EY(Ernst & Young): Interview Preparation For Consulting - Digital Risk - A Complete Guide
Ernst & Young (EY) is one of the world’s leading professional services organizations, trusted by global enterprises and fast-growing startups alike for assurance, consulting, tax, and strategy and transactions services. In a business landscape shaped by cloud, AI, data, and platform ecosystems, organizations depend on EY’s scale, cross-industry experience, and multi-disciplinary teams to transform with confidence and meet regulatory expectations. Clients select EY not just to solve problems, but to build resilient, future-ready operations that create long-term value for stakeholders.
This comprehensive guide provides essential insights into the Consulting - Digital Risk at EY, covering required skills, responsibilities, interview questions, and preparation strategies to help aspiring candidates succeed.
1. About the Consulting - Digital Risk Role
EY’s Consulting - Digital Risk professionals help clients navigate complex technology risks that arise from cloud adoption, big data, AI, IoT, blockchain, and modern delivery models such as Agile and DevOps. The role focuses on identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks across IT processes, applications, infrastructure, data, and third parties-enabling secure and compliant transformation. Positioned within EY Consulting, the team works closely with technology, cyber, and risk specialists, as well as with assurance teams on IT general controls and SOX-related work, to provide integrated, business-aligned solutions.
Day to day, practitioners execute client engagements end to end: defining objectives, performing risk and control assessments, testing controls, interpreting regulatory requirements, and delivering clear, executive-ready reports and presentations. They contribute to methodology development, thought leadership, and go-to-market initiatives, while staying current with emerging technologies and regulations. By combining stakeholder management, analytical rigor, and practical risk management, the Digital Risk team enables clients to innovate confidently, optimize IT investments, and sustain performance in a rapidly evolving regulatory and technology environment.
2. Required Skills and Qualifications
To thrive in EY’s Consulting - Digital Risk team, candidates need strong academic grounding, proven consulting fundamentals, and hands-on technology risk capabilities.
Educational Qualifications:
- Master’s degree or diploma in Business Management or equivalent, with specialization in Technology/IT
- Systems/Analytics/Finance/Operations/Marketing.
- Strong aptitude for IT and willingness to travel up to 50% for client engagements.
Key Competencies:
- Stakeholder Management: Engage multiple stakeholders at various levels, translate technical risk into business impact, and make actionable recommendations.
- Analytical and Problem-Solving: Structure complex issues, analyze control environments, identify issues quickly, and know when to leverage internal resources for support.
- Project and Time Management: Plan and deliver multi-workstream engagements on time and on budget; coordinate multiple projects and inspire teamwork and responsibility within engagement teams.
- Communication and Presentation: Build executive-ready decks, present insights clearly, and facilitate workshops for diverse audiences.
- Professional Judgment and Ownership: Anticipate engagement risks, escalate issues appropriately, uphold professional standards, and contribute to methodology development and internal initiatives.
- Passion for Technology: Stay updated on industry and technology trends to deliver innovative and practical solutions.
Technical Skills:
- IT Risk and Controls: ITGCs and application controls; SOX/IFC testing; GRC enablement; design and execution of control testing programs.
- Emerging Tech & Cloud Risk: Manage risk across cloud (IaaS/PaaS/SaaS), Agile/DevOps pipelines, Responsible AI governance, and data/analytics platforms.
- Regulatory and Compliance Frameworks: Knowledge of HITRUST, CSV, 21 CFR Part 11, EU Annex 11/AA, QMS, and related industry standards.
3. Day-to-Day Responsibilities
Your work spans client delivery, risk assessment, control testing, stakeholder engagement, and thought leadership. You will operate in agile teams, keep pace with regulatory changes, and contribute to both delivery and practice-building activities.
- Plan and Execute Engagements: Define scope, objectives, timelines, and deliverables; align with professional standards and client expectations. Strive to exceed client and team expectations while managing increasingly complex assignments.
- Perform Risk and Control Assessments: Assess IT processes, applications, and third parties; test ITGCs and application controls; identify gaps and recommend remediations. Advise clients to understand and manage business risks and validate the accuracy of their business information.
- Support Regulatory and Compliance Work: Interpret applicable regulations (e.g., SOX, CSV, 21 CFR Part 11, HITRUST) and align client controls to requirements. Ensure compliance with engagement plans and internal quality and risk management procedures.
- Develop Client Deliverables: Produce executive-ready reports, dashboards, proposals, presentations, and thought leadership documents. Conduct research and identify areas for improvement in client business processes to provide actionable recommendations.
- Contribute to Practice Growth: Assist with engagement budgets, develop marketing collateral, craft methodologies and accelerators, and stay current with industry, technology, and sector-specific trends.
- Build Client and Team Relationships: Develop strong working relationships with clients, including process owners and functional heads. Demonstrate initiative and actively participate in corporate social and team events.
- Continuous Learning & Consulting Excellence: Participate in learning and development programs, exhibiting consulting methodology, professional attributes, and thought leadership.
4. Key Competencies for Success
Beyond baseline qualifications, standout performers combine technical depth with consulting excellence. The competencies below consistently differentiate high-impact Digital Risk consultants at EY.
- Business-First Risk Mindset: Prioritize risks by business value, regulatory exposure, and transformation goals to drive pragmatic, outcome-focused advice.
- Technology Fluency: Understand cloud, data, AI/ML, and DevOps pipelines to evaluate risks and propose feasible, modern controls.
- Structured Communication: Translate complex risks into concise narratives for senior executives, with clear remediation paths and timelines.
- Change Enablement: Partner with delivery teams to embed controls into agile ways of working, ensuring adoption without slowing innovation.
- Continuous Learning: Proactively track regulatory shifts and emerging tech to keep recommendations current and future-ready.
5. Common Interview Questions
This section provides a selection of common interview questions to help candidates prepare effectively for their Consulting - Digital Risk interview at EY.
Deliver a 90-second narrative linking your education, experience, and why Digital Risk consulting at EY is a logical next step.
Connect EY’s multi-disciplinary model and client impact with your passion for enabling secure transformation and regulatory confidence.
Emphasize learning agility, client value creation, and solving complex cross-functional problems under time constraints.
Show how you aligned priorities, used data to drive decisions, and reached a workable, documented compromise.
Explain scoping, prioritization, and proactive risk escalation to deliver quality on time.
Highlight credibility building, empathy, and clear articulation of business impact to gain buy-in.
Choose a real example; focus on root cause, remediation, and how you embedded the lesson in future work.
Discuss frameworks (impact/urgency), stakeholder alignment, and transparent status reporting.
Quantify the outcome (time saved, defects reduced) and explain how you secured adoption.
Mention curated sources, standards bodies, and how you translate changes into client impact.
Use the STAR method; keep responses business-outcome focused and under two minutes unless asked to elaborate.
Explain domains (access, change, operations) and their role in reliable financial reporting and system integrity.
Define each and give a concise example mapping a risk to a control objective and specific controls.
Cover scoping, walkthroughs, design assessment, operating effectiveness testing, sampling, and deficiency evaluation.
Discuss shared responsibility, identity, data protection, logging, resilience, and vendor lock-in; tie to controls.
Segregation of duties in CI/CD, code reviews, automated testing, artifact integrity, approvals, and change traceability.
Describe principles (fairness, transparency, privacy, security) and controls across model lifecycle and monitoring.
Lifecycle approach: due diligence, contracting, onboarding, monitoring, and offboarding; risk-tiering and evidence reviews.
Computer System Validation in regulated industries; Part 11 governs electronic records/signatures in life sciences.
Explain HITRUST as a certifiable framework harmonizing healthcare requirements to manage information risk.
Centralized control libraries, workflows, testing evidence, issue tracking, and reporting for consistent governance.
Anchor technical answers to business impact and specify the evidence you would review to validate controls.
Stabilize via triage, risk assess, convene change board, define rollback/waivers, and communicate impacts to sponsors.
Validate operating effectiveness by defining acceptable artifacts, sample periods, and remediate with process owners.
Offer risk-based options with trade-offs, minimal viable controls embedded in workflow, and a time-bound remediation plan.
Risk-tier the vendor, seek alternative evidence (SOC reports, pen tests), add contractual obligations, or propose compensating controls.
Trace lineage, define controls at ingestion/transformation, implement reconciliations, and establish data ownership and KPIs.
Trigger model risk assessment, test for disparate impact, improve training data/process, and document governance decisions.
Implement detective reviews, logging, and approvals; plan role redesign and tooling as a long-term fix.
Reconfirm scope with a change request, assess resourcing and budget, and agree revised milestones.
Consult authoritative guidance, align with QA/RA, document a risk-based position, and ensure audit-ready justification.
Rank by business impact, likelihood, and regulatory exposure; define owners, timelines, and interim risk treatments.
State assumptions, structure your approach, and finish with a clear recommendation and measurable next steps.
Summarize objective, your role, key risks, controls tested/designed, and measurable outcomes.
Map experiences to frameworks like SOX, HITRUST, 21 CFR Part 11, or QMS and your contribution.
Give examples of gates in CI/CD, automated evidence, and collaboration with product/engineering.
Detail modules used (risk, controls, testing, issues), integrations, and reporting dashboards you built or used.
Explain questionnaires, evidence reviews, onsite/remote validation, and risk-based remediation tracking.
Use impact/likelihood, heatmaps, KRIs, and tie to business outcomes and regulatory exposure.
Mention playbooks, templates, accelerators, or articles that improved consistency and speed to value.
Be fact-based, prioritize confidentiality, propose options, and agree remediation ownership and timelines.
Discuss SQL/BI/notebooks or platform-native logs to perform continuous control monitoring and analytics.
Affirm flexibility and describe how you maintain delivery quality and communication while traveling.
Tie every resume point to impact: efficiencies gained, risk reduced, compliance achieved, or value delivered.
6. Common Topics and Areas of Focus for Interview Preparation
To excel in your Consulting - Digital Risk role at EY, it’s essential to focus on the following areas. These topics highlight the key responsibilities and expectations, preparing you to discuss your skills and experiences in a way that aligns with EY objectives.
- ITGCs, Application Controls, and SOX/IFC: Review control objectives, testing procedures, sampling, and deficiency evaluation with clear evidence expectations.
- Cloud, Agile, and DevOps Risk: Understand shared responsibility, CI/CD controls, identity and access, logging, encryption, and resilience patterns.
- Responsible AI and Data Risk: Study AI lifecycle risks, fairness/ethics controls, data lineage, and data quality controls supporting analytics.
- Third‑Party Risk Management: Prepare to discuss due diligence, contracts, ongoing monitoring, and remediation workflows across vendor tiers.
- Regulatory and Industry Frameworks: Be conversant with HITRUST, CSV, 21 CFR Part 11, EU Annex 11/Annex AA, and QMS concepts and documentation.
7. Perks and Benefits of Working at EY
EY offers a comprehensive package of benefits to support the well-being, professional growth, and satisfaction of its employees. Here are some of the key perks you can expect
- Flexible and Hybrid Working: Options to balance client commitments with flexible arrangements where roles permit.
- Learning and Career Development: Access to structured training, mentoring, and recognized learning programs such as EY Badges.
- Well-being and Mental Health Support: Wellness resources and employee assistance programs to support holistic well-being.
- Global Exposure and Mobility: Opportunities to collaborate across regions and industries, with pathways for internal mobility.
- Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Inclusive culture with networks and initiatives that foster belonging and diverse perspectives.
8. Conclusion
EY’s Consulting - Digital Risk role sits at the nexus of technology transformation and governance, helping clients innovate securely while meeting regulatory expectations. Success demands a blend of stakeholder leadership, rigorous analysis, and fluency in modern tech environments such as cloud, data, AI, and DevOps. Prepare to articulate clear, business-linked outcomes from your past work, demonstrate structured problem-solving, and show how you embed practical controls without slowing delivery. EY offers flexible working, extensive learning paths, and a collaborative, inclusive culture-creating an environment where you can grow your impact. With thoughtful preparation and a business-first mindset, you can stand out and contribute meaningfully from day one.
Tips for Interview Success:
- Lead with outcomes: Quantify impact in your examples-risk reduced, compliance achieved, or time/cost saved.
- Connect tech to business: Frame controls and frameworks in terms of stakeholder value, resilience, and regulatory confidence.
- Show your method: Walk through your approach-scoping, testing, evidence, and remediation-using the STAR format.
- Stay current: Reference recent changes in cloud security, AI governance, or regulations and their client implications.