How To Prepare For An Interview With No Finance Background

Hello Everybody, I have several upcoming phone and regular interviews at either Bulge Bracket or Elite boutique firms for a summer analyst position. I'm wondering what people think is the best way to prep for these interviews for someone who doesn't have a technical finance background. I am an econ major and have only taken one accounting class so have very little idea how to do any sort of financial modeling, etc. Is there an easy way to learn how to answer technical interview questions and get by in these interviews?

 

Depending on what career you are looking for, the terminology are used differently. I would suggest going over some basic definitions and processes first for finance and accounting. Start reading more articles about the markets and google anything you don’t understand. Pieces will start to fit together eventually. I’ve taken a lot of ECON200+ and 300+ classes (just economics not financial economics) and they are completely different than finance/accounting classes. I suggest picking up another major, minor, or concentration. Most of the people I know pick up another thing or when they graduate they move on to grad school. You can’t do much with it alone in financial industry, in my opinion.

 
Kkkkkenneth:

Depending on what career you are looking for, the terminology are used differently. I would suggest going over some basic definitions and processes first for finance and accounting. Start reading more articles about the markets and google anything you don’t understand. Pieces will start to fit together eventually. I’ve taken a lot of ECON200+ and 300+ classes (just economics not financial economics) and they are completely different than finance/accounting classes. I suggest picking up another major, minor, or concentration. Most of the people I know pick up another thing or when they graduate they move on to grad school. You can’t do much with it alone in financial industry, in my opinion.

Do you think Statistics minor is a good choice?
 
Best Response
jessebest:
Kkkkkenneth:

Depending on what career you are looking for, the terminology are used differently. I would suggest going over some basic definitions and processes first for finance and accounting. Start reading more articles about the markets and google anything you don’t understand. Pieces will start to fit together eventually. I’ve taken a lot of ECON200+ and 300+ classes (just economics not financial economics) and they are completely different than finance/accounting classes. I suggest picking up another major, minor, or concentration. Most of the people I know pick up another thing or when they graduate they move on to grad school. You can’t do much with it alone in financial industry, in my opinion.

Do you think Statistics minor is a good choice?

No. Spend the extra fucking time and effort to learn some basic finance and accounting concepts instead. Otherwise you're just another non-finance major who heard how much banking pays and is suddenly "interested" in it.

 

I think with accounting there is a large benefit to taking an intro class or reading a textbook, because you can go pretty far just learning the basic structure of how the statements fit together and the philosophy of how the accounting system is set up. For most SA interviews, you are not going to need much beyond that basic knowledge, and it's important to know it really well vs memorizing common questions. If you want to go a step beyond, then a textbook is again probably the best method - there are tons of rules / special situations to memorize, and you won't find them in an interview guide.

For learning finance I don't think you need a textbook. I'd read a good explanation of CAPM in a textbook or elsewhere, but other than that you will be better off sticking to 'practical' sources like interview guides or macabacus.

 

Nobody is going to expect an undergrad to be an expert in finance but a little self-study would go a long way here. Not just for directly answering any technical questions but also to demonstrate interest. If I were interviewing you and you had seemingly made no independent effort to learn accounting/finance, I'd ding you -- not for lack of technical knowledge but for what I presume to be a fleeting interest in it. I wasn't a finance major and yet I worked hard to put myself on equal footing with them as an undergrad.

 
jessebest:

I'm an economics major student, and i don't know much about accounting/finance. When I read WSO interview guide, I found out I couldn't understand the terms. What should I do? Should I read some accounting/corporate finance textbooks before reading the interview guide? Thanks

was still drunk from the night before and misread. apologies. yaaya Christmas season.

"After you work on Wall Street it’s a choice, would you rather work at McDonalds or on the sell-side? I would choose McDonalds over the sell-side.” - David Tepper
 

Dude -- stop fucking asking these questions and crack open some damn interweb tabs and pound the pavement -- ibankers would never hit a wall for some damn definitions and not hardnose to find a solution -- get your bootstraps on and use your brain -- I constantly hit info I dont know -- sometimes takes wikipedia, investopedia, macabacus, WSO, M&I, youtube ALL just to understand -- but the reward is I GET it -- use your resources available to you! Sorry to go hard in the beginning -- I just got tired of your questions -- easy doesnt come easy because there is no easy

LA Bull
 

You should let them know you've been interested in finance ever since you were (age - 2 weeks) old, just threw your resume into on-campus recruiting and are really motivated by the money and prestige.

Seriously, just read the Vault guide to finance interviews, don't try to bullshit anything you don't know and have a damn good reason why you majored in hispanic studies/communications, took no finance or even economics classes and all of a sudden (that's what it seems like to me) want to work in the capital markets.

 

You better know what's going on in the markets. What's the fed rate? What was the return on the DOW over the past year? What's the yield curve look like? These are questions that you can easily answer, even if you have no finance experience, if you have an interest in (and thus follow) the markets.

 

I would exploit the spanish and show that learning new things like that interests you. I feel like bankers think they have some sort of secret language between each other that must be learned and if you show that you can easily pick up a language that could help.

 

Be able to NAIL, "Why do you want to do IB?". Like someone else said, it seems like you suddenly developed an interest in finance and you better have a good reason why.

Emphasize that you really want to learn as much as possible. If you don't know something don't bullshit, but do know the basics. Not being a finance major is not an excuse for not knowing something, because you will need to prove that you are interested in the field.

 

My advice? Get a prep course and run through the accounting exercise. There's some excellent free courses on places like Coursera.

Some people will actually be tougher on you because of it. I just had a meeting that turned into a first year director coming to meet me, then saying he wanted to ask me some technical questions since I didn't have a business background before drilling into me aggressively with hard questions. In my case I think it ended up helping me because he wasn't expecting someone with only one semester of MBA courses to be able to handle the level of technicals I got asked.

Think about it from their perspective: they feel safe assuming that a top 30 finance major knows how to discount or how an LBO works, but you can't make the same assumption about a Poly Sci major.

 

You can look at the technical guide WSO has. Also, look at each firm's website. It becomes pretty clear what traits they pride themselves on and how they articulate it, if you're able to absorb that and create a coherent response to 'why this firm' questions, you'll be fine. Don't sweat technicals too much, you'll rarely get those over the phone for IBD. Trading, especially prop shops, yeah, but banking, nope.

I am permanently behind on PMs, it's not personal.
 
A Posse Ad Esse:
You can look at the technical guide WSO has. Also, look at each firm's website. It becomes pretty clear what traits they pride themselves on and how they articulate it, if you're able to absorb that and create a coherent response to 'why this firm' questions, you'll be fine. Don't sweat technicals too much, you'll rarely get those over the phone for IBD. Trading, especially prop shops, yeah, but banking, nope.

Kinda confused by this,... to me every company website seems exactly the same. We pride ourselves in our teamwork, meritocracy, and innovation. Or variations of some sort. Then in employee profiles, they'll say "why did you choose ___ firm? Because of the culture and the people. Its unique sitatuion where my ideas are heard".

It seems they all emphasize the same traits (at least the BB)

 

I'm sorry, never meant to offer someone misleading advice. I've done BB first and second round interviews for IBD and S&T over the phone and in person, and on-site superdays as well. My experience was that technicals rarely crop up over the phone, but that may be an isolated exception for all I know.

I am permanently behind on PMs, it's not personal.
 

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