Careers

Parting Words of Advice on Interviews

By The Prince ⋅ March 18, 2008 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

The Prince has recently been getting lots of questions from aspiring bankers asking something like this.

"I have studied the vault guides, read IBankingFAQ, read Mergers and Inquisitions, read the WetFeet guides, read your posts, done practice interviews, perfected my resume, taken all the finance courses my school offers and read books about the firms I am interviewing with.  Yet, I still have this sinking feeling that I am not fully prepared for my analyst/summer analyst interviews.  Do you have anymore suggestion or parting words of advice?"

My first word of advice would be to relax.  If you have done those things you are way ahead of most of your competition.  That is not to say that you should blow off your peers but it is to say that you are probably more prepared than you think.

However, here are a few additional maxims that The Prince has applied and seen others apply successfully in interviews.

Overall Advice:
1) Be Humble. Don’t feel like you have to rattle off everything from Vault to get the job. Give your thoughts and then turn the question back towards the interviewer for his or her thoughts.

2) Don’t come off as naive. Show them that you have a realistic perception of how difficult the hours & lifestyle will be. Acknowledge that you can’t understand or prepare for it. Many bankers will describe this as having the right attitude for this kind of work.

3) Let the interviewer do the talking.  Everyone loves to talk about themselves.  Bankers and S&T people love to hear themselves talk.

4) Prompt the interviewer with insightful questions.

5) Use the names of the interviewers when you are talking to them.

Two Additional Strategies:
1) Take every opportunity to emphasize market/financial news aptitude. Sit down with someone from your school who was an investment banking summer last year and ask them for tons of market information. For example, talk about the private equity industry’s problems, the mortgage crisis, municipal bonds trading crazy versus Treasurys etc. However, demonstrating market awareness should take the form of a few sentences about a trade you like or an opinion you have followed by a question to the interviewer about their opinion of what you said.  Get the interviewers thoughts on the subject

2) Get to know the interviewer and establish a connection by asking questions about their life outside of work. Why they came to work there?  What they do after work?  Play on common interests, hobbies, sports, etc. W hy did they come to x bank?  What do they dislike most about their job?  The Prince’s best interviews were all about making a connection with the interviewer and convincing him or her that he or she wanted to work with me. In these interviews we did not cover one technical or job related question. Let the interviewer do most of talking answering your questions and they will love you for it.  Everyone, especially bankers, loves to hear themselves talk.

Go out, buy a copy of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People and study it.  The Prince hates self-help books as much as the next person but this one is worth it.  No book will prepare you more for your job in finance.   At the end of the day most people in finance are salesman and relationships are the most important asset they have.