The range of technicals you get tested on

The technical half sounds scary because it feels open-ended. It is not. The universe of first-round technicals is small and well-defined. It comes down to six areas. Get these bulletproof and you have covered the large majority of what any first round will throw at you.

Here is the map. Each one links to a full lesson.

1. Accounting

Everything else is built on this. The three statements, how they link, and what happens to all three when one line moves. The classic opener is "walk me through what happens to the three statements when depreciation goes up by 10." If you can move cleanly across the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement, you have cleared the single most common technical on the Street.

Start here: Walk me through the three statements and the individual statements (income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement).

Then drill the version they actually push on, where one line moves and you have to trace it: depreciation goes up by $20. Reciting the statements is the easy half; tracing a change through them is the half that decides it.

2. Enterprise value vs equity value

This is the concept interviewers use to find out whether you actually understand valuation or just memorized a formula. You need to move between the two cleanly, and you need to know which multiple pairs with which.

That last part trips people up, so be precise about it. Enterprise value pairs with metrics that belong to the whole business before financing, like EBITDA, EBIT, and revenue. Equity value pairs with metrics that are after interest and belong to shareholders, like net income and earnings per share. That is why EV / EBITDA and P / E work, and why EV / net income or P / EBITDA are the mismatches that give a wrong answer away.

Lessons: Enterprise value vs equity value and The multiples that matter.