Interview Experience

Hi,

This is my first ever attempt on writing for a blog. Before I start sharing my experience while interviewing, here's a little about myself. I am currently a junior in a non-target public institution in the state of New York, majoring in Financial Economics. And just like many of you, I was also sucked into the dream of becoming an investment banker. So here's how my journey initiated. A good friend of mine insisted that I attend a general interest meeting at our school's finance society club. At the meeting, the president's speech just wowed me, and that's when I decided that I wanted to work for an investment bank. At that time, I knew nothing about investment banks, not even a good understanding of what they do.

Anyways, I decided to look into the field more and more, and learned about the big names. Goldman, Morgan, Citi, Merrill and the other ones. To be honest, the most fascinating part for me was the compensation. The idea of making around 150k right after college, seemed unreal to me. But then I also got to know about the hours, and how you have to be an outstanding individual, not just academically, but also in other ways and know so many things. And of course there was the 'networking like a ninja' part.

One of the first things I did was open up a LinkedIn. And started searching for professionals who went to my school, and were currently in that field. Despite the fact that I go to a non-target school, there were a pretty decent amount of individuals who were working at the BB's. But they were really smart and had so many relevant experiences during their school years. On the other hand, my GPA was low and I did not have any experience which were good enough. But somehow, I tried to learn more and more. I participated in a Mergers and Acquisitions Case Competition, and an Equity Research Competition. That's when I came across things such as Accretion Dilution Models, Comps Analysis, DCF and those kind of things. Oh my God! What on earth were these tools, never heard of them before, and had no idea how to create them. All I knew was that there was a lot of excel involved. But I knew I had to learn them. And thus started sleepless nights trying to figure out how each and every number was derived. It was awful. And I was doing all these during my finals week. But somehow, me and my team were able to come up with a decent presentation. Never even made it to the second round of the competitions.

But on the brighter side, I was able to add these experiences in my resume. And along with a few other prior experiences, I was able to prepare a decent resume. Then came cover letter. I literally spent hours, even days working on my resume and cover letter. Trying to make sure everything was correct, no mistakes, the lines were aligned and just trying to make sure that it was as perfect as possible. It was around January when I started applying for summer internships. I applied to possibly all the positions that were listed on the websites of almost all the BB's. All I cared about was putting out my resume. Deep down, I pretty much knew that I was never gonna make it. My GPA was not even 3.0, I hardly knew anyone in those companies, no relevant prior experience. I was just hoping for a miracle. First came a rejection from BNY Mellon. I wasn't surprised. After that came a rejection from Morgan Stanley. I started to lose hope. But then one day, I got an email from Morgan Stanley for another summer analyst position for their operations. My eyes were gleaming as I read through the email. They would like to schedule an interview with me. It was going to be on campus, as they were in our school around that time. I was never more excited. I was bragging to my friends about it in such a manner which made it seem like I already had secured the position. I told my mother about it, but little did she know what investment banking was.

Anyways, I started to prepare for my interview. I decided that I would stop going to my classes, and stop studying until my interview. All I did was research about Morgan, about the the position, about the recruiters and people at Morgan. I tried to get in touch with people who were current operations analyst at MS or did that internship in the past. I made a list of 50 to 60 possible questions that were usually asked during interviews, and watched a lot of videos on youtube about interviewing and about Morgan Stanley. I tried to memorize pretty much all the information in their website; Their culture, their people, the work they do and how they are involved with the community. For like a week, everything around me was somehow related to Morgan Stanley. Even though it was back office, I was desperate. I just wanted to set my foot into the industry first, and then see where I can go.

The day before the interview, I got a haircut, got a new coat, dress pants, shirts and shoes. I was ready for it. But little did I know deep down I actually was not ready for it. Part of it was because I had never interviewed for a white collar position, let alone an organization such as Morgan Stanley. On the day of my interview, I waited outside my interview room. Trying to recall all the questions, answers and points I had memorized all this time. My name was called, and I slowly, nervously walked towards the room. Inside was an MS manager waiting for me. I greeted him politely as I stepped in, shook hands and exchanged some small talk. I could hear my heart beat. And to make things worse, my interviewer said that he did not have enough time and that he would try to wrap things up within 15 minutes. That was it! I was messed up inside. I had prepared my answers taking into account the time frame for each one, and knew that the interview would be for around 30 minutes.

Now that that was not happening, I did not know what to do at that moment. But the worst part is that I memorized my answers. I was like a robot. He asked me a pretty simple question, trying to get to know more about me and my interest in the position and the company. This was three questions in one big question, but what I did was prepare myself for three answers separately. My first answer was a disaster, and I knew that there was no way I would make it to the next round. Then he asked me a couple more questions, which I forgot. And my responses for those were also pretty mediocre.

My interview ended in just about 11 minutes! I thanked him, and walked out. As soon as I got out, I lit up cigarette to cool myself down. It felt good! Later that evening, I got an email saying that I did not make it. Like I didn't know.
But I learned something out of this interview. It's never to memorize answers. I got rejected by so many other companies, I didn't even hear back from a lot of them. But to this day, I'm still trying, and am positive that with more rejections, more determination, and hard work, I will hopefully be able to achieve what I want.
Hope you liked this post, please feel free to ask questions, offer advice, or share your experiences. In my next post, I will write about how I got an interview with JP Morgan, and how it went.

P.S Attached is an image of how my study table looked like before the interview!

Thank you.