Car Crash Interviews

So I work at a derivatives house. It's a solid company, 150 employees and we start all juniors on a trainee trader program.

Boring crap aside, we do a slightly off the wall 1st round where we take in 30 people at a time, split them into three groups and run a mock trading session, a group interview, and a maths test.

Last week, one of those faux pas you are told never to use was ACTUALLY used in the group interview. We usually mix it up firing industry questions, maths questions and general interest questions just to see what kind of people we are dealing with.

My colleague pointed to a young lady and gave her the question, "Tell me a joke".

She thinks for a second, and says "It's a little risque".My colleague presses her to go on, so she begins "What do you call six million people with a problem?"

A short silence ...................... "Ask the Jews"

Did I mention that my colleague was actually Jewish?

 
Best Response

We actually had a big discussion about this girl. She perfformed really well in our maths test (+90% i think) and the mock trading had singled her out for a second round.

Obviously when the 'joke' spread around the trading floor, we had a big decision. She was doing well in all three tests and if it had not been for that joke, she would have got a round 2. We wondered whether we were sticking by this 'political correctness or no job' paradigm a bit too rigidly since she may actually be good fun to work with.

In the end, we took it as a massive lack of judgement and while she problably wasn't anti-semitic (surname suggested she may actually be Jewish) we decided that anyone who takes huge risks like this in interviews will probably take similarly huge risks in other facets ie her job.

Another guy in the second group also came up with a peach which is difficult to give gravitas to in word form. He told me, "There are three important things in life: Food, Shelter and...."

He then shut up looking at me with wide eyed optimism. I looked at him confused. He began winking and suggestively nodding his head. Silence continued..... ".....Sex" he finally stated.

"Right, moving on...."

1percentblog.com
 
redrut:
Oh @prudentinvestor, 5/10

Nah, fuck that sh*t. Rule of thumbs about life

1) You either have to have extremely marketable skills (a.k.a. be smart, talented, athletic, etc)

2) You have to look f*cking hot (this is a marketable skill by the way)

If you don't have either, life is going to be REALLY hard for you.

 

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Frank Sinatra - "Alcohol may be man's worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy."

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