The opportunity to differentiate yourself

While interviewing may be the most challenging (and scary) phase of the recruitment process, this is the one where preparation & practice make the biggest difference.

If you're willing to go the extra-mile in your preparation, then interviews will give you the opportunity to differentiate yourself, whatever your background. 

But first, what are recruiters looking for?

It is first important to understand why interviewers always ask the same types of questions.  What are they trying to asses? 

Recruiters are always assessing one of four things:

• What's your raw intellect (how do you think? can you solve problems creatively? how quickly can you learn? etc)
• What's your current knowledge (of markets? of technical concepts? etc)
• What are your personality traits (do you get things done? can you work independently? are you result-driven? etc)
• What's your social intelligence (how do you communicate? can you work in a team? etc)

So why understanding this is important?

Because if you want to impress them, you'll have to score highly on everything they're assessing, and not just whether you got it right or not. 

For example, when they ask you to solve a brainteaser, they don't care as much in your answer. What they are really assessing is:  1) your thought process, 2) how do you deal with a challenging situation, 3) how quickly can you adapt to new information, 4)  how creative you are, 5) how can you work in a team and 6) how clearly do you communicate.

This is why it is critical that you understand what recruiters are really assessing with each question and why they are asking it. 

Now let's see the main types of questions you can expect. 

What to expect?

Whether you apply to sales & trading, investment management or hedge-funds, you'll most likely to encounter four types of questions during your interview:

Which one is most important?

Most applicants will give the wrong answer. The right answer is: all of them! Really!

It's important to understand that for most roles: 

Being strong (but not the best) in all categories is better than being the best in one and clearly lacking in another.

Before thinking of differentiating yourself in one, you have to make sure you're strong in each and every one of them.

I believe that's the main reason why so many bright students fail to land their dream offer: they often struggle in one category. 

The good news is that whatever is your background and your strengths & weaknesses, with the right preparation it's not that difficult to reach a good enough level in all categories. 

3 steps to impress your interviewers

Ok, you're now ready to put in the hard work and to impress your interviewers. But where do you start? 

There are three important steps to ace your interview, and each is equally important:

• Step 1: Prepare for each question type (we've got specific tips for each!)
• Step 2: Practice, focusing on content, delivery, and non-verbal communication
• Step 3: Ace it on the day, using our tips to handle the most tricky questions and make a strong impression

Step 1: Prepare for each question type

Preparing for interviews really time-consuming and let's face it, the odds are that you don't have that much time before your interview.

So preparing efficiently is absolutely key as the time you'll save at this step will allow you to focus on steps 2 & 3, which will in turn allow you to really get over your competition. 

So how should you prepare for each question type?

Step 2: Practice, focusing on content, delivery, and non-verbal communication

Many applicants underestimate the importance of this step. Achieving the right balance between preparation and practice is really key if you want to ace it on the day. We'd argue that the closer you are to your interview date, the more important it is to spend time practicing, recording yourself, and improving how you're perceived.

You won't be able to increase your investment or technical knowledge by 50% a few days before the interview but you can improve by at least 50% how you're perceived nd how confident you are.

When practicing, you should focus on:

• Structure (was your answer structured? did you use a 3 key-points structure?)
• Content (have you answered the question? did you demonstrate mastery of the concepts)
• Delivery (how clear was your answer?  did you speak slowly enough? was it succinct and to-the-point?  how confident did you appear?)
• Non-verbals (did you use hands gestures? did you smile? how confident did you appear?)

What we recommend you to do is to record yourself and use a checklist (or use ours) to asses the quality of your answer.

If you practice recording yourself for 2-3hours and each time focus on improving yourself, we guarantee you that the chances you'll land the offer will increase signficantly! 

Step 3: Ace it on the day!

On the day, the biggest threats are:

• You're in the wrong state of mind
• You come across a question you don't know the answer to or an unexpected scenario
• Your interviewer is aggressive and confrontational
• You're overwhelmed by your emotions

How can you reduce the impact of those threats? By preparing for those before the big day. Psychological preparation can have a huge impact on how you'll perform on the day. We recommend using visualization techniques (the best athletes in the world are using them!) and priming techniques to really be at your best on the interview. 

Being already prepared for all eventualities and for the unexpected will make a huge difference to how you're percieved and how well you'll do. 

Reach out to us if you're interested in learning more about how you can be on your "A game" on the day. 

Got An Interview Coming-Up?

If you want to really impress your interviewer and boost your chances of landing an offer, then you should sign-up to private coaching with us. 

We've helped dozens of students land offers at top firms like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan and their feedback consistently highlighted our interview coaching as the most significant factor that helped them land their offers. 

You'll learn:

• What recruiters are really looking for and how they'll assess you
• What questions will come-up and why
• What you need to know about markets & investing
• What technical concepts you need to know
• How to present and discuss your investment views
• Practice with a full mock interview 
• How to differentiate yourself in group exercises at assessment centers

And there are ZERO risks as we will reimburse you the full amount if you're not happy with us.