blackrock interview

Hey Mate..

Just wanted to know when you applied and when did you hear back from them?

Sorry for diverting your actual question..

PAG generally makes the green books given to the traders every morning. Not sure how it works in London, but I'd expect a lot of bond/duration questions. BlackRock usually cares most about personality fits it seems though.

SternMonkey, you think the first interview will be technical or just an HR chat since its 1st round? I know i'll be doing a numerical test to reconfirm the one I did online, but the things scheduled for 2 hrs.

I applied a while back and heard last week. They said they do recruit on a rolling basis.

online tests are only done in UK it seems, so I have no idea on that. If its 2 hours, you will probably be interviewed by several people, since there are many groups within PAG.

Really? This is my first IBank/Asset Management etc. inteview actually, so don't know much. Do you know where I can find out more on the different groups within PAG? the BRS website isn't very helpful.

The test will take 1/2 hr probably and they said theres a bit of down time between the test and the interview, so bring something to read. I'm guessing the interview itself will be an hour max.

Well i got a full time offer for PAG London for '08 but i'm not sure if FT process is the same as the SA process. But here's how mine went:

First Round: Two Interviews - All fit-based questions. Talk about your CV a little. They don't even assume that you know what PAG does at this point. Numerical Test - Absolutely brutal test. Not enough time to do it in. I thought I bombed it and I still got through so I guess the pass mark is very low. :)

Assesment Centre: Group Case Study/Presentation - This is pretty easy. You get in a group. Analyze a case individually and then you discuss it in front of evaluators. As long as you don't dominate the convo and chip in from time to time you'll be fine.

Problem Solving Thingy - This is kinda hard. You have to solve a problem but have to ask questions necessary for you to solve the problem. You might get stuck on the first few problems in which case you just say pass and try the next one. Don't waste too much time on the first ones. By the end you'll get into a groove of how to do them and then you can come back to the earlier ones with a better idea of what's going on. You ask questions from the assessor and here the type of assessor you get is going to play a big role in how well you do in this "game".

Two Interviews - Again fit based but more time is allowed to just chat after the question period is over. Usually I'd say my chats went better than the interviews themselves because with both of my interviewers I ended up getting into a discussion about various things they do that interested me. Besides just general fit based ones you may get some industry ones like "what challenges do you think blackrock is facing?" in which case you should probably know something about the IM industry but nothing too hardcore.

And that's it. BlackRock is expanding pretty fast in the Europe so they're craving analysts like crazy. So odds are in your favour. Good Luck.

Thanks for the replies.

SternMonkey, how do you like it at BR?

larrydalooter, how long was it between your first interview and your offer? I am assuming the paper test was as difficult as the online one. I thought I bombed the online one, but got an invite to interview anyways...so they probably do have very low passing marks. haha.

Thanks a bunch.

They will notify you of whether you made the assessment center the next day after your 1st round interview. Now I interviewed pretty early so I had to wait like a month until the AC. Some people that I met at the AC had their 1st round only a week before. After the AC you will hear the very next day if you get the offer.

And the paper test is waaaaaay more difficult than the online one. My suggestion is to ask them if you can bring your own calculator and then use a graphing calculator so that you can save yourself some time. Out of 32 questions I didn't have time to answer like 8. :S

Kset, I love BlackRock and they have a very high retention rate. I am in a fairly easy group right now, so my experience may change if I decide to do PAG haha.

Is PAG group really that bad? I've heard some good things and some bad things about it.

larrydalooter, thats not good...to be honest I don't even have a graphing calculator anymore. I havn't touched anything involving numbers in about a year now. I think BR uses PSL I think and that is harder than SHL already. Hopefully, it will go well. How long did you have for the test? half an hour? how long was your chat?

SternMonkey, I've heard some good things and bad things about BR in general too. Biggest cons being they work to death (even compared to other firms) and being stingy. The former probably depends on which group you're in, but how do you feel about the later? And just out of interest, which group are you in now?

test was to do 32 questions in 35 minutes. And the AC interviews were like half hour each with about half of it spent on fit questions and half just chatting it up.

And yea the feeling I get from PAG is that they'll slave you pretty hard. They told us at the AC that they'll make offers to 6 out of 10 of us. Which is unusually high when you consider that there are also summer interns every year. Which means that not many summer interns return and/or not many 1st year analysts stay. Other indications were that during both 1st round and AC I was given the impression that the job is not well-liked by many analysts and the hours that you put in are by far the longest in any department at BlackRock. I believe the terms "our division follows investment banking hours" was used. :)

The first year in PAG is about 80 hours a week(which will piss you off since AMG will be doing around ~50), but by 2nd year the hours are cut drastically. Have no idea about compensation.

sternmonkey, do you know anything about the interview for AMG? you had answered a question for me before about AMG.

what about the portfolio management group (hours, comp)? how does it compare to the amg / pag groups?

I had Superday interviews for PAG in New York; I am not familiar with the process in London but i'm sure there are some similarities.

They told me the hours for PAG are 6:30 AM - 9:00 PM (give or take an hour or so). They were very strict about the 6:30 start time. The reason for the early start time was to prepare the GreenPackage for the traders. You will also work about 7 hours on Sunday for the first year.

The final round in NYC was 5 30min interviews. The interviewers ranged from 2nd year analysts to the co-head of PAG (he was very tough and technical). The senior people were very technical and asked questions about the yield curve, credit crisis, net interest margin, etc. Analysts really tried to figure out if they could spend such long hours with you.

PMG is pretty much off limits straight out of undergrad, aside from a few actuarian positions, so I don't know much...but I assume compensation would be high .

AMG is more fit questions I believe.

I worked a summer in PAG, so maybe I should give you guys some insight here.

PAG has very little to do with investment management. It's more working with data and risk management. They have models that are built by another group called Financial Modeling group. Usually you have to have a grad degree in science or IT to get into FMG.

PAG use those models to create what they called Green Package. Each client can have acontract to have such package delivered to them daily. Please note that clients include BOTH Blackrock asset managers and other investment companies that use this platform.

There are 3 types of reports in this package: 1. Risk report: shows risk exposures (duration, convexity, etc), 2. Returns report shows PnL 3. Attribution report shows where the returns came from (security selection, sector allocation, FX...etc)

Remember, Blackrock is a Fixed income house, so most of the things you learn will be geared towards Fixed Income.

People are EXTREMELY nice.....I don't know, it's hard to tell how much people like you when they are too nice. I would say it's not a typical finance environment. SA hours are very good 40 -50 hrs a week. Full time is brutal 6.30 am - 9 pm , half day on Sunday.

The learning curve is steep, but as an analyst, you mainly do Quality Control for your assigned client's reports. Make sure the numbers are correct, in line with rate movements, fix if things go wrong etc etc.

I would say that you develop a very specialized set of skills in PAG but it would not be very transferable to other jobs. I am going to work full time for a fund because I am interested in the actual stock picking and investment management. At BlackRock, it is virtually impossible to get into Portfolio Management Group, especially without experience.

If you're interested in both IT and Fixed income finance and want a friendly nice environment, PAG could be a good choice. The downside is obviously the data-focused nature of the job and the ridiculous hours.