Hey! Welcome back to another issue of Career Guides Weekly.

Today we’re going to try something a little different.

The truth is, in order to break into the industry, you’ll have to sit down and ace an interview or two (or 10) and so I thought I’d share some informal advice that helped me feel calm and confident going into interviews with tons of investment banks.

You can let me know whether this type of content is helpful for you or not by using the feedback poll in the green box below - scroll further down.

With that, let’s get straight into it!

6 Pages You Need To Prepare Before Every Interview

Interviews, like many things, can be daunting. However, over time, I’ve learned that the best way to tackle any task irrespective of its size, perceived required effort, or duration, is to break it down into smaller, more manageable chunks. And that’s exactly what we’ll be covering today.

Below are six 1-pagers that I used to create (sometimes in bullet point format, other times as spider diagrams) before going into any interview. I found doing this exercise extremely helpful in giving me the clarity and confidence that I needed every time I walked into an investment bank - mostly because I memorised the hell out of each page.

It might seem like a lot of work at first, but with time the only pages that need updating tend to be page 4 and 5 since all of the others will mostly remain static.

1st Page - Commercial Awareness

Commercial awareness is what sets many candidates apart. Here’s what you need to focus on:

What’s going on in the world right now? Think politics, geopolitics, financial markets, etc. and how does what’s happening in the world right now impact your daily life, the firm, the division, and clients?

Just reading articles and watching the news isn’t enough. The best candidates have an opinion and their own view on the information they consume. What’s your opinion on [insert major current topic]? Write it down and memorise it. Practise speaking it naturally into a mirror so when you say it in an interview it doesn’t sound scripted.

Make sure you have one or two articles/relevant news topics/deals/investments that you can speak to in-depth. For example, if you’re applying to the investment banking division than it might be worth knowing specific details on a few recent and interesting deals. If you’re applying to sales and trading you might want to have a stock pitch ready. Or if you’re applying to asset management you might want to know about ESG investing, top performing funds in the asset class of interest, etc. And remember, have an opinion.

Ask yourself “what commercial awareness questions could the interviewer ask me?“ and then list them out and write answers for each one.

2nd Page - Technical Questions

Page 2 of 6 should list all of the technical interview questions you might be expected to answer. And then you want to answer each question in your own words. I prefer to use bullet points here rather than writing a word for word script.

When interviewing for finance roles technical interview questions are bound to come up and so it’s vital that you make sure this page is taken care of to a high standard. Most of the questions and responses can be found using a simple Google search. Here’s 50 common technical questions with example responses.

3rd Page - Competency Questions

Similar to page 2, this page will focus on interview question preparation. Specifically, competency based interview questions.

Competency questions aim to understand how your competency skills (communication, teamwork, listening, leadership, problem solving, etc.) and previous experiences (work, life, uni, school) tie into your motivation for working in the given role and if they make you a strong fit for the firm.

I would advise you to list out the 10-20 most common competency questions and write down model answers leveraging your own experiences (irrelevant experiences are fine - just be sure to focus on the relevant skill/s).

Always use the STAR technique when answering these types of questions.

4th Page - The Firm

This page should have all of the relevant information about the company you’re interviewing with. For example:

• Current CEO, CFO, CIO, etc.

• Annual revenues, profits, etc. (see financial statements)

• Previous quarters revenue, profits, etc. (see financial statements)

• Total number of employees, offices, operational regions, etc.

• Anything interesting about the company that stands out to you and is unique about the company compared to its competitors

• Any interesting causes or initiatives that tie the company to you i.e. a charitable cause, investment, acquisition or deal that aligns with your ethics/aspirations, etc.

Ask yourself “what can I learn about this company to become more knowledgable about them than any other candidate?“. Write down and memorise everything.

Although questions on this page are least likely to come up in an interview, at the bare minimum you should know who the CEO of the company is - if you don’t know and you get asked the question it can be quite embarrassing.

5th Page - The Division

This section is extremely important. Quite possibly the most important page you’ll be making notes on. Why? Because the interviewer/s will want to know why you’re so interested in working in their business/division compared to all of the other areas of the firm. They don’t want to hire someone who blindly applied. Rather, they want someone who is genuinely interested in their line of work.

Candidates who poorly answer the question “why do you want to work in this division?” very rarely secure an offer. Check out these videos for interview help.

Here’s what you need to do:

• List everything about the division you can find out from the website (CEO (yes, the overall company will have a CEO and there’ll also be different CEOs for each division), CIO, CFO, office locations, recent deals/investments/initiatives, etc.)

• Understand the role of the division - What do they actually do? How do they make money aka ‘generate revenue’? What’s their purpose? How do they fit into the rest of the organisation if it’s a global investment bank with lots of different divisions? Which other divisions do they work closely with? What does an analysts or interns role entail within this division?

• Google search the firm and division and see what comes up under ‘news’. Anything positive is worth noting.

• Write down your answers in bullet point format. You can find in-depth information in our division specific guides.

• Write down any questions you don’t have the answers for. You can ask these questions to your interviewers. They love curious candidates who have prepared, done research, yet still want to know more.

6th Page - You

Last but not least, you need to create a page that highlights everything about you. At the end of the day, an interview is basically a sales pitch. It’s 30 or so minutes of you pitching yourself to a stranger as to why they should hire you. And so, you need to know what to say to make them think you’re the right person for the role. Here’s what you need to think about and write down on this page:

• Your strengths - what are you better than others at?

• Your story - how did you end up where you are today? What challenges did you face? What interesting things happened along the way? What makes you fun/interesting? What hobbies do you have and how do you enjoy spending your spare time?

• Which competency skills does the job description emphasise? Make sure you have strong examples of experiences (in school, work, university) that display you have these key skills.

• What makes you curious about the role you’re interviewing for? This is where you should come up with 2-4 questions that you could potentially ask the interviewer. I always liked to ask:

  • 1 question that was interviewer specific i.e. what do you like about the role/company/division? How did you end up in your current role? People love talking about themselves so this was an easy way to get them speaking, eating up interview time, and building some rapport. I might have even asked a follow up question if I found something in their response to be interesting. This would have showed them that I was listening and usually they’d be happy to answer.

  • 1 question that was division specific i.e. how is the XYZ division managing client expectations in the current interest rate/inflationary environment? How does the XYZ division view the growth in AI and machine learning?

Using this approach to prepare for interviews should hopefully give you the structure you need to outperform.

Best of all, during the interview you’ll come across as well researched, aware, thoughtful and prepared - all things that interviewers love to see.

Always remember, it’s a numbers game. The more you do, the better you get. We learn by repetition.

Thanks for reading and I hope you found this information useful.

I’d love it if you could let me know what you thought of this email using the poll in the green box below. Thanks!

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