Every mentorship and internship application at Optilic goes through an assessment, and because we promise that a human reads every one, we can tell you exactly how that human reads.
We mark method over result. A wrong answer with a clean estimate, stated assumptions and a sanity check outranks a right answer that appears from nowhere. The desk runs on decisions made with incomplete information; we want to see how you behave in exactly that situation, not whether you've memorised the trick.
We look for calibration. Saying roughly when you mean roughly, and committing when the numbers commit. An answer that hedges everything tells us as little as one that hedges nothing. Confident guessing is the one style that reliably fails, because it's the style that loses money quietly for months before anyone notices.
We read for revision. Candidates who notice a mistake mid-answer and repair it in the open are showing exactly the habit the desk runs on. Crossing something out and writing "this is wrong because..." is not a blemish on your answer; it's frequently the best line in it.
What we don't mark
- Finance vocabulary. If you've never seen an option before, you can still score top marks.
- Speed for its own sake. A finished half is worth more than a rushed whole.
- Polish. We're reading your thinking, not your formatting.
The assessment is free, one sitting, and the entry point to the mentorship program, which now runs both online and onsite in Sydney. If this is how you already think, you'll enjoy it.