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Employer-published sources Finance / Insurance / Asset Management

Storebrand Interview & Assessment Preparation

Interview Day, Case Work, Personality Assessment & the Digital Trainee Programme

Guide country context: Norway · Finance / Banking

Hiring processes can vary by country, role, business unit, and year.

Storebrand is a Nordic financial group spanning pensions, insurance, banking and asset management, with sustainable investment central to its identity. Its published graduate route is unusually concrete: you register with a CV, application letter and transcripts, every application is evaluated with feedback, selected candidates attend an interview day where they present themselves and their portfolio and work on a case with developers and engineers, and selection is made on the basis of the case presentation and personality test results. New employees then go through a 'Smart Start' onboarding programme.

ℹ️ This preparation guide is independent and is not official Storebrand material. It summarises publicly available candidate guidance from storebrand.no and helps you practise similar skills and interview formats. Processes vary by business area — pensions, insurance, banking, asset management and technology all hire differently. Always follow the instructions in your own invitation email.
⚠️ Storebrand states that its recruitment is competence-based, that candidates are treated fairly and without discrimination, that every application is evaluated and candidates receive feedback, and that it aims for candidates to experience the process as open and transparent. Hold it to that: asking what the next stage is and what the criteria are is squarely within the process it describes.
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📋 Hiring Process

  • 1
    Application with CV, letter and transcripts official
    Storebrand's published graduate route asks candidates to register with a resume, an application letter and any certifications and transcripts they hold. The application letter is not a formality here — it is one of the documents actually evaluated.
    → Write a specific application letter naming the business area and why sustainable finance matters to you
  • 2
    Evaluation with feedback official
    Storebrand states that every application is evaluated and candidates receive feedback. That is unusual and worth using — if you are not progressed, ask what would have made the difference.
    → Expect a substantive response; if declined, ask for the feedback Storebrand says it gives
  • 3
    First interview official
    A competence-based conversation about your background, motivation and fit with the business area. Storebrand describes its recruitment as competence-based, which means structured questions asking for real examples rather than a free-form chat.
    → Prepare STAR examples mapped to the competencies named in the advert
  • 4
    Interview day official
    For the Digital Trainee route, Storebrand describes an interview day where candidates receive information about the programme, present themselves and their portfolio, work on a case together with developers and engineers, and meet the leadership team. Other routes use a comparable case or presentation stage.
    → Prepare a portfolio you can present in five minutes and practise collaborating on a case while being observed
  • 5
    Personality assessment official
    Storebrand states that selection for the Digital Trainee programme is made on the basis of the case presentation and personality test results. Norwegian practice is that you receive feedback on your own profile and that it is used to structure the conversation.
    → Answer the questionnaire consistently and be ready to discuss your profile openly
  • 6
    References and offer commonly reported
    References are contacted before an offer. Roles in a regulated financial group may involve additional suitability checks, always with your consent. The offer covers salary, pension and terms.
    → Brief two referees who can speak to recent, relevant work
  • 7
    Smart Start onboarding official
    Storebrand describes an onboarding programme called Smart Start, in which all new employees are invited to four digital sessions during their first month covering basic information and guides to relevant content.
    → Nothing to prepare — but knowing it exists is a good, specific question to ask at interview

📝 Assessments

Case Worked with Developers and Engineers case technical

Storebrand's published Digital Trainee interview day includes working on a case together with developers and engineers. The distinctive feature is that it is collaborative and observed: you are being watched working with people who could become colleagues, not producing a document alone.

Measures: Collaboration under observation, structured problem-solving, technical communication, receptiveness to input

  • Make your thinking audible — in a collaborative case, unspoken reasoning scores nothing
  • Ask the engineers questions and visibly use their answers; being coachable is part of what is being observed
  • Propose a structure early, then keep checking the group is still following it
  • Take a clear position and change it openly when someone gives you a better argument

Common mistakes

  • Treating it as a competition against the other candidates
  • Going quiet and working alone inside a collaborative exercise
  • Defending your first idea after it has been shown to be weaker
  • Running out of time with no conclusion
  • Ignoring the customer or regulatory dimension of a financial problem
Self and Portfolio Presentation presentation

Storebrand's interview day asks candidates to present themselves and their portfolio. This is a prepared, timed presentation to a panel that includes leadership — closer to a pitch than to an interview answer.

Measures: Structured communication, self-awareness, relevance-filtering, presence under observation

  • Build it around three things you want remembered, not around a chronology of your CV
  • Show one artefact in depth rather than six in passing, and explain the decisions rather than the features
  • Connect at least one piece of work to something Storebrand actually does — pensions, insurance, sustainable investment
  • Rehearse to time out loud; portfolio presentations overrun more often than any other stage

Common mistakes

  • Walking through a CV chronologically
  • Showing polished outputs with no reasoning behind them
  • Over-running and being cut off before the strongest material
  • Presenting team work as if it were solo work
  • No link at all to Storebrand's business
Personality Test personality

Storebrand states explicitly that Digital Trainee selection is made on the basis of the case presentation and personality test results. An untimed questionnaire describing how you prefer to work, normally followed by a feedback conversation in Norwegian practice.

Measures: Working style, collaboration preferences, structure versus flexibility, resilience, motivation

  • Answer honestly and consistently — the questionnaire repeats similar items in different wording precisely to catch a constructed profile
  • Do not aim for an imagined ideal finance profile; the case day will contradict it if it is not you
  • Move at a steady pace rather than agonising over each item
  • Prepare to discuss your profile as a conversation, including anything unexpected in it

Common mistakes

  • Constructing the candidate you think they want
  • Answering neutrally throughout and producing an uninformative profile
  • Getting defensive in the feedback conversation
  • Assuming there are right answers
Numerical & Analytical Exercise cognitive assessment

Used on finance, actuarial, asset-management and analytical routes: interpreting financial data under time pressure — returns, ratios, growth, risk measures — and drawing a defensible conclusion from it.

Measures: Numerical reasoning, data interpretation, accuracy under time pressure, commercial judgement

  • Practise with genuinely financial data — returns, premiums, reserves, fund performance — rather than generic tables
  • Be fluent with percentage change, compounding and ratio work without a calculator crutch
  • Read the question before the table; most lost marks come from answering the wrong thing accurately
  • Keep a per-question time budget and let hard items go

Common mistakes

  • Confusing percentage change with percentage points
  • Missing the units or the time period in the table
  • Spending too long on one complex item
  • Producing a number with no interpretation attached

🎤 Interviews

Competence-Based Interview

Storebrand describes competence-based recruitment carried out according to guidelines, with candidates treated fairly and without discrimination. Practically, that means a structured interview with defined criteria and questions asking for real past examples.

Format: Structured interview with the hiring manager and HR, typically 45–60 minutes

What interviewers look for

  • Specific evidence against each stated competence
  • Genuine understanding of the business area you applied to
  • Judgement in situations with a compliance or customer dimension
  • Collaboration in a flat, consensus-oriented organisation
  • Authentic interest in sustainable finance rather than recited talking points

Focus areas to practise

  • A time you put a customer's long-term interest ahead of a short-term result
  • Handling a compliance or ethical concern
  • Delivering a complex result through a team
  • How you handle regulated or sensitive data
  • Why sustainable finance, in your own words
  • Map one story to each competence listed in the advert; structured interviews score against the list
  • Quantify results — in a financial group, unquantified claims are noticed
  • Have a real, considered view on the tension between returns and sustainability constraints
  • Ask what the team's biggest current challenge is and follow up properly on the answer
Interview Day Panel & Leadership Meeting

Storebrand's published Digital Trainee day combines programme information, a self and portfolio presentation, a case worked with developers and engineers, and meeting the leadership team. It runs long, and stamina across the whole day is part of what is observed.

Format: Assessment day including presentation, collaborative case and meetings with the leadership team

What interviewers look for

  • Consistency between the presentation, the case behaviour and the personality profile
  • Collaboration and generosity toward other candidates
  • Ability to hold a conversation with senior leaders as a peer
  • Curiosity — the questions you ask are noticed
  • Composure late in a long day

Focus areas to practise

  • Presenting your own work to a mixed technical and senior audience
  • Collaborating on an unfamiliar problem with new people
  • Asking senior leaders a question worth their time
  • Adapting when the case brief changes
  • Sustaining quality across a full day
  • Prepare different questions for engineers and for leaders; asking a leader an implementation-detail question wastes a rare opportunity
  • Be equally decent to the other candidates — observers see the whole day, including the breaks
  • Eat and hydrate; performance in the final session is part of the assessment whether or not anyone says so
  • Take a note after each session so your later answers can build on what you have learned

🧭 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.

Digital Trainee programme

Assessments

  • Portfolio presentation
  • Case worked with developers and engineers
  • Personality test

Interviews

  • First interview
  • Interview day including the leadership team

Storebrand states the decision is made on the case presentation and the personality test. That is a very specific instruction about where to spend your preparation: rehearse presenting under time pressure and collaborating visibly on a case, and answer the personality questionnaire consistently rather than strategically.

Technology & data

Assessments

  • Technical case or coding exercise
  • System or data design discussion
  • Possible ability test

Interviews

  • Technical interview
  • Team-fit interview
  • Manager interview

Financial systems mean regulated data, long-lived records and auditability. Talking credibly about data quality, traceability and safe migration of pension records is worth more here than framework fashion.

Asset management & sustainable investment

Assessments

  • Analytical or investment case
  • Numerical reasoning
  • Presentation

Interviews

  • Technical investment interview
  • Competency interview
  • Team interview

Sustainable investment is genuinely central to Storebrand's identity and its published policies, not a marketing layer. Be able to discuss exclusion criteria, active ownership and the real tension between returns and sustainability constraints without resorting to slogans.

Insurance, pensions & actuarial

Assessments

  • Numerical and analytical exercise
  • Domain-knowledge questions
  • Case study

Interviews

  • Technical interview
  • Competency interview

Norwegian occupational pensions and their regulation are specialised knowledge. Even a working grasp of how the Norwegian pension system fits together distinguishes you sharply from candidates who prepared only generic finance material.

Customer service & advisory

Assessments

  • Customer scenario or role-play
  • Situational judgement
  • Language assessment

Interviews

  • Competency interview
  • Customer-focus interview

These roles require Norwegian and involve advising people about their pension and insurance — decisions that matter enormously to the customer and are heavily regulated. Care, clarity and compliance beat sales energy.

🏛️ Values & Framework

How Storebrand assesses candidates

Storebrand states that its recruitment is competence-based, carried out according to guidelines, with candidates treated fairly and without discrimination, that it aims to offer the best and most inclusive candidate journey, and that candidates should experience the process as open and transparent. Sustainable investment runs through the group's published policies and reporting, and it is a legitimate subject to have opinions about in an interview. New employees join a 'Smart Start' onboarding programme of four digital sessions in the first month.

Competence-based, evidence-first assessment Fair, open and transparent process Sustainability and responsible investment Customer long-term interest Inclusion and equal opportunity Collaboration in a flat organisation
  • Competence: give a specific example with a measurable result for every claim
  • Transparency: be straightforward about gaps rather than papering over them
  • Sustainability: have a real view on where returns and sustainability constraints genuinely conflict
  • Customer interest: describe choosing the customer's long-term outcome over a short-term win
  • Inclusion: describe making space for a colleague's contribution
  • Collaboration: show you can influence without authority

⏱️ Preparation Plans

  • If it is the trainee route: rehearse your portfolio presentation to time, out loud, twice
  • Prepare three STAR stories mapped to the competencies named in the advert
  • Form a genuine view on where returns and sustainability constraints actually conflict, with one example
  • Run one timed numerical set using financial data
  • Prepare separate questions for engineers and for leadership
  • Daily numerical reasoning with financial tables
  • Practise one collaborative case out loud, narrating your reasoning throughout
  • Refine the portfolio presentation to three memorable points and one deep artefact
  • Read Storebrand's own sustainability and investment material rather than press coverage
  • Prepare five STAR stories including a compliance or ethical judgement call
  • Daily numerical and critical-reasoning practice
  • Two full mock case sessions with someone playing the engineer role
  • Rehearse the presentation until the timing is reliable, then rehearse the questions afterwards
  • Learn how Norwegian occupational pensions work well enough to ask an informed question
  • Build a story bank of seven covering customer interest, compliance, collaboration, delivery and learning
  • Practise a personality-feedback conversation about an unflattering trait
  • Consistent timed accuracy on financial numerical reasoning
  • Full mock interview day: presentation, collaborative case, panel, leadership conversation
  • Story bank of ten, quantified and rehearsed aloud
  • Deepen knowledge of sustainable investment mechanics — exclusion, active ownership, the real trade-offs
  • Study the Norwegian pension and insurance landscape and Storebrand's position in it
  • Practise sustaining quality through a simulated long day rather than a single hour
  • Brief two referees
  • Prepare the package conversation: salary in NOK, pension contribution, holiday

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Storebrand recruitment process?
For the published Digital Trainee route: register with a resume, application letter and any certifications and transcripts; every application is evaluated and candidates receive feedback; selected candidates attend an interview day where they get information about the programme, present themselves and their portfolio, work on a case with developers and engineers and meet the leadership team; selection is made on the case presentation and personality test results; successful candidates receive an offer. Other routes follow a comparable competence-based sequence, with the number of stages varying by business area.
What exactly does Storebrand select on for the trainee programme?
Storebrand states it selects on the case presentation and the personality test results. That is an unusually precise instruction. Spend your preparation on presenting under time pressure and collaborating visibly on a case, and answer the personality questionnaire consistently and honestly rather than strategically — a constructed profile will be contradicted by your behaviour on the case day.
Do I really get feedback if I am not selected?
Storebrand states that every application is evaluated and that candidates receive feedback, and that it aims for the process to be experienced as open and transparent. If you are declined without substantive feedback, asking for it is entirely consistent with the process the company describes.
How should I prepare a portfolio presentation?
Build it around three things you want remembered rather than a chronological CV walk. Show one artefact in real depth — the decisions, the constraints, what you would now do differently — instead of six in passing. Connect at least one piece of work to something Storebrand actually does. Then rehearse to time out loud, because overrunning is the single most common failure in this stage, and prepare for the questions afterwards, which is where most of the assessment happens.
How much does sustainability actually matter in the interview?
It is genuinely central to Storebrand's identity and appears throughout its published policies and reporting, so expect it to come up and expect a recited answer to land badly. The strongest position is a considered one: name a real place where sustainability constraints and returns conflict, and say how you would think about it. Reciting the company's own language back at it is the weakest available answer.
Do I need Norwegian to work at Storebrand?
For customer advisory, service and most regulated Norwegian-market roles, yes — you are advising Norwegian customers under Norwegian regulation. Technology, data and some asset-management roles operate substantially in English. Ask on the first call and be accurate about your level.
What is Smart Start?
Storebrand describes Smart Start as its onboarding programme: during the first month all new employees are invited to four digital sessions covering basic information and guides to relevant content. It is not part of selection, but knowing it exists makes for a good, specific question at interview about how new joiners get up to speed.
What is different about interviewing in Norwegian finance?
Three things. Competence-based structure is the norm, so prepared examples matter more than rapport. Personality assessment is usual and is discussed with you rather than used as a silent filter. And the register is flat and understated — overselling yourself reads as a warning sign, while quantified, plainly stated results read as credible.

📚 Sources & verification status

4 sources · 4 from the employer or another primary publisher

See each source and how far it goes
  • Employer site Storebrand — Digital Trainee Primary source, published by the employer — the primary source for the interview day, the case with developers and engineers, and selection on case plus personality test
  • Employer site Storebrand Group — About us Primary source, published by the employer — supports the business-area description across pensions, insurance, banking and asset management
  • Employer site Storebrand — Our Sustainability Team Primary source, published by the employer — supports the centrality of sustainable investment to the group's work
  • Employer site Storebrand — Gender Equality Report Primary source, published by the employer — supports the competence-based, non-discriminatory recruitment statement and the Smart Start onboarding programme

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 Storebrand 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.

Source links last checked automatically 3 days ago. This is an automated link check, not an editorial review.

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