Gjensidige Interview & Assessment Preparation
Video Interviews, Aptitude Tests, In-Depth Interviews & the Graduate Programme
Guide country context: Norway · Finance / Banking
Hiring processes can vary by country, role, business unit, and year.
Gjensidige is one of Norway's largest general insurers, and one of the few Norwegian employers that states its graduate process plainly: submit a CV, complete video interviews and aptitude tests, attend in-depth interviews, receive an offer — with graduates employed permanently from day one rather than on a fixed-term rotation. It also runs paid 20% student positions alongside studies and invites around 60 students a year to its Oslo headquarters for summer internships. Insurance hiring rewards judgement, numeracy and genuine care for customers at their worst moment.
Hiring Process
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1Application and CV officialApply through Gjensidige's careers pages for the graduate programme, a summer internship, a student position or a permanent role. Norwegian vacancies are also commonly advertised on finn.no.→ Name the business area — claims, underwriting, pricing, actuarial, IT, risk — rather than applying generically
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2Video interview officialGjensidige's published graduate route includes video interviews. These are typically asynchronous: recorded answers to set questions with limited preparation time and a fixed answering window, reviewed by a human afterwards.→ Record two practice answers on your own device before the real thing
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3Aptitude tests officialGjensidige's published graduate route includes aptitude tests alongside the video interview. Norwegian practice is short, strictly timed tests — commonly abstract or numerical reasoning — with feedback on your results provided.→ Practise timed numerical and abstract reasoning; insurance work is numerate, so expect numbers
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4In-depth interviews officialGjensidige's published route then moves to in-depth interviews. Expect competence-based questioning about real examples, plus role-specific technical or analytical discussion.→ Prepare STAR examples covering customer judgement, analysis, collaboration and integrity
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5Case or presentation role-dependentRole-dependent. Analytical, pricing, actuarial and management-track roles commonly add a case or a presentation; customer and claims roles commonly add a scenario or role-play.→ Ask whether a case is included and how long you get to prepare it
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6References, checks and offer officialReferences are contacted before an offer, and consent-based background checks are standard in a regulated financial group. Gjensidige states that graduates become permanent employees from day one.→ Brief two referees; ask what permanent-from-day-one means for your development path
Assessments
Named explicitly in Gjensidige's published graduate route. Typically asynchronous: a question appears, you get short preparation time, then a fixed answering window with limited retakes, reviewed later by a person. There are no follow-up prompts, which is what makes it harder than it looks.
Measures: Structured communication, motivation, customer orientation, composure without a conversational partner
- Record two full practice answers on your own device first; the first attempt is always the worst and it should not be the real one
- Camera at eye level, light behind the camera, look at the lens rather than at yourself
- Structure to the window — roughly a fifth setting up, most of it on what you did, a fifth on the result
- Have one story each on customer care, analysis, teamwork and integrity ready before you start
Common mistakes
- Reading from notes off-camera
- Running out of time before the result arrives
- Poor lighting, a low laptop angle or a noisy room
- Burning every retake on the first question
- A generic 'why insurance' answer that would fit any employer
Named explicitly in Gjensidige's published graduate route. Norwegian aptitude testing is typically short and strictly timed, most commonly abstract reasoning, often with a numerical section — appropriate for an insurer, where the work is numerate. Feedback on your results is normal Norwegian practice.
Measures: Abstract and numerical reasoning, accuracy under time pressure, rule inference from limited information
- Practise both abstract matrices and numerical data interpretation — insurance routes commonly include numbers
- Work to a per-question budget and abandon hard items deliberately rather than drifting
- Be fluent with percentages, ratios and rates without leaning on a calculator
- Sit them somewhere quiet on a real screen, in one block
Common mistakes
- Preparing numerical only and being surprised by abstract matrices
- Losing four easy questions to one hard one
- Confusing percentage change with percentage points on rate questions
- Taking the tests on a phone or in fragments between other commitments
- Treating a mid-range score as final; in Norwegian practice it is one input among several
Used for claims, customer and advisory roles. You are given a realistic situation — a distressed customer after a house fire, a claim that falls just outside cover, an inconsistency suggesting possible fraud — and asked what you would do and say.
Measures: Judgement, empathy, fairness, compliance awareness, clarity in delivering bad news
- Acknowledge the customer's situation before you address the policy position; getting this order wrong is the classic error
- Explain a declined claim in plain language and name the specific reason rather than hiding behind the wording
- On suspected fraud, describe following the process and escalating — never accusing the customer directly
- Say what you would do next and by when; certainty is what a distressed customer needs
Common mistakes
- Leading with the policy exclusion and sounding cold
- Promising cover you cannot confirm in order to end the call comfortably
- Accusing or implying dishonesty rather than escalating
- Using policy jargon on a distressed customer
- Leaving the customer without a clear next step
Common on graduate, pricing, actuarial and management-track routes: a business or data problem — a deteriorating loss ratio, a segment to price, a claims process to redesign — analysed and presented back with a recommendation.
Measures: Structured analysis, numeracy, commercial judgement, ability to present to a mixed audience
- Structure first, analyse second, recommend third — and say the structure out loud before you start
- Quantify your assumptions even roughly; unstated assumptions are the usual failure mode
- Land a clear recommendation with a first step rather than a balanced survey
- Name the risk in your own recommendation before anyone else does
Common mistakes
- Analysis with no recommendation
- Numbers with no interpretation
- Ignoring the customer and regulatory dimension of an insurance problem
- Presenting a model nobody in the room can follow
- Overrunning and losing the conclusion
Interviews
Named as a stage in Gjensidige's published graduate route. Competence-based questioning about real past examples, plus role-specific technical or analytical discussion. Integrity questions are genuine here rather than decorative — an insurer's business is trust.
Format: Structured interview with the hiring manager and HR, typically 45–60 minutes, often more than one round
What interviewers look for
- Specific, quantified evidence rather than general self-description
- Judgement in situations with a customer or ethical dimension
- Numeracy and comfort with data appropriate to the role
- Collaboration in a flat organisation
- A real reason for wanting insurance rather than finance in general
Focus areas to practise
- A time you handled someone who was upset or distressed
- A decision where the fair answer and the easy answer differed
- Explaining something technical to a non-specialist
- Working with sensitive personal data
- Why insurance, and why Gjensidige specifically
- Have a genuine answer to 'why insurance' — it is asked, and 'it is a stable industry' is a weak one
- Bring an integrity story: a time you raised something inconvenient rather than letting it pass
- Quantify results; in an insurance group, unquantified claims stand out
- Ask what is changing in the business — climate risk, claims inflation, automation are all live
Fit with the specific team and business area, and — because Gjensidige employs graduates permanently from day one — a genuine conversation about direction rather than a rotation slot.
Format: Interview with the prospective manager and team members, 30–60 minutes
What interviewers look for
- Autonomy and self-management
- Constructive disagreement in a flat structure
- Interest in this business area specifically
- Realistic and considered career direction
- Reliability with sensitive customer information
Focus areas to practise
- How you work without close supervision
- Where you want your expertise to be in three years
- A conflict inside a team and how you handled it
- How you keep quality up under volume pressure
- What you would want to change about your last workplace
- Have a considered answer about direction; permanent-from-day-one means they are hiring for the long run
- Show interest in the specific area — claims, underwriting, pricing and IT are different jobs
- Bring an example of disagreeing with a senior colleague constructively
- Ask how people have moved between business areas internally
How this differs by role
The process is not the same for every role. Find the closest match to the job you applied for — the assessments and interviews below are the ones reported for that role family.
Graduate programme
Assessments
- Video interview
- Aptitude tests
- Case or presentation
Interviews
- In-depth interviews
- Manager and team interviews
Gjensidige states graduates are permanent employees from day one. That changes the interview: they are hiring a colleague rather than filling a two-year rotation, so questions about where you want to be in five years are being asked in earnest and a purely opportunistic answer is costly.
Summer internship (Oslo)
Assessments
- Video interview
- Aptitude tests
- Possible case
Interviews
- Interview with the business area
- Motivation interview
Gjensidige invites around 60 students a year to its Oslo headquarters for internships, which makes it one of the larger Norwegian summer programmes and a genuine graduate pipeline. Recruitment runs in the autumn and winter beforehand.
Pricing, actuarial & analytics
Assessments
- Numerical and statistical exercise
- Technical case
- Aptitude tests
Interviews
- Technical interview
- Competence interview
Insurance pricing is applied statistics against real money: frequency and severity, reserving, selection effects, and the gap between a good model and a model a regulator and an underwriter will accept. Being able to explain a model to a non-statistician is a differentiator here.
Claims & customer service
Assessments
- Customer scenario or role-play
- Situational judgement
- Language assessment
Interviews
- Competence interview
- Customer-judgement interview
Claims handling is where an insurer's promise is actually kept or broken, and it requires Norwegian. Expect scenarios involving a distressed customer, a suspicion of fraud and a claim that falls just outside cover — the assessment is whether you can be fair, clear and kind at the same time.
IT, data & security
Assessments
- Technical case or coding exercise
- System or data design discussion
Interviews
- Technical interview
- Team-fit interview
Insurance IT runs on long-lived policy and claims data under strict privacy rules. Credible talk about data quality, retention, access control and safe migration counts for more than familiarity with the newest framework.
Values & Framework
Gjensidige publishes a graduate process built on CV, video interviews and aptitude tests, in-depth interviews and an offer, and states that graduates are permanent employees from day one. Its own recruitment guidance stresses that good hiring starts from a clear job analysis producing objective criteria for evaluating candidates — which tells you the interview will be structured and criterion-based. For candidates, the operative qualities in an insurer are judgement, numeracy, fairness and genuine care for customers who are usually contacting you on a bad day.
- Customer care: describe handling someone distressed and what you actually said
- Fairness: describe applying a rule consistently when an exception would have been easier
- Integrity: describe raising something inconvenient rather than letting it pass
- Numeracy: quantify your results and explain what the number meant
- Collaboration: describe influencing without authority
- Commitment: have a real answer about direction, because they are hiring permanently
Recommended Practice Modules
Preparation Plans
- Record one practice video answer to 'why insurance and why Gjensidige', watch it once, fix the worst thing
- Run one timed numerical set and one timed abstract set
- Prepare three STAR stories: a distressed customer, a fairness call, an integrity call
- Read what Gjensidige actually insures and which business area your role sits in
- Check your video setup: eye-level camera, light behind it, quiet room
- Daily timed numerical and abstract reasoning
- Record three video answers and review each once for pace and structure
- Practise two claims scenarios out loud, acknowledging the customer before the policy position
- Prepare five STAR stories with quantified results
- Form a real answer to 'why insurance' that is about the work, not the sector's stability
- Daily reasoning practice alternating numerical and abstract
- Full mock video-interview set with review
- Practise an analytical case with a spoken recommendation and a named risk
- Build a story bank of seven covering customer care, fairness, integrity, analysis and collaboration
- Research claims inflation, climate risk and automation in insurance well enough to ask a real question
- If actuarial or pricing: revise frequency-severity basics and be able to explain a model plainly
- Consistent timed accuracy across numerical, abstract and inductive reasoning
- Multiple recorded video sessions until the format feels normal
- Two full mock in-depth interviews with structured, criterion-based questioning
- Several claims and customer scenarios including suspected fraud and a declined claim
- Prepare and rehearse a case presentation with a recommendation and a first step
- Develop a considered three-year direction — you are being hired permanently, and it is asked in earnest
- Brief two referees
- Prepare the package conversation: salary in NOK, pension, holiday
Frequently Asked Questions
Sources & verification status
5 sources · 5 from the employer or another primary publisher
See each source and how far it goes
- Employer site Gjensidige — Graduate programme Primary source, published by the employer — the primary source for the CV, video interview, aptitude test, in-depth interview and offer sequence, and for permanent employment from day one
- Employer site Gjensidige — Jobb i Gjensidige Primary source, published by the employer — the careers hub and vacancy listing
- Employer site Gjensidige — Student og nyutdannet Primary source, published by the employer — supports the paid 20% student positions worked alongside studies
- Employer site Gjensidige — Summer Internship Primary source, published by the employer — supports the Oslo summer internship and its scale
- Employer site Gjensidige — Hvorfor jobbe i Gjensidige Primary source, published by the employer — supports the employer proposition and working-culture description
Confidence is calculated from each source, not assigned to the page. A source that cannot be opened, or that does not describe what we cited it for, cannot support a claim here regardless of how it was previously labelled.
How this guide was put together
Published by Job Tests Portal. It is compiled from the public sources listed above and has not been independently reviewed by a recruitment or assessment specialist. We are not affiliated with Gjensidige and this guide is not endorsed by them.
We label where each statement comes from, and we would rather say “we could not verify this” than state something we cannot show you the source for. Hiring processes change often and vary by role, country and year, so treat everything here as a starting point and let your invitation be the final word.