Final Round Feedback
I had a final round for Markets Summer Internship last week. I was rejected and I received feedback yesterday. 'Your technical knowledge and understanding of the financial market was outstanding but we were not quite sure how you would fit in with our culture'. Surely this is a very silly reason to reject someone. I answered everyone single question right, the brainteasers, the competencies and technical knowledge ( the stock pitch for instance). Honestly heartbroken because I really thought I bagged the offer. What could I change going forward in the future? Appreciate it everyone.
It's not a silly reason to reject someone. If you are working 12-14 hours a day next to someone - you want to like them and you want them to get on with the rest of the team.
If they rejected you for that then they thought you were smart but didn't really like you as a person, and that's fine. It's impossible to be liked by everyone. There's nothing you should change - just be you and hope the next team you interview with are more like you.
This is a reason which comes up frequently, especially with a roster of candidates to pick from.
It doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with you - it just means the team connected with your competitors better.
There's no way for us to be able to tell why they gave the reason that they did, but sometimes they pass on candidates because they are not personable enough i.e., they are a bad "culture fit". Ways to generally avoid this is to steer the interview in the direction of a conversation, talking about your hobbies, sports, etc. Sometimes candidates will tend to focus so heavily on technicals and stuff but ignore that soft skills are just as important. When someone asks you how your day has been, and you only reply "good", this is obviously bad. I'm not say that you did this, I'm just giving an example. As another poster already pointed out, the rejection has little to do with you if you did everything to the best of your ability, but moreso that other candidates just clicked with the team better.
^ As an anecdote, when I went for my SA interviews last year for 2022, I did very well in terms of the behavioural/competency interviews because I came across as likeable and asked good questions (feedback I also received throughout my internship), but I didn't do as well in the technical interview. Don't get me wrong, I didn't bomb it, but I didn't do as well as the MSc Finance candidates for example. But here's the thing, I still got the offer and they didn't because of "fit" factors. I hope you don't get disheartened, it's just a numbers game in the end. I didn't land my first assessment centre, I got my SA offer after my fifth AC/final round. It's unlikely you're going to land your first one, but your chances of landing the next goes up and up.
I saw an interesting statistic whereby you have maybe a 40% chance of converting your first assessment centre. But by the time you go to your fourth or fifth one, that chance is now over 90% (just how the maths works out). So when I went into my fifth AC I was pretty confident because the maths all worked out. Turns out that little hypothesis worked for me!
Did you go to a target uni in London? I have never managed to get into more than 2 ACs.
Not to take away from your hard work, was just curious.
They just didn't like you. It happens. Move on, it's a numbers game.
It's possible you thought you did better in the interview than you actually did. Sometimes we get a bit deluded or the interviewers were just being nice when they spoke with you, as they may be with everyone else in interviews, but they actually didn't like you / had another candidate who they thought is better.It happens, move on.
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