INVESTMENT BANKING PRACTICE INTERVIEW

Try a practice interview for investment banking, answering typical questions and also getting tips on how you should answer. There are also other questions students have been asked at banking interviews. It differs from retail banking is also know as high street banking which is largely about managing customers accounts, selling loans and mortgages etc.: see our separate interview on this

Investment Banking

INVESTMENT BANKERS need to be NUMERATE and good at ANALYSING INFORMATION in order to research the market and carry out financial modeling. This information is then used in MAKING DECISIONS and presenting information to clients, which requires SELF-CONFIDENCE and good COMMUNICATION skills. Good TIME MANAGEMENT, in particular WORKING UNDER PRESSURE and MEETING DEADLINES is essential in this high-pressure working environment. Employers will expect you to be able to talk about and demonstrate these skills at a high level throughout the recruitment process. The sort of evidence you could offer includes:

LEADERSHIP: chairperson of a student society;
SPOKEN COMMUNICATION: debating society;
NUMERACY: work experience in a financial environment;
MAKING DECISIONS: planning a gap year and adapting your plans in changing circumstances;
TIME MANAGEMENT: achieving strong academic results while being involved in other University activities at a high level.

Before you arrive ...

Before your interview make sure that you are well-informed about the company, the banking industry, the financial markets and the business world generally. You will be expected to know where the FTSE and Dow Jones indexes are and have been, where LIBOR and Fed rates are and to be up to speed on current financial and business issues. Read the Financial Times daily and register (for free) at www.ft.com to get email updates. See also the links below, the links from our banking careers page www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sitebank.htm and our Interview Reports for banking interviews.
You are likely to get verbal and numerical reasoning tests: see www.kent.ac.uk/careers/psychotests.htm for examples.

There follow some of the questions that might be specifically asked of students at interviews for investment banking jobs. General interview questions are not asked here, so you might also like to try the general or multiple choice interviews as well for standard interview questions that can be thrown at any candidate. Click on "First Question" to begin. Think carefully about how you would answer, then click on "Show Answer Tips" to get an idea of how you should be answering.

Other questions students have been asked at banking interviews

If you have been to an interview or assessment centre recently please fill in our interview report form to help other students.

About your study, work experience and skills

Talk me through your CV (Goldman Sachs)
Most of the questions asked were based on the Curriculum Vitae that you submit to them. (United Bank for Africa)
What did you study? Tell me about your course. (Citibank)
Why did you choose your A-levels? (Morgan Stanley)
Tell us about your degree course and why you chose it? (Citibank)
Tell me about about your work experience. (Citibank)
How can you relate your studies and experience to your work with us? (Citibank)
Questions relating to social and extracurricular activities during my degree (Citibank)
Tell me about your interests and the level of sports at which you play. (Citibank)
How can you relate your studies and experience to your work in Citibank.
Why should we hire you and not anyone else. (Citibank)
Where do you see yourself in 2-5 years? (Morgan Stanley)
Where do you see yourself in the future? (Goldman Sachs)
What is your ambition career-wise? (Fidelity Investments)

Competency questions. See our page on How to Answer Competency-based Questions

Tell me about a time where you have managed risk (Goldman Sachs)
Give an example of a mistake you made/what did you do about it? (Fidelity Investments)
Tell us of a time when you've failed at something. (J.P. Morgan)
Have you ever made a mistake? Tell us about it. (J.P. Morgan)
Give an example of when you worked under pressure. (KBC Financial Markets)
Describe a time at work when you coped with a problem (KBC Financial Markets)
What is the most difficult decision you've had to make?
How do you prioritise your work at the moment? (Fidelity Investments, Citibank)
What's more important - deadlines or quality of work? (Goldman Sachs)
Give an example of where you have had to process information
Give an example of where you have had to work with people/customers
Give an example of when you have taken initiative. (J.P. Morgan)
Describe a time when you communicated effectively. (Barclays Capital)
Tell me about a time where you have shown leadership (Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital)
Give an example of where you have had to motivate others.
What opportunities have you had to work in a team and what would you say your role was? (Barclays Capital)
Give an example of when you worked in a team. (KBC Financial Markets)
Give us an example to show you're a team player. (J.P. Morgan)
Technical skills on computer especially Excel. (KBC Financial Markets)
Tell me about your strengths and weaknesses. (J.P. Morgan)
What would you friends say is your strongest point? (Morgan Stanley)
What key skills could you bring to us? (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley)

Commercial Awareness Questions. See our page on How to answer Commercial Awareness Questions

What did you think of our presentation/what did you learn? (Fidelity Investments)
What skills do you think we’re looking for? (Fidelity Investments)
What do you know about us? (Morgan Stanley,KBC Financial Markets, Citibank)
Why do you want to work for us? (J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Citibank)
What attracted you to us? (Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs)
Why Goldman over other banks? (Goldman Sachs)
What can you tell me about Goldman Sachs? (Goldman Sachs)
Tell me what you know about the investment banking industry. (Morgan Stanley)
Why do you want to work in investment banking? (J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs)
What is the main function of an investment bank? (Morgan Stanley)
Why do you want this particular job? (Citibank)
Why have you applied to Global Credit Risk Management rather than trading? (J.P. Morgan)
How much of an impact do you think this job has on the company as a whole? (Fidelity Investments)
What did you learn about the different roles? (Fidelity Investments)

Where does Goldman make most of its profits? (Goldman Sachs)
What would you say is the most important aspect of our work culture? (Morgan Stanley)
What does the Operations and Finance division do? Who are our clients? (Morgan Stanley)
Why operations? (Goldman Sachs)
What do you know about operations? (Goldman Sachs)
What does operations do? (Goldman Sachs)
What skills are required for operations? (Goldman Sachs)
Why is operations important? (Goldman Sachs)
What are the problems facing key operations workers? (Goldman Sachs)
How do you think the economic crisis will effect Operations? (Goldman Sachs)

What kind of tasks do you think you would be working on in operations? (Goldman Sachs)
What are the core competencies needed for operations? (Goldman Sachs)
Why have you applied to GCRM rather than trading? (J.P. Morgan)

Technical questions re. finance and equity markets. (KBC Financial Markets)
Knowledge of financial markets, current developments in finance world. (KBC Financial Markets)
What do you know about the financial crisis? (Goldman Sachs)
Given the recent economic crisis, banks have been given a lot of bad press, do you think it's all our fault? (Goldman Sachs)
Do you agree with Obama's views about separating banks duties? (personal and investment? (Goldman Sachs)
What are the differences between equities and bonds? (Bloomberg)
What is the current price of a barrel of oil? (Bloomberg)

Hypothetical questions. See our section on this

If you had a very large assignment how would you structure your time to make sure you met the final deadline? (J.P. Morgan)
If I told you a list of 7 things to do and walked off, what would you do? If you couldn't finish all of them by the end of the day, what would you do? (Morgan Stanley)
If you had a very large assignment how would you structure your time to make sure you met the final deadline? (J.P. Morgan)

MARKET SIZING questions

These evaluate your temperament and analytical skills and are often used in CASE STUDY interviews by consultancy and banking firms. They test your logical, analytical, numerical and problem solving skills. A lot of the skill in answering these questions involved making reasoned estimates of the market size.

How many women sell AVON products in the UK? (McKinsey)
How many photocopies are taken in the UK each year? (McKinsey)
How many piano tuners are there in the UK? (A brain-teaser – they want you to logically arrive at a guestimate e.g. 10,000,000 households in the UK, 1 in 5 have a piano etc.) (LEK)
Give the weight of a fully loaded Jumbo Jet at take-off. (LEK)
How many lightbulbs are there in London? (J.P. Morgan)
How many degrees are there between clock hands at 3.15? (J.P. Morgan)

For help with answering these see our page on CASE interviews

Psychometric tests

Most investment banks give you demanding numeracy tests as part of their selection procedure. The nearest on-line practice tests for these are those on the efinancial careers site at http://students.efinancialcareers.co.uk/numerical_test.htm

Our Second Practice Numerical Reasoning Test is also quite similar but you would probably need to be scoring at least 19 or twenty on this to have a good chance of passing the real investment bank tests.

Numerical 20 minutes for 20 questions. Finding percentage increases and decreases, compound interest questions. Verbal 15 minutes for 30 questions. Typical 'True' 'False' or 'Cannot Say' questions (Barclays Capital)
Numerical and verbal both in the first round - No calculators were allowed. Each last for 30mins. Typical questions such as those on the SHL website, ratios, percentage changes. Verbal was true/false/cannot say type questions. (Goldman Sachs)
Numerical and verbal. 20mins each. Numerical was data interpretation. (Goldman Sachs)
Verbal and numerical (no calculator was allowed!) 30 mins each. Same type of questions as the standard SHL test. Practice numerical tests without a calculator. (J.P. Morgan)
Verbal reasoning: short texts – had to say whether statements were true, false or not possible to answer. Proof-reading: had to compare 2 versions of texts – look for mistakes, describe what kinds of mistakes they were. German: short conversation with native speaker. (Fidelity Investments)
Numerical, verbal and current affairs. This was done prior to the interview date. Don't take mental arithmetic for granted. (United Bank for Africa)

Other components

No presentation, just a short introduction of ourselves to rest of group. We got shown around the offices, saw the people at work, they told us about the job. We got plenty of tea/coffee and biscuits as well as a huge lunch. (Fidelity Investments)
Presentation to two interviewers. Prepared for the presentation individually and presented it to interviewers. (Barclays Capital)
We individually prepared for the group exercise and then brought our contributions into a group discussion. (Barclays Capital)
Group Exercises. We had to prioritise importance of certain items after a pretend plane crash in the desert, where we were the only survivors, firstly as individuals, then we had to do it as a group. (Fidelity Investments)

Tips from Kent graduates

Thoroughly research the company and be prepared for them to delve very deeply into the answers you've given in your initial application.
Very impressed. Excellent offices, very intelligent and friendly people. (J.P. Morgan)
Very welcoming atmosphere, fast paced, and everything you need is under one roof - 24 hr. food; dry cleaners; hairdressers; gym etc. (Morgan Stanley)
Don't panic. Be yourself. Do thorough preparation before your interview. There is a positive correlation between preparation before your interview and your chances of securing a job. There is a lot of information on the University's Careers website. Make use of this information. (Barclays Capital)
There’s not really any way to prepare for it – just make sure you listen to the presentations carefully, but you don’t need to remember everything. The first thing they ask everyone is what do you know about Fidelity? It’s a good idea to make sure you can answer confidently. (Fidelity Investments)
You have to be ready for simply any question relating to your CV and career. (Citigroup)
The interviewers were looking for a loophole in your CV so I'd advise that you know your CV very well. Don't put in your CV what you cannot defend on the table.
Prepare lots of competency answers. Brush up on commercial awareness as questions can be very technical and hard if you don't know what you're talking about. (KBC Financial Markets)
Be relaxed. Know your CV and experiences well enough to talk about them. Know Goldman Sachs i.e. culture, departments, recent knows. Have a few questions to ask - show your interest and research. Very positive impression. Keep up to date with general news. Remember you are being interviewed as soon as you step in the building. (Goldman Sachs)
Relax! Know your CV well! Know about your role i.e. skills required. Know about Goldman Sachs i.e. what they do etc. (Goldman Sachs)
Know Goldman inside out - their website, what business areas they work in. Be able to talk about every aspect of your CV and cover letter and have a lot of examples to give. (Goldman Sachs)
Thoroughly research the company and be prepared for them to delve very deeply into the answers you\'ve given in your initial application. (J.P. Morgan)

Comments

The interviewers were really nice and this helps one to relax. I enjoyed the entire interview experience; a well-structured Assessment Centre. (Barclays Capital)
It’s a very relaxed laid-back atmosphere and all the people are really nice. They don’t ask you to do anything scary and your performance is judged as far as all the different exercises are concerned. It was actually very enjoyable and a good experience. (Fidelity Investments)
Always show confidence in yourself whether you feel you'll get the job or not because there are some interviewers who would try to bring down your morale. (United Bank for Africa)
Nice company – not very formal, people were very friendly. (KBC Financial Markets)
Very impressed. Excellent offices, very intelligent and friendly people. (J.P. Morgan)

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INVESTMENT BANKING PRACTICE INTERVIEW

Before you arrive ...

Other questions students have been asked at banking interviews

About your study, work experience and skills

Competency questions. See our page on How to Answer Competency-based Questions

Commercial Awareness Questions. See our page on How to answer Commercial Awareness Questions

Hypothetical questions. See our section on this

MARKET SIZING questions

Psychometric tests

Other components

Tips from Kent graduates

Comments

More questions (from efinancial careers http://bit.ly/hnDKKS)

Citigroup: Global markets (intern position)

Barclays Capital: Sales (internship)

Barclays Wealth: Wealth management (graduate programme)

Goldman Sachs:

JPMorgan: Risk (graduate position)

Lazard: Investment banking (graduate position)

UBS: Equities sales and trading (summer internship)

LINKS