Summer Co-op, Equity Research

Interview process was similar to the full-time hire process. Round 1 was meet with HR and a full-time research associate to complete a basic behavioural assessment and logic problems. I was an internal referral, so I only met with HR to vet the behavioural, which was about 20 minutes maximum.

Afterwards, I was scheduled for an interview with a panel of 3 senior associates from mining, hardware, and media. Went through technical questions such as what do you look for when valuing a company, pitch a buy, pitch a sell, what do you think of stock X (can't remember), etc. At the end they asked me a couple logic problems as well to see how I sort through a problem. Overall, it was a good interview.

Next step was a 2-hour technical test, which was a computer-based test that asked 10 questions including basic finance (how does the cash flow statement link to the IS and BS, what's bad about EBITDA as a measure for profitability), pitching stocks, giving a rating on a stock based on a single annual report and MD&A, and completing a merger model. Time was tight, but I got most of it done including breaking and then having to re-build the model.

Last stage was a 20 minute behavioural/personality assessment with the MD of the operations group for equity research. This was more of a conversation assessment to see if I could get along with others etc.