Help on Superday interviews!
(Senior Monkey, 72
Points)
on 11/24/07 at 10:59pm
I just had a S&T superday with a BB in Asia. They flew me all the way from where I lived to their office in Asia and paid for pretty much everything. There were 3 back to back interviews. One was alright, one brainteaser, talked about the market but the guy was very indifferent.
The second went really well, it was a chat, and we talked a lot about me and the markets. I thought we clicked.
The last was a technical and brainteaser which I think went disastrous. I had a peek on their sheet and I was getting 3s and 2.5s out of 5 on the categories they were assessing me on. What do you think are my chances after this? In all three interviews, I clearly demonstrated that I was really interested in the markets and obviously knew my stuff too.
Probably not that great
Speaking from personal experience, the banking job market is just too competitive right now to be able to land a job without the perfect interview, except for extenuating circumstances such as contacts, or nailing the interview with a partner who goes to bat for you.
It is important to remember that the interviews with the higher ups tend to be informal conversations, as they rarely if ever ask technical questions. Even if you hit it up with the MD and he really wants to hire you, he will not be justified in pushing you if the other interviewers did not feel you were technically qualified.
I've had interviews where I absolutely nailed 7 out of 8 interviews, and had one slightly indifferent one, and was still not given an offer.
Its also important to remember that how we think we did isn't necessarily how it was perceived on the other end. So, you may have thought you did poorly when in fact you did well, or you may have thought you did well when in fact you did poorly (I myself have most likely been the victim of the latter in the earlier stages of my interviewing history).
Just a question: Why do you believe that you "clearly demonstrated that you knew your stuff well" when your first interview was OK at best, and your third interview, the one with a technical and a brainteaser, went disastrous?
Hey thanks for the
Hey thanks for the reply.
When I meant I knew my stuff was with regards to the markets. With regards to the technical stuff, I knew what was required. I memorized the vault guide to finance questions. But then, anxiety and nervous didn't help at all and they asked really detailed questions that you wouldn't remember unless you just finished your finance class.
But anyways, thanks, my gut feeling was right afterall. But it was definitely a really good experience. I learnt a lot more from this event on S&T than doing days of research online.