewers. Neither stage names a headcount.

What the technical questions cover. The firm names the category in the first stage and in the Research Analyst second stage, and stops there.

Non-US pay. The European postings say competitive salary without a figure. Only the US postings carry numbers.

Any marking scheme, passing bar, acceptance rate or headcount per intake. None of these appears on the careers site or on any posting we read.

If your invitation email contradicts anything above, the invitation is current and this page is not. Write to us with what you saw and the date, and we will read it against the firm's postings before changing a word.

What changed on this Compass Lexecon page

Corrections are published here rather than buried. Everything above reflects the postings as they stood when we read them. Everything below is what this page got wrong before.

29 September 2026. The previous version, 280 words long, said the firm's screening steps could not be verified and therefore would not be described. That was false. The two-stage process is printed in full inside the European analyst postings, and the same paragraph appears verbatim on postings in at least two cities. It was never on the careers site, which is why nobody had found it.

29 September 2026. The page previously treated Analyst and Research Analyst as one role. They are two, with two different second stages, and the firm tells candidates which one to apply to based on their degree. That distinction now leads the page.

29 September 2026. The four math weights are named as ours at the point where the chart appears. The worked merger example, the regional application table, the published pay figures and the deadlines are all new.