How To Prepare For An Interview With No Finance Background

any guides in particular you would recommend using?

If you don't know these terms, just google them. Investopedia, wikipedia, etc. If you don't understand the terms used to describe the original terms, google them. Repeat until you do find something you understand, build on that knowledge, etc.

Depending on what career you are looking for, the terminology are used differently. I would suggest going over some basic definitions and processes first for finance and accounting. Start reading more articles about the markets and google anything you don’t understand. Pieces will start to fit together eventually. I’ve taken a lot of ECON200+ and 300+ classes (just economics not financial economics) and they are completely different than finance/accounting classes. I suggest picking up another major, minor, or concentration. Most of the people I know pick up another thing or when they graduate they move on to grad school. You can’t do much with it alone in financial industry, in my opinion.

I think with accounting there is a large benefit to taking an intro class or reading a textbook, because you can go pretty far just learning the basic structure of how the statements fit together and the philosophy of how the accounting system is set up. For most SA interviews, you are not going to need much beyond that basic knowledge, and it's important to know it really well vs memorizing common questions. If you want to go a step beyond, then a textbook is again probably the best method - there are tons of rules / special situations to memorize, and you won't find them in an interview guide.

For learning finance I don't think you need a textbook. I'd read a good explanation of CAPM in a textbook or elsewhere, but other than that you will be better off sticking to 'practical' sources like interview guides or macabacus.

Nobody is going to expect an undergrad to be an expert in finance but a little self-study would go a long way here. Not just for directly answering any technical questions but also to demonstrate interest. If I were interviewing you and you had seemingly made no independent effort to learn accounting/finance, I'd ding you -- not for lack of technical knowledge but for what I presume to be a fleeting interest in it. I wasn't a finance major and yet I worked hard to put myself on equal footing with them as an undergrad.

jessebest

I'm an economics major student, and i don't know much about accounting/finance. When I read WSO interview guide, I found out I couldn't understand the terms. What should I do? Should I read some accounting/corporate finance textbooks before reading the interview guide? Thanks

was still drunk from the night before and misread. apologies. yaaya Christmas season.

Dude -- stop fucking asking these questions and crack open some damn interweb tabs and pound the pavement -- ibankers would never hit a wall for some damn definitions and not hardnose to find a solution -- get your bootstraps on and use your brain -- I constantly hit info I dont know -- sometimes takes wikipedia, investopedia, macabacus, WSO, M&I, youtube ALL just to understand -- but the reward is I GET it -- use your resources available to you! Sorry to go hard in the beginning -- I just got tired of your questions -- easy doesnt come easy because there is no easy

Is this really a question? I'm not a finance major, or even a STEM major, and I have two notebooks completely filled with notes on finance/valuation shit I watch on YouTube or read elsewhere on the Interwebs. It takes less than 2 seconds to CTRL+T and type a question into Google.

You should definitely take an accounting class, and after that, the info in the guide becomes easy to understand. Good luck!

You should let them know you've been interested in finance ever since you were (age - 2 weeks) old, just threw your resume into on-campus recruiting and are really motivated by the money and prestige.

Seriously, just read the Vault guide to finance interviews, don't try to bullshit anything you don't know and have a damn good reason why you majored in hispanic studies/communications, took no finance or even economics classes and all of a sudden (that's what it seems like to me) want to work in the capital markets.

You better know what's going on in the markets. What's the fed rate? What was the return on the DOW over the past year? What's the yield curve look like? These are questions that you can easily answer, even if you have no finance experience, if you have an interest in (and thus follow) the markets.

I would exploit the spanish and show that learning new things like that interests you. I feel like bankers think they have some sort of secret language between each other that must be learned and if you show that you can easily pick up a language that could help.

Be able to NAIL, "Why do you want to do IB?". Like someone else said, it seems like you suddenly developed an interest in finance and you better have a good reason why.

Emphasize that you really want to learn as much as possible. If you don't know something don't bullshit, but do know the basics. Not being a finance major is not an excuse for not knowing something, because you will need to prove that you are interested in the field.

Start with the investment banking interview guide that WSO offers (see Interviews tab at the top).

Expect fit questions and some brainteasers. I barely got any technical questions, and even so, they managed to phrase them in a way which would be accessible for non-finance majors.

My advice? Get a prep course and run through the accounting exercise. There's some excellent free courses on places like Coursera.

Some people will actually be tougher on you because of it. I just had a meeting that turned into a first year director coming to meet me, then saying he wanted to ask me some technical questions since I didn't have a business background before drilling into me aggressively with hard questions. In my case I think it ended up helping me because he wasn't expecting someone with only one semester of MBA courses to be able to handle the level of technicals I got asked.

Think about it from their perspective: they feel safe assuming that a top 30 finance major knows how to discount or how an LBO works, but you can't make the same assumption about a Poly Sci major.

Buy guides and read them cover to cover. I would argue that someone who works very hard and studies interview guides for ~2 months will be more prepared than someone who holds a finance degree.

Sorry to be so vague, anonymity seems to be the theme on WSO after all.

http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/guide/wso-technical-interview-guide

The Vault interview guide is pretty weak IMHO.

I have the Vault guide, it seems a bit skeleton to me as well, thanks for the suggestions so far!

You can look at the technical guide WSO has. Also, look at each firm's website. It becomes pretty clear what traits they pride themselves on and how they articulate it, if you're able to absorb that and create a coherent response to 'why this firm' questions, you'll be fine. Don't sweat technicals too much, you'll rarely get those over the phone for IBD. Trading, especially prop shops, yeah, but banking, nope.

^^agreed, for example, I know GS emphasizes teamwork, so what about MS or Barclays?

^^ It doesn't matter, GS might put that bs on their career page, but every bank values teamwork, you work in deal teams at all of them.

primo1I'm not a finance major and only became very passionate about finance starting last september.

Definitely seem very passionate about this. By chance did your passion coincide with jr/sr recruiting season coupled with discovery of BB compensation practices for entry-level analysts?

Thanks again for the advice guys.

http://www.glassdoor.com Make an account and you can look for reviews, interviews, salaries, etc. by company/postion. It's not always accurate (I find that the reviews are either glowing or terrible) but the interview tips are useful.

I'm sorry, never meant to offer someone misleading advice. I've done BB first and second round interviews for IBD and S&T over the phone and in person, and on-site superdays as well. My experience was that technicals rarely crop up over the phone, but that may be an isolated exception for all I know.

This WSO guide is really helpful:

http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/guide/wso-technical-interview-guide

just fucking buy the wso guides...

I just bought the M&I guide before you posted lol, is that any good? I got it since its more basic and easier to understand plus I'm clueless