Intern M&A

I found the listing on Nordea's careers page, though a friend had tipped me off a few weeks earlier so I had everything ready to go on day one. The process started with the standard online application, CV, cover letter, a few motivational questions followed by numerical and verbal reasoning tests that were harder than I'd anticipated. A few weeks later came an HR screening on Teams, competency questions mostly, then a technical interview with an associate and a VP where they walked me through valuation methodology and threw in a hypothetical Nordic industrial company to see how I reasoned on my feet.
The final stage was an in-person assessment center in Stockholm. A case study, a group exercise, and a one-on-one with the head of M&A who was more interested in how I thought than what I knew. He asked me what I thought Nordea's biggest competitive weakness was versus the bulge brackets. I gave an honest answer. He didn't tell me if I was right.
The offer came four days later. The office was quieter than I expected, the people were sharp and a little dry, and a VP told me on the way out that in a team this small, attitude gets noticed before output does. That stuck with me more than anything else from the whole process.