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 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:
About your study, work experience and skills
- Why did you choose your A-levels? (Morgan Stanley)
- Tell us about your degree course and why you chose it? (Citibank)
- Tell us about your work experience (Citibank)
- How can you relate your studies and experience to your work with us? (Citibank)
- Tell us your strengths and weaknesses.
- What skills do you think you can bring to us? (Morgan Stanley)
- What would you friends say is your strongest point? (Morgan Stanley)
- Why should we hire you and not someone else? (Citibank)
- How do you prioritise your work at the moment? (Citibank)
- Where do you see yourself in 2-5 years? (Morgan Stanley)
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)
Questions about the organisation. Make sure you do LOTS of research!
- What do you know about us? (Morgan Stanley and Citibank)
- What attracted you to us? (Morgan Stanley)
- Why do you want to work for us? (J.P. Morgan and Citibank)
- 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? What is the main function of an investment bank? (Morgan Stanley)
- Tell me what you know about the investment banking industry. (Morgan Stanley)
- Why do you want to work in investment banking? (J.P. Morgan)
- Why have you applied to Global Credit Risk Management rather than trading? (J.P. Morgan)
Competency Questions. See our competency applications and interviews pages for help with these.
- Give an example of where you have had to motivate others
- Give an example of where you have had to lead others.
- 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.
- Describe a time at work when you coped with a problem
- Tell us of a time when you've failed at something.
- Have you ever made a mistake? Tell us about it.
- What opportunities have you had to work in a team and what would you say your role was?
- What is the most difficult decision you've had to make?
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)
For help with answering these see our page on CASE interviews
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)
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.
More questions (from efinancial careers http://bit.ly/hnDKKS)
Citigroup: Global markets (intern position)
- What is Citi's best area in terms of its Global Markets business?
- Who is Citi's CEO?
- What is 21x19?
Barclays Capital: Sales (internship)
- What has the euro/pound exchange rate done in the last 6 months and then what has it done in the last year?
- How do insurance companies view bonds?
- What do you think will happen to Ireland?
Barclays Wealth: Wealth management (graduate programme)
- Could you please mention some of the challenges that the private banking world is currently facing?
- What are your developing areas both profesionnaly and personally ?
- What differentiates Barclays Wealth from its competitors?
- What do private bankers do?
- What do you know about Barclays Wealth?
- Speak about a time when you faced a challenging experience. What did you do to overcome it? What was the result?
- What set of skills does a private banker need?
Goldman Sachs:
Equity derivatives marketing (off-cycle internship)- What is different about Goldman Sachs?
- Why are you interested in derivatives ?
- What do you think about our derivatives website ?
- Which Financial Media do you follow ?
- What is moving the markets in the moment ?
- Which structured product would you issue in the current market conditions ?
- Why are you better than other candidates at picking stocks ?
- If I gave you 10 million euro, would you either buy a 5-star hotel in the centre of Paris or 5 cheap motels along the ring road ?
- What is your top pick ?
JPMorgan: Risk (graduate position)
- Give me an example of a person you think has integrity and explain why.
- Give me an example of a person you think is credible and explain why.
- Why do you want to work in risk within an investment bank and not a corporate bank, an insurance company etc.?
- What's 1/16?
- Draw me a call option.
- What's the angle between the hour and minute hands when it's 3.15pm?
- How would you persuade a German pensioner to save Spain?
Lazard: Investment banking (graduate position)
- Why Lazard?
- Explain the financial crisis
- Can you tell me about a time when you had a disappointing result?
- Please describe some methods of valuation?
- What will cause a valuation to increase?
- What motivates M&A activity?
- Can you discuss a recent news story...
UBS: Equities sales and trading (summer internship)
- When have you shown leadership?
- What is 2.2^2?
- Talk to me about your portfolio of shares. When are you going to sell share x?
- There are ten bottles of pills. 9 have good pills in them, weighing 10g each and 1 bottle has bad pills weighing 9g each.
For arguments sake there are an infinite number of pills in each bottle. You also have a set of electric weighing scales and you are only allowed one 'weigh' How do you find out which bottle has the bad pills in? (You have to have one combination of pills to find the answer, so you can't put a bunch on the scales and then keep taking them off one by one to find the right answer)
LINKS
- WikiJob.co.uk www.wikijob.co.uk/wiki/Main_Page provides students and graduates with key information about recruitment processes at investment banks and other City and financial employers.
- Investment Banking Job Interviews: Tips for success and sample interview questions www.blueskyinterviews.co.uk/int_art18.htm
- The Student Room: discussion forum on investment banks’ interview questions www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=262620
- Top Banking Interview Questionsfrom Origin HR
- Read examples of the sort of questions investment banks ask at interview, donated by candidates who've already been through the process - and see how they answered them.
- Investment Banking Interview Resources from i-Banking Blog:
http://i-bankingblog.com/investment-banking-interview-resources - Advice on interviews from Lancaster University International Investment Society www.luiis.co.uk/careeradvice.interviews.php
- Investment Banking Capital Markets Club
Back to the practice interviews menu or Answers to 150 common interview questions