Interviews

The process of passing an interview is entering into the interviewers world and fulfilling their needs. This requires that you know exactly what the interviewer is looking for.
The challenge of winning a job in Banking and Finance begins before you even turn up for the interview, and continues through your meeting with the interviewer and beyond.
Two of the biggest mistakes that graduates and professionals make in the process of securing a job is firstly, not preparing sufficiently and secondly accepting the first rejection.
There have been hundreds of examples of professionals that have secured a high paid role in the City despite the first rejection due to their persistence and understanding of what rejection is. In fact, the first rejection is a test of your resilience. Do you have what it takes to make it in the City? If you do, you will continue to pursue the job correctly which involves creativity and outside of the box thinking in the job hunting process.

Before the interview

The first thing that will help you is knowing just what to expect. The fewer surprises the better.
Rule: Put yourself in the interviewers shoes. You are selling yourself to the interviewer and they will buy you if they like you and think you’re a good fit. Remember, you wouldn’t be on the list unless the interviewer thought – on the basis of your application and CV – that you could do the job they are interviewing you for. In the interview they aren’t trying to measure you against each other, but against the standards of the job itself.

Assess yourself for the job

Mark yourself, on a scale of one to ten, on the following key areas your interviewer will be looking closely at. You need to assess yourself for the particular job in question so, if you have more than one interview coming up, go through the exercise for each one. Pick one career that you have decided is one you wish to pursue. From previous chapters read through the example job description and imagine yourself interviewing you for the role. Mark yourself out of ten below:
Key Areas

• Skills
  
• Direct experience of relevant tasks
  
• Qualifications
  
• Background
  
• Personality (As it comes across in interview)

 

The basic materials

Before the interview you must study the documents which help the employer define the job.

• The job description, which tells them the overall objective of the job, and the key responsibilities within it.
• The scheme description if applying for a graduate scheme.
• The employee specification, which describes for them what skills and attributes the successful applicant will need to have.

You have control over the other two pieces of information, the ones which tell the interviewer what sort of person you are:

• Your CV
• Your application form

Your interviewer is trying to match up this pair of documents with the first set – in other words they’re trying to find the applicant who most closely matches the job requirements. Your job is to demonstrate that you are the one.
The interviewer will have two lists of questions to ask you:

• They will have a list of questions to ask all the candidates, which are questions about the job.
• They will have a list of questions specifically for you, which they have formulated by looking through your application form and your CV. These might be questions about your experience, skills, qualifications or circumstances, and about your career, your interests and your working style.

 

The format

Virtually every interview follows the same basic format:

• They’ll start by welcoming you, and will probably chat for a couple of minutes to put you at your ease. They may well offer you a coffee or tea.
• They will start the interview by asking you the list of general questions which they are asking every candidate. Eg. “Tell me about yourself” or, “What is your experience of working in a high pressure environment?”
• Next, they’ll ask you specific questions arising from your own application form or CV. These will be questions such as, “I see you were part of the university Investment Society. What have you gained from that?” or “I see you interned at Goldman Sachs, how did that work out for you?”
• After this, they may come back to earlier points further if they’re still concerned.
• Finally they will fill you in on a few more details on the job, and then ask you for your questions.

 

Alarm bells for interviewers

Institutional interviewers worry if they see evidence of:

• Lack of relevant experience (So you need to make sure that every relevant piece of experience is clearly highlighted)
• Lack of relevant personal attributes such as the ability to work under pressure, for example, or to motivate others (So look at what is needed in the job and show that you’ve got it)
• Employment gaps (So make it clear what you were doing during these gaps and why that experience has helped to fit you for the job. They like to see a well-rounded approach to university multi-tasking)

Look through your application and CV and work out where the interviewer’s concerns will lie. Then you can prepare answers to these questions.
In general, the way to answer these questions is to be honest and give plenty of compensating factors. If you genuinely lack experience admit to it, but demonstrate that you are a fast learner and can learn on the job. And that you believe your strengths outweigh the weaknesses in any case.

How to prepare

Essentially, you have to see yourself as a salesperson, and do the preparation a salesperson would do before winning a big contract. You are selling yourself, and your interviewer is taking the role of buyer. Your job is to persuade them that you area better buy than your competition.
You will need to:

• Set your objectives – If you don’t have a specific objective, such as “I want to secure a role in asset management, preferably risk management with a growing hedge fund boutique as I know my skills lie in xyz and this is a good fit with the role” then I recommend that you attend the Benedix City Professional workshop. Having an objective, and just going through the process of generating it, will help to concentrate your mind on the essential areas and help it to keep coming back to them. It will help you from becoming distracted from your core aim.
• Research the organisation – The interviewer will expect you to have done your homework and research into the organisation. They want to see that you are putting some effort into wanting this job, interested in the organisation and showing enthusiasm. Don’t simply research the organisation in isolation – look at the whole industry. See where it fits in, who its main competitors are, and look at industry trends. You can then show the interviewer that you understand the bigger picture too. Once you have gained all this information (Company reports, newspapers, website, newsletters etc.) you look for clues to showing that you are the best person for the job. Don’t wait to be asked what you know about the company. If you find opportunities throughout the interview to say for example “I speak fluent Spanish. And I noticed you do a lot of business with South American countries. So I imagine that will be very useful”. The more relevant facts about their company you can include during the interview, the better.
• Prepare your own case – Before you get to the interview you should already have a mental list of all the most important points you want to make – all the things that will impress on your interviewer that you are the person for the job. They are unlikely to expect to see anything other than proof of qualifications, they will be impressed by anything else you can offer them such as testimonials from satisfied customers, copies of key relevant reports you have written, press cutting you’ve generated, press articles about events you’ve organised.
• Be prepared for the interview – Call them and ask how much time has been allocated to the interview, be on time and give yourself plenty of time, bring a notepad and pen etc.

 

Telephone Interview

You won’t necessarily get any warning that they are going to contact you, so be prepared in advance. Make sure you answer the phone professionally at all times, especially if you don’t know who the caller is. ‘Hello, [your name] speaking’ is better that a suspicious ‘Hello?!’. Make sure your voice mail message is also professional – ‘Hello, this is the voice mail of [ your name]. I’m sorry I can’t take your call at the moment but if you leave your name and number I’ll get back to you.’ is a thousands times better than ‘Leave a message, yeah?’ or making someone sit through 20 seconds of your favourite song before they can leave a message (true story).

First Impressions

You can influence your interviewers opinion:

• Before the interview
• In the way you dress
• By the way you great them

Institutional employers cite the following among the key factors that impress them about a candidate:

• A strong handshake
• Being sharply and appropriately dressed

Factors that impressed them least included:

• Lateness
• Sloppy appearance
• Poor grooming
• Too much aftershave or perfume

 

Before the interview

Write a formal letter, well written and professionally laid out, confirming the arrangements for this interview and saying how much you are looking forward to it.
According to research, as much as 70 per cent of employee turnover is due to staff not fitting in with the corporate culture, rather than an inability to do the job in terms of skills and experience. So your interviewer wants to see that you will fit in if they offer you the job. The way you dress is only part of this, of course, but it is a large part of the interviewer’s first impression of whether or not you are ‘one of us’.

• Don’t let your appearance overpower your personality. You can wear bright colours, but don’t wear something so unusual it steals all the attention. It’s you applying for the job, not your clothes.
• Avoid any extremes of fashion.
• Avoid strong perfume or aftershave.
• Don’t wear too much jewellery, or jewellery that is too large.
• Dark colour will lend you more authority than pale ones.
• Be aware of how people in your role dress and mirror them.

 

Polite conversation on the way to the interview room

If they ask you a question such as ‘How was your journey?’ give a positive answer (even if the journey was awful). If they don’t ask volunteer how your journey was ‘It was easy to get here. That map in your brochure is very clear.’ Or ‘What are they doing at the end of the street?’ Ask them ‘How long have you worked for this organisation?’ People always like you to show an interest in them personally. Make a favourable comment about something your passing ‘What a great view from these windows’ of ‘This is a really bright, modern building. How long has the company been here?’

 

The key to controlling nerves is preparation

Prepare yourself as much as you can for the interview. The more you have rehearsed and prepared, the less you have to fear. And the less you have to fear, the less nervous you will feel so prepare your responses and use simple relaxation techniques on the day.

Your opening greeting

This is where you mirror the person that is interviewing you. If they speak loud, excitable and confident then you do the same. If they are quiet and reserved then take on a similar persona.
Remember:

• If they smile, smile.
• If they make constant eye contact, do the same.
• Offer a handshake as soon as they introduce themselves.
• Mirror the strength of their handshake.
• Say ‘Hello’, ‘pleased to meet you’ or whatever phrase you feel easy with.
• Wait to be invited before sitting down.
• Don’t hide your face with your hands unless they do.
• Don’t cross your legs unless they do. Folding your arms normally comes across as defensive.

There are a few qualities that you will almost always need to project – be responsive, confident, energetic and enthusiastic to varying degrees depending on your interviewer.

Some simple rules

The manner in which you answer questions can be as important as the answers you give.

• Don’t interrupt the interviewer – even if they interrupt you.
• Adapt a similar tone to the interviewer. If they are very formal, you need to follow suit. Be very wary of anything more than gentler humour unless your interviewer is injecting a lot of humour into the conversation (In which case laugh politely at their jokes).
• Don’t ask your interviewer questions about salary. It looks as though you’re only interested in the money. If they offer you the job, there’ll be plenty of time to discuss the salary later.
• Make sure you speak clearly, and answer questions without mumbling. Good body language and eye contact will help you to do this naturally.

 

Responding positively

• Don’t ramble. Aim for all your answers to be no more than two minutes at the most, but many should be far shorter of course. At the other extreme try to avoid one word answers unless your interviewer is clearly asking for clarification only (For example ‘are you 18 or 19 now?’)
• Use examples. Give plenty of specific examples of your achievements, challenges and successes. Br prepared to back-up every assertion, and demonstrate every skill or achievement, with a concrete example.
• Remember the job description. Keep your answers specific to the job in question. If you interviewer asks you, for example, what your greatest strength is, pick one which will be important in the job – and give an example of it.
• Pause if you need to. If you want to think for a moment before you start answering a question, that’s fine. It shows you’re considering it carefully.
• Don’t lie. Be as honest as you can in your answers. You can – and should – put a positive spin on the truth, but don’t change the facts. This includes admitting if you don’t know the answer to a question, rather than floundering.
• Don’t criticise your present employer. If you’re new to the job market, don’t criticise your tutor or college course. It can make you look negative and picky (the interviewer may wonder what the side of the story is), and it will certainly make your interviewer question your loyalty.
• Don’t give away your current employers secrets. If you are being interviewed by one of your current employers competitions. They may try to get you to say more than you should about your current employers plans and organisation. Just remember that much as they may want the information, they are also testing you. If you’ll give away your present employers secrets, how loyal will you be to them?
• Answer the question that is asked and do not volunteer irrelevant information.
  Constantly remind yourself that you have something to sell and focus on how you can make a positive contribution in the role.

 

Different types of interview

You will often find yourself in a one-to-one interview, very probably with the person who will be your line manager if you get the job.
Panel Interview: You may find yourself interviewed by three or four people. Try to find out their names and write them down. Get their names and job titles in advance, memorise them, so you can address them by name in the interview. HR people conduct interviews for a living, they do lots of it and they know exactly what they are looking for. They don’t have to work directly with you so their concerns are fairly black and white: they want you to match their employee specification as closely as possible. The line manager, by contrast, may hate doing interviews and will appreciate all the help you can give them, so be chatty and interested. They will also be wondering whether you’d have a good working relationship with them and with the rest of the team, so let them see that you’re easy to get along with. So, know who is who and suit your answers most specifically to the person who has asked the question, while taking account of the rest of the panel too.
Remember:

• Shake hands with everybody on the panel.
• Make eye contact with everyone on the panel, and make sure they all feel induced by your answers.
• Give the bulk of the attention to the person who asked the question you are answering.
• When you come to ask questions of your own, direct them particularly at the person who is chairing the interview.

Sequential Interview – You may find yourself in a series of one-to-one interviews with different people – maybe the line manager for the job, a more senior manager, a personnel representative, perhaps a technical person. Each interviewer is looking at a different aspect of you application.

 

Interview Questions

There are some questions you can expect to be asked at most interviews, so these are the ones you should really be prepared for. With all these questions remember:

• Keep your answer relevant.
• Listen to the question, and answer the question you’ve been asked.
• Answer only the question you have been asked

Typical question include:

• Give an example of a situation when you demonstrated leadership?
• How would your friends describe you?
• What are your biggest achievements?
• What are your strengths and weaknesses?
• Give an example of when you worked in a team to achieve a goal
• What problems arose?
• How did u solve them?
• Why this institution?
• Why not other financial organisations?
• You realize you don’t have enough time to complete a task, what do you do?

 

Your own questions

When the interviewer has asked you everything thay want to, they’ll invite you to ask them any questions you have. The questions you do and don’t ask can say a great deal about you, and can still influence the interviewer’s decision on whether to offer you the job. Having no questions at all will make you appear unenthusiastic. These are the type of questions you should avoid:

• What will my salary be?
• What holiday entitlement will I get?
• How long do most people take for lunch?
• Would I get my own office?

All of these questions are focused on what you can get out of the organisation, not what you can offer. Worry about winning a job offer first, plenty of time then to discuss details like this.
You need to ask questions that show you are enthusiastic about the organisation and the job, and about what you can contribute. And you want to look intelligent, ambitious and committed. Ask at least two or three questions.

• What do the successful graduates do differently from those who don’t make it past analyst?
• What in your opinion are the important factors that have led to your success within this organisation?
• Do you promote internally when possible?
• What opportunities are there to gain extra qualifications or experience?
• What will be the top priority in the job over the next six months?
• If I were offered this job, where would you see me in five years time?
• Where does the company want to be in five years time?
• Do you have any reservations about my ability to do this job?
• When can I expect to hear from you?

 

Competency based interviews

A competency based interview is a style of interviewing often used to evaluate graduates applying for graduate schemes at large city firms. Conventional job interviews may focus on questions relating to an applicant’s past or previous industry experience, but this is an ineffective tool for graduate level candidates who are not expected to have any former experience in the industry they wish to work in.
Questions about industry experience will not be part of a competency based interview. Instead interviewers will pose questions that aim to illustrate the personality of the candidate.
A firm will usually isolate four competencies to look for in candidates at interview. You will be graded in terms of each competency based upon your answers. The competencies will typically focus on some of the following:

• Teamwork
• Responsibility
• Commitment to career
• Commercial awareness
• Career motivation
• Decision making
• Communication
• Leadership
• Trustworthiness & Ethics

You need to prepare your answers before you ever reach the interview. Come up with more than one example from your past experience to illustrate each competency. Each example must be different and always relate the competency back to the job.
All you need to do once you arrive at the interview is select the most relevant example you can to answer each question. Bear in mind that the interviewer wants to know what you personally did in the situation you’re describing, not what the team as a whole did or what you think you could have done.
If you’ve done your preparation well you should do extremely well at this type of interview. It’s all about being ready with specific and relevant examples to demonstrate your skills in the areas which are important to the job.

Psychometric Tests

Aptitude tests (also called Psychometric Tests) are structured systematic ways of evaluating how graduates perform on tasks or react to different situations. They have standardized methods of administration and scoring with the results quantified and compared with how others have done at the same tests. They are increasingly administered online after candidates’ initial job applications and used to filter unsuitable applicants out of the selection process, without the need for one-to-one interviews.
Psychometric tests fit broadly into four categories:

• Ability tests – tests your broad skills such as numeracy and IQ.
• Aptitude Tests – tests your job specific skills such as selling or managing.
• Personality Tests – assess your personality type.
• Motivation questionnaires – assesses what drives you and what your relevant attributes are.

Many test producers give sample tests on their websites for you to practice.
Employers use aptitude tests (such as SHL, PSL and GTIOS) alongside interviews, personality tests, application forms, academic results and other selection methods, as a way of working out if candidates would be suitable for the job they have applied for. No test is perfect, but they aim to give an indication of the challenges that will be faced in the day-to-day life of your role at the firm.
Tests can be taken online or sat at the firm’s offices. Often a firm may ask you to do both if you successfully pass the online test. Tests are timed and are typically multiple choice. It is not uncommon for some answer choices to be deliberately misleading so you must take care as you work through the tests. Some tests escalate in difficulty as the test progresses- typically these tests are not designed to be finished by candidates.

Preparation

Evidence suggests that some practice of similar tests may improve your performance on real tests. Practice exam technique and try to become more familiar with the types of test you may face by completing practice questions. Even basic word and number puzzles may help you become used to the comprehension and arithmetic aspects of some tests.
Treat aptitude tests like an interview: get a good night’s sleep, plan your journey to the test site, and arrive on time and appropriately dressed. Listen to the instructions you are given and follow them precisely.
Before the actual test, you will be almost certainly be given practice examples to try. Make sure you ask questions if anything is unclear at this stage. You will normally be given some paper on which to make rough workings. Often you can be asked to hand these in with the test, but typically not form part of the assessment.
You should work quickly and accurately through the test. Don’t get stuck on any particular question: should you have any problems, return to it at the end of the test. You should divide your time up per question as accurately as you can- typically this will be between 50 and 90 seconds per question.
Remember that the tests are difficult and often you will not be expected to answer all the questions.

Assessment Centres

An assessment day (also called an ‘assessment centre’) is an important part of many employer’s recruitment process. As the name suggests, it is a period of assessment that usually lasts for the best part of a day.
Assessment days are usually held at employer’s offices, although some firms use third party organisations to run their assessment days (Such as Benedix).
Assessment days usually comprise a mixture of: interviews, case studies, aptitude tests (such as verbal and numerical reasoning), personality tests, group exercises, role plays and presentations (both group and individual).

Case Study / Case Study Interview

Case study questions were first introduced into interviews by management consulting firms. They are now used by many employers, in particular city firms.
Case study questions are used to test candidates’ analytical skills, creativity and problem solving ability. They can also be used to give candidates a sense of the type of work they will be doing at a firm.
There is usually no right or wrong answer to case study questions. Interviewers are more interested in finding out how candidates go about solving problems and what methods they used to develop their answer.
Specific knowledge of the topics covered by case study questions may be useful to candidates but is not necessary for answering such questions. Usually any extra information that is required for answering case study questions is proved by the interviewer.
In certain circumstances, interviewers may offer little or no background information with their questions. This puts added pressure on candidates, forcing them to work out a solution based on their own knowledge, or an analysis of the limited information available.
Case study questions help interviewers find out how candidates identity problems and how well they can structure a solution. Top level candidates will pay close attention to their instructions, evaluate all information available to them and present a developed conclusion for their interviewer. These type of questions do require candidates to be able to think on their feet and be resourceful.
As a candidate it is your job to demonstrate your analytical and reasoning skills, speak coherently and defend your opinions. There is no right answer; once you have thought of a line of argument stick to this and spend the majority of your time developing and structuring your thoughts.

Case Study Questions

Case study questions usually fall into one of the following four categories:

• Estimation questions
• Actual or theoretical client questions
• Brain teaser questions
• Graphic interpretation questions

 

Estimation Questions

This type of question requires you to think on your feet and work out the solution to a problem with only your own limited knowledge.
Such questions include:

• How many cars are there in England?
• How many children are born each year in Europe?
• How many mobile phones will be sold in 2020?
• How many night buses are there in London?

 

Actual or theoretical client questions

This type of question requires candidates to analyse an actual or possible client issue. Examples include:

• A well known business wants to develop itself online. What is your advice?
• A well known high-street cafe chain is doing badly. How do you suggest they improve?
• A company has found that its revenues are higher than ever, but the company is still operating at a loss. Why is this?
• You have been contacted by a sushi chain to help them develop a plan to enter the home delivery market in a community where another sushi chain already has a market dominant position. You are the lead consultant for this client, what do you suggest they do?

 

Brain Teaser Questions

Questions like this are highly analytical, they test candidates by asking them to respond to questions which do not have a right or wrong answer, or even an answer at all. Examples include:

• Why are manhole covers round?
• If you were a song being played at a fair ground carousel, what song would you be?
• How to know if the light inside refrigerator is on or not?

 

Graphic Interpretation Questions

This type of question requires candidates to interpret data from some kind of chart or graph. The data may be actual company data, data that has been made up or data that refers to something else entirely.

Group exercise

A group exercise is an assessed discussion between a small group of candidates (usually 8-10 people), following a question posed by a member of a firm’s recruitment team. Group exercises occur frequently at graduate assessment days.
Candidates are usually given some information relating to a business scenario before the group exercise begins, with a short amount of time available to read this and make notes. You will then be asked to join the other candidates, and you will all be briefed to discuss the information provided and reach a conclusion. Normally these exercises are restricted to about 10 minutes, so time is of the essence. A common variation is for each person in the group to be assigned an individual role and given some extra information only he/she sees, in addition to the common information.
The exercise will be observed by recruitment staff and the performance of each individual member assessed.
Crucially they will be looking for evidence of:

• Logical arguments
• Teamwork
• Confidence/Strength of character

It is essential that:

• You are not overbearing.
• You are clear, concise and confident.
• Everybody in the group has an equal opportunity to speak.
• You make your points and if criticised, are prepared to stand up for yourself and diplomatically argue why your opinions are valid.
• You do not sit quietly while other candidates make their points without making your own.
• The group reaches a conclusion in the time allocated.

 

Role play

Role plays test how candidates might approach difficult situations that frequently occur in the business world. Interviewers frequently ask interview candidates to assume the role of a specific company employee and ask them how they would approach a hypothetical or real life situation.

Final tips for assessment days

The main points to remember in assessment days are:

• Don’t either take over or remain uninvolved.
• Don’t start arguments; help to resolve them.
• Keep the team focused on its objective.
• Summarise the teams progress when it seems useful to do so.

 

After the Interview

As soon as you get back home from the interview, you’ll need to do two things:

1. Write a letter of thanks to the interviewer.
2. Make notes.

Saying thank you

You need to write and thank the interviewer as soon as possible, since you want your letter/email to arrive before they make their decision. In order to make sure you’re in time, you can always use email, especially if you know they’re going to make their decision quickly. Your thank-you letter has two purposes:

• It enables you to remind the interviewer who you are, in much the same way an advertisement does.
• It gives you a chance to mention (briefly) anything important you missed saying at the interview itself.

You will stand out as other people will not take the initiative.
Since you will almost certainly be the only candidate who writes following the interview, it will do a lot to bring your name to the interviewer’s attention, even if you had slipped down the list.
It should say something along the lines of “Thank you for seeing me this morning. I very much enjoyed meeting you and I would like to confirm that I am still very interested in the post. I look forward to hearing from you.’
You may also want to add a brief note along the lines of: ‘By the way, we discussed the possibility of working with fund managers in Latin America, and I forgot to mention that I am fluent in Spanish as well as French’. There is no need to add this kind of information unless there’s something important you feel you omitted to say, and a single sentence will do fine. This is no place to launch into a long defensive ramble because you think the interviewer had some reservation about your suitability and you feel like repeating what you’ve already said at the interview.

Making Notes

Make notes about the interview. Do you feel you were well prepared, were you confident enough, did you ramble too much, were you too flippant, did you answer questions fluently?
You may get a second interview. In case this happens you need to note:

• The name of your interviewer and anyone else you met.
• Any questions you feel you could have dealt with better (so you can respond next time)
• Any reservations you suspect the interviewer may have been left with.
• Anything you wish you had said but didn’t.
• Anything which seemed to impress them and will therefore be worth remembering next time.