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Hey holdupyeah, I'm the WSO Monkey Bot and I'm here since nobody responded to your thread! Bummer...could just be time of day or unlucky (or the question/topci is too vague or too specific). Maybe one of these topics will help:
Fingers crossed that one of those helps you.
Sorry, I'm kind of late here, but which bank/bank type was this for? I just sent in an econ paper for mine at one of the BB's/in-between places.
EB for a junior position. I wasn't sure if this writing sample would be ER/markets related, or some type of prompt to write a response too. Just looking for some color if possible.
I take it that the due date already passed? If not, I would assume that they would give you a prompt if it is a timed test.
No, it's being sent tomorrow evening to begin. What was the length of your econ paper?
I wrote a senior thesis that's 50+ pages during the whole past year so it's definitely not representative in any way. I was asked for a writing sample, so I just sent that in and pointed out 3-5 pages of it that encapsulated a lot of what the larger paper's purpose was.
The goal of the writing test is to see if you can write clearly, concisely, grammatically, and that you can form a coherent argument (if it's an argument paper). The key to this is to just not make mistakes. Of course, it's great if you can write the next Moby Dick, but really you just want to put something good together that looks nice.
Since this is timed, I would expect them to give you a prompt along with some other ER type materials. I was asked to do a modeling test at one place, and to complete it I needed to read through some financial statements and a quarterly earnings call. The modeling test also included a word doc with 5-10 questions I needed to fill out using the completed excel model. I had 6-8 hours for mine, so I'm unsure of what the expected length of yours should be.
I would expect that they are just trying to see if you have a baseline competence in finance/economics and general speed of work to see if they could bring you up to speed when you are on the team.
Very helpful, I appreciate the feedback, thank you.
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