Back luck or poor EQ? Can't get past R1 or SD. How to improve?

Sophomore at semitarget with IB & PE freshmen internships, great techs, good behaviorals.

Had 9 processes, 7 R1s, 2 SDs, and no offer. From mentors who have placed well, my techs are great, behvaiorals are good (more subjective so saying great would be overstating), great resume & passion about finance & IB.

It seems like my achillies heel is EQ/personality. I would say 50% of my R1s I could understand maybe we didn't resonate well, but 50% I would say I crushed (great answers + strong connections with interview(s)) yet only 1 converted to SD

Is this back luck or poor EQ??? If it is poor EQ/personality is there anyway to overcome this or am I cooked???

3 Comments
 
Most Helpful

Chin up man not 100% related but I interviewed with 15 banks and landed 2 superdays and 1 offer from a Tier 3 bank.


After getting (surprisingly) great work experience from T3 banks I lateral interviewed with 7 banks and made it to 5 superdays but landed 0 offers. I was clearly stumped and thought it was something wrong with me.


Then COVID really picked up and somehow I managed to swing an interview with 1 MM and 1 UMM for an off cycle hire and landed both offers (this was just a month after my fifth rejection). 

Moral of the story is - it’s probably not a you thing but rather a fit issue. Keep grinding and assuming your friends/mentors don’t have critical feedback its just luck/finding the right people

 

Appriciate the advice, and great to hear you were still so successful. Hard to come by decent advice on this site as if you posted that you had 2 SDs for 15 banks, im sure people would say you're awkward & weird and that's it.

 

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