Any Analyst/Associate that has taken an interview- what notes do you take?
Do you write the traits you observe? For technical questions- do you give a score? Do you directly tell HR whether to send the candidate to the next round? Or do you give comments and let HR decide? Please let me know how you judge, thanks!
This is UK specific, but any insight from any other geography is more than welcome- just let me know which country's recruiting style you're following.
I'm UK-based, and more senior than AN / AS but thought I might pitch in.
HR provide us with a list of competency questions (heaven forbid that I come up with these myself). I usually note down how clear the response was (how structured, articulate, and how well it addressed the question.
For the more general (why IB?) type questions, I'll note down points about the response which are helping me judge whether the candidate is a fit, and which well help me defend my opnion when we go into the roundtable to debate which candidates get an offer and which don't. For example, in a situation last week, I had a strong opinion that a candidate should receive an offer. Other interviewers said that his / her rationale for IB wasn't clear and, despite some positive traits, that was giving them doubt. I argued that the rationale was clear, because of a specific anecdote the candidate had told me (it's less obvious why he / she didn't tell this to the rest of the interviewers, but perhaps there were time pressures / different question context / etc.) I interviewed a anumber of candidates and wouldn't have rememebered that anecdote if I hadn't written it down.
TLDR: Write down anything specific which helps me defend my opinion of a candidate in front of others.
Did they get an offer?
Yes - as a side point (and other banks will be different - I'm not sure how all of them work), a lot of candidates will be maybes. The majority though will be consensus Offer / No Offer. If one banker really speaks up for a candidate when they're a maybe, that candidate typically gets an offer.
The hardest cases are:
(A) When everyone agrees that a candidate is a Maybe, and then we usually defer to HR (how far are we from reaching our Intern Headcount Goal?); or
(B) When two bankers have strong opinions that disagree. This is actually quite rare - most bankers have a hundred other things to worry about to get testy with a colleague about a candidate they just met, and usually we're all looking for the same traits anyway. If a candidate I have a good opinion of did something stupid or weird, etc., in an interview with a colleague I probably trust and respect that colleague, and depending on what the candidate did, it's then quite easy for us to decide.
This is actually so interesting to read about. Usually, us candidates can be really short-sighted and nervous during recruiting that we often forget the mental gymnastics the interviewing panel has to do. But, it's nice that there are multiple bankers during an AC- of course it helps you navigate the best candidate- but even from our perspective- I personally enjoy speaking to bankers in different teams. The vast difference between how a DCM banker would think of sustainability-linked bonds vs how a banker within the consumer sector team would think of retail companies- but both have the same kind of involvement in their work- is just amazing to hear about. To me, that's the best part of interviewing but I digress.
Thanks for the insight!
US - no score, sometimes I write a quick few words on my phone in between candidates and our group makes the decisions rather than HR.
Immediately after a superday we huddle. Truthfully the top and bottom candidates typically require little discussion. Someone says "I thought John Doe was great", another person says "John Doe definitely the best" and no one has some huge issue with them and that's an offer. Same with the bottom ones.
The middling candidates get more discussion if we have an offer or two left. It's less traits and more qualitative like "Jack Frost answered the basic technicals fine but was pretty lost in the second half" "Jack Frost didn't seem to understand the role enough and his stories were very stiff and vague". Typically if an MD feels very strong one way or another, people won't argue with them unless the person did something extremely terrible... and that is the decision on that candidate.
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