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This is such a stupid question. Why the fuck do we think the person wants the job? To exchange his labor for a financial benefit. Are we expecting some kind of answer like, "I'm intrinsically motivated to build financial alogrithms"? Jesus fucking Christ.
Couldn't agree more. I think it's a bit ridiculous to ask people going into finance why they want to do so. The answer is pretty straightforward You want to make a good living for yourself and you think finance will set you on a path toward doing so. Virtually everyone who gets an interview is smart enough to do the job, so you want to stress that you're hardworking enough to do the job.
I mean--we're not splitting diamonds with our minds. We're doing bullshit Excel spreadsheet and PPT work that I could have done when I was 12-years-old. And we're not doing it to save the world. We're doing it to make money--both for ourselves and for our clients. Because money makes the world go round, people closest to the purse string tend to accrue the most of it. You want to work in investment banking due to its natural proximity to that purse. It puts you in the middle of conversations that are grander in nature than those discussed in most other professions.
But nobody wakes up when they're 12-years-old thinking, "I want to be an investment banker." Therefore, asking for someone's modus operandi for entering high finance is a bit inane. You know where they don't ask that question? McDonald's. You know why? Because the answer is always some variant of. "I want to work here because I'm poor and I need a job." It would be better to ask a prospective consultant or I-banker what they imagine they will be doing on a day-to-day basis. At least that question shows whether the kid has done his homework. The other question essentially asks kids to concoct believable lies to satiate the retards in HR. It's just not a useful exercise for anyone involved and insults the intelligence of virtually everyone at the table (except the HR representative whose intellect is so low as to preclude that possibility).
I automatically dinged people if I thought they were socially awkward.
I was interviewing for a small company and reached the final stages. I met the top dog and we had coffee at his members club. It was very strange but through our interactions my direct superior and the CEO seemed to have such a political relationship, like the former was actively trying to manage relationship.
It was a red flag for me when the middle manager answered 'I don't want to get into the politics of it' to a basic question I had - thus confirming my suspicions.
You don't want to have that kind of manager over you.
Mate, welcome to IBK at a big shop. You want to make VP, Director or MD, you need votes, and it won't be enough to just get votes from your team, you need other teams' leaders to vote for you.
That means, if you're in an industry team, you need to make sure the MDs in the regional coverage and product teams know you and like you. Lord help you if you're a satellite office; every deal you do, every good idea you have, you need to make sure that people back at the home office know what you've done. A buddy of mine at the VP level makes a trip to the home office once a month just so that no one forgets about him, and he has to stay political the whole time he's there. That's a lot of time he could be spending doing his actual job, but he needs to stay visible, and just doing a good job isn't enough. Office politics man.
You are 100% spot on, and so accurate in fact that I felt like i was sitting back at my IB desk as I read your post.
What I don't get about the politics in IB is, does it really have to be that way? I'm not naive, in fact I'm about as cynical as it gets. But even I was blown away by how much asskissing mattered compared to doing good work. Especially since the clients seemed to actually care about good work. I saw a lot of "good guys" . . . you know, the smart/trustworthy type that you'd want working leading your deal . . . get passed over for slimy political types, which would make sense except everyone knew it. Everyone knew who was the good guy and who was the politician, which makes the politician a pretty bad politician no? Yet somehow he wins that battle 9 times out of 10. Speaks pretty poorly of the value the bank adds the the deal, that it can afford to promote people based on their smoothness instead of their ability to give the best advice.
If they company says "we have an incredible culture here and very low turnover" and then you realize all of the people in the role you are interviewing for have left the firm and not been promoted. Always try to find old employees on LinkedIn see what they are up to
I usually ask the interviewer why they have stayed at the company as long as they have and/or what they've liked about it. You can tell if they give a genuine, great answer or if they're spinning their wheels.
Red flags from prospective employer
As a senior hire, a few things to consider:
Fully understand why the position you are applying for is vacant, what the expectations are for the position and how you match up to those expectations - make sure they are being honest about what they want, and you are about whether you can meet the requirements.
Get a sense for the culture and how it will match to your personality. If you are part of a team, try and meet with other members of the team - talk with them about their experience, likes, and dislikes. It's so important to ensure that you at least will be compatible (don't need to be best friends forever) with the team you'll be on
If you interview with multiple people, ask them what they feel the most important things this role should do are, their expectations for the role, and even for a description of the role - if they are all over the place, or not contiguous with what the recruiter/hr person told you - be up front about that and/or just run the hell away
Make sure that the resources you need are in place and clear - and both you and your employer are clear on what you need. If you need sole access to something - and they say sure, you'll have access and it's only a shared access - that's not a great starting point. Get. Things. In. Writing.
When hiring a senior person:
Being evasive about their experience. This can be hard since you need to be careful about what you say, but you should be able to articulate clearly where you've been, what you've done and how that matches what the position is. If you need to qualify everything you say, couch yourself in answers, or stretch to answer something - that's generally not a good sign. Ideally, folks should be secure in their experience
Being rude or impolite to anyone involved in the process. I watch how people interact with others around them, including administrative staff who help set things up, HR, etc. I also always like to watch them interact with people who will be more junior than them in the group or company - to get a sense (and of course they normally are on their best behavior) for how they interact up and down the chain. There are plenty of smart, successful people who aren't dickheads or full of themselves - i have no time for those that are.
How they handle stress. At some point, you should always 'stretch' them in the interview - not impolitely or rudely, just ask questions that might be out of their wheelhouse or something like that. If they react really poorly, or break down, it's generally not a good sign for the long term. Not an automatic DQ, but depending on the role could be a red flag.
Those are the big ones. In most cases, I've found that if you are getting the interview you've already passed most of the 'tests' and in reality it's about personality, culture fit and nit picking in most cases.
Shits spot on here. When you're cracking in, some of this stuff will come off strong. When you're experienced and looking, all this will avoid a bad company or culture.