How to prepare for an assessment center?
A typical assessment center includes 5 parts: 1) Numerical and Qualitative Reasoning Assessment, 2) Presentation 3) Group Discussion, 4) Interview and 5) Bank 's specific test.
How to prepare for an assessment center? For most of you, the numerical and qualitative tests are straight forward. You are more likely to concern about what happens next in an assessment center.
Presentation: You can be asked to deliver a presentation on the same day or be given a case study to prepare for a couple of days before presenting your findings to the bank’s staff. There will be 2 types of case studies:
a) Finance case study real examples and tips.
At the J.P. Morgan investment banking assessment center in 2011, the case study was about a golf company seeking to grow through M&A.
Three acquisition targets were given and candidates had to make recommendation on which company to buy. After 45 minutes, they were required to present their recommendation to a J.P. Morgan assessor and answer his follow up questions about the case study.
One common problem here is that many candidates are stuck on the guiding questions, and do not make it clear on which company they actually recommend to buy.
Therefore, you need to make sure that you clarify your answer from the very beginning and back it up for the rest of your presentation. Knowledge on valuation multiples such as EV/EBITDA, EV/Sales and EDITDA margin is also required.
b) Business case study real examples and tips.
At the UBS investment banking assessment center in 2012, the case study was about Amazon‘s Kindle Products.
Candidates had to conduct SWOT analysis of the company and make recommendations on Amazon Kindle’s strategy to defeat Apple Ipad. After 30 minutes of preparation, they were required to present their recommendation to the UBS representatives (from their chosen business division). Key criteria being assessed included business judgment, problem solving skills and logical reasoning.
Apart from this, there were extended questions related to finance, such as what should be the value of Amazon, what can you tell about the investor sentiment that has contributed to the stock market performance of Amazon, etc.
