First round interview for Fixed Income Sales. Need help!

Know thy yield curve, maybe something about the various indices (DOW, SP). Definitely know duraction, convexity, (positive and negative). For example, why do callable bonds have negative convexity? Know why you want to sell as opposed to trade...they might ask you to give them a bid/ask on a pen or something like that. Is this in Asia or the States?

common question is "have you sold anything?" and "how would you handle a client who has just lost tonnes of money cos of you?"... my sales interview at a BB had NO technicals however, I would follow the advice given by Cervantes and know the basics.

Thanks Verdelium!

One question I see coming up frequently is "why sale&trading and not investment banking"

I feel both requires pretty much the same skill sets and personalities. The only reasons i can think of would be the prestige factor and working hours.

Anyone knows some better response to that question?

Many thanks!

how bout the fact that the market is more exciting, you dun have to wait for days to complete deals and pitches. Its a fast paced environment that constantly challenges yadda yadda...

Thanks for that input!

I really hope that I'm prepared for this interview.. :P

So I've finished the first phone interview and I think I did pretty well. Waiting for them to get back to me regarding whether I made it to the second round.

In their email to me, it says "We will update you further on the progress of your application in the next few weeks." How long should I wait before checking with them regarding the progess?

The telephone interview was entirely behavioural (I will post the questions up later for anyone who's interested). So does that mean the next round (final) will likely to be entirely technical?

Apart from those that people have mentioned above, what sort of other questions should I expect for a fixed income sales analyst position?

Thanks!

Glad to hear it went well... well for final round it depends fro bank to bank.. mine was all behavioral and stress test style. Also I think it would be good to know a few recent fixed income deals in the market and what not.. I had to wait for about two weeks before being informed I had made the final round.

cheers

Thanoks for that Nauru, hope they get back to me soon.

Any thoughts on the importance of quant skills for a sales position? My guess is that quant skills are not important, although it would be good if you're real quick with numbers. Sales analysts are seldom required to really get down to number crunching?

Correct me if I'm wrong please.

Thanks

Depends on what your selling. If your selling derivatives, structured products, fx, rates, to sophisticated clients it could get a little math intensive.

From what I picked up last summer on a rates trading desk even those in sales had to dig into the numbers. However advanced calculus and probability are not used minute by minute. Some of the sales guys had engineering backgrounds but they were not freakish quants. Everyone, regardless of educational background, had superior quantitative ability. The key was to understand the numbers so that you could interpret and express them to clients in a meaningful manner.

I would try to speak with individuals on your potential desk to get a better handle on what kind of quant skills they may be looking for. Good luck with the interviews.

Thanks a lot BigSwap!!!

It's been 7 days since my first round, still no news yet. Hope to hear from them within the next 7 lol.