How to interviewers make decisions on superday?

Hello,

I've heard that most interviewers, from analyst to MD, usually make a decision very quickly, from the moment you walk in the door to when you finish telling your story (assuming you don't mess up technicals or say anything outrageous later on).

Can anyone give more insight into this? Is it basically about how "cool" they think I am? I had a superday with a BB where the MD kept mentioning how smart I am and that I should be very proud of my resume ,etc. but I still haven't heard back after 24 hours so I'm assuming I didn't get an offer.

How do decisions get made? Can anyone provide real snippets of some conversations that go on when interviewers meet to discuss candidates afterwards? In my case the interviewers didn't seem to have scoring sheets either.

Thank you

 

I've heard from some of my buddies in the industry that a lot of it is up to chance. You could've happened to catch an interviewer on a particularly shitty day, or you happen to share a very unique interest, etc.

It really comes down to "will I want to work with this person?", and for the analysts/associates, "will I want to work with this person 80-100 hrs a week"? There's no set formula for how to make the answers to these questions "yes".

 
Best Response

For each superday they're looking to accept around 20% of the candidates they interview. So if they're interviewing 10 candidates, they might take two. They'll meet afterward on a conference call with HR and list who their favorite candidates were and try to come to some sort of consensus based on who is the best fit for the job in terms of skills/credentials and of course other intangibles (likability, personality, etc.). Anyone who missed technicals is usually dinged, as that's the most objective way to weed people out.

HR will normally first inquire as to how the minority and female candidates did, and encourage the team to extend offers to those individuals so long as they interviewed relatively well. Offers will normally be given out later that same day -- even hours afterward -- or early the next day at the latest. The candidates who ranked right behind those who got offers will be waitlisted in case anyone ahead of them does not accept the offer. Those who were rejected outright will usually hear back within a few days.

 

Agreed with theSimpleBaller. After checking the box with technical questions, it comes down to whether or not people would be fine working with you. It's not as simple as whether the interview thinks you're "cool", but boils down to both whether he/she thinks you would be a reliable and fun person to work with and whether he/she thinks that others at the firm would also like to work with you. Given bankers spend most if not all of their waking hours with generally the same people, at work, it's very important that they would enjoy working with you.

And don't get anxious about not hearing anything within 24 hours. It's common for superdays that are on Friday (which I'm assuming is the case for you) to yield offers on the following Monday. Don't give up hope.

 

Thanks everyone for the valuable insights.

So I understand that being someone that they'd want to work is very important.

But I can't see how likeability could be determined from interviews where most people will have read the same guides and give very similar answers. And it's very unlikely that anyone at a superday would come across as an asshole/unfriendly.

When determining whether you like them, would it come down to looks, tone, delivery, and coincidental shared interests more than what I actually say in my answers?

For those who have been on the other side of the table and participated in these discussions, do you remember any real examples of what made a candidate stand out/get picked over another? When you interviewed candidates, what influenced your decisions (assuming they checked the box for technicals, and didn't do anything stupid throughout the interview)?

 

A friend who has interview experience at MS told me that each interviewer ranks the candidates from 1 to n right after the superday is finished. The rankings are then aggregated and discussions / debates carry on regarding the borderline offers.

 

i had a superday recently and i saw the sheet on which the interviewers leave the feedback

its basically a Likert scale with ten questions or so. these are the ones i remember:

communication skills knowledge of the subject area (i guess this is how well you know the details of the position are applying for) enthusiasm technicals

there are definitely more which i forget but they probably have to do with team work, personality, etc.

from the interviewers i have talked to/alumni friends, the GPA and resume takes a back seat during the interview and rarely gets looked at again

i believe the HR/recruiter actually sits in when the final discussion gets made so make sure you are nice to them.

 

what I meant was, do they usually go through candidates one by one and grade/discuss systematically, or do they basically have a brainstorming-like meeting and just randomly throw ideas around and discuss pro/cons of the candidate pool as a whole?

 

As I said before, each interviewer ranks the candidates on a sheet and the final selection is then drawn from a weighted average of these rankings with the borderline ones being debated.

There are usually around 20 candidates in these final rounds so trying to discuss each person on a case by case basis would be way too inefficient.

 
2226416:
As I said before, each interviewer ranks the candidates on a sheet and the final selection is then drawn from a weighted average of these rankings with the borderline ones being debated.

At our bank it's not this formulaic. There are certain attributes that candidates are rated on, but in the end all of the interviewers get together and discuss the interviews. There is almost always a clear consensus as to who did well and who didn't. For those candidates on the border, things like school / GPA / other experience play a bigger role, although it still seems like the most important thing is often fit.

 

Everyone sits together and they talk about the candidates who interviewed.

More or less that. It's pretty much a shitshow and in no way objective, fair, or even logical who gets hired and who doesn't.

You know what's even worse? Once you get hired what bucket you fall into(and consequently your bonus) are determined the same way.

 

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