Hidden Melody Sharing new york Investment Bank Life Column: Investment Bank Recruitment, How to Prepare for Campus Interview (1)

"With hidden Melody working in the top investment bank on Wall Street, her column will share the investment bank life in new york for you. Text/Melody Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is coming, Christmas trees and lanterns are everywhere in new york, and the festive atmosphere is strong. Soon the school will also have a holiday. But for the first-year MBA students and junior undergraduate students who are interested in investment banking, these estimates do not make much sense, because the holiday is the peak season for interviews, and this holiday will be the last and best interview preparation period. So how to use the holiday time to prepare for the interview? To get ready, we must first understand the content and targeted skills of investment bank interviews. There are two kinds of interview questions in investment banks: technical and fit. Tech asked about the basics of investment banking to find out whether the interviewee is really interested in finance, whether he has made efforts to pick up what he can't learn in class, whether he really understands rather than pretends to understand, and whether his thinking is clear. The fitness question asks the interviewee about his past experience and why he worked as a bank, so as to judge whether your personality is suitable for the pace of investment banking, whether you have team spirit, whether you are really interested in investment banking and whether you are qualified for investment banking. What are the technical problems, how to prepare, and to what extent? The science and technology question asked in the interview of investment bank is actually a very basic and common question, and there is nothing tricky, and there is no brain teaser in consultation or marketing interview. Every school's financial club should have a list, or Google's "investment bank interview questions", and the vault guide also has a copy of the financial interview. Add up all the questions in these resources, make a list by yourself, and then add questions that you didn't expect and weren't prepared through mock interviews (you can ask the interviewer if he was asked questions that he wasn't prepared after each simulation). The final list basically includes the scientific and technological questions that investment banks will ask during the interview. With this list, we should conquer one by one during the holidays and really understand every question and answer, instead of simply reciting and repeating. After knowing the answer to each question, ask yourself why, understand the reason and reason behind each answer, and give it when you answer. Each question should also be able to draw inferences from others and be related to each other, starting with the simplest concept and pushing to the new questions that the answer may contain. For example, what is WACC? How to calculate (mainline problem)? How to calculate the cost of equity (line 1)? What does the market premium determine? What does beta mean? How to switch between leveraged beta and non-leveraged beta? Which of the two companies will have a higher beta? What should enterprises consider in China? What about Iraq? How to calculate the cost of debt (line 2)? What is the shape of WACC line (Line 3)? Why? Where does WACC line reach its lowest point? Why? The same two companies, listed companies or private companies, which WACC is higher (the fourth branch)? Why? . . . . . . And so on. Every question should be investigated for its possible related knowledge, and a very clear network diagram should be formed in your mind. After really understanding all the questions, there is another important but often overlooked step: polish your answers to achieve the most concise and easy to understand. Why? First of all, because of the tech problem in investment bank interview, the test is not only your understanding of the basic knowledge, but also whether your thinking is agile and clear, whether your reaction is fast enough, and whether your expression is concise enough. After all, after entering the investment bank, it is common practice to explain the basic knowledge of investment banking to customers who don't understand investment banking. As an international student, English is a weakness. Sometimes you clearly understand the answer, but the way of expression may make the interviewer misunderstand that your thinking is not clear, or your expression is not in place and you are too verbose (the latter is more common among international students), which is definitely not what we want to see. Polish your answer in advance, instead of just understanding this technical concept in your mind, so as to ensure that your understanding will not be lost in English expression to a greater extent. Secondly, every answer you give, whether it's tech or fit, is a process of expressing your communication skills. In this process, the more concise your answer is, the better impression the interviewer will have on you. Compared with the natives, we have an inevitable language disadvantage, but at least we can't lose points in tech, which should reflect the advantages of China students. Finally, because technical questions are too simple, they are usually asked as threshold questions. Everyone knows the answer, so it's hard to stand out here. But if your answer is the most concise, you have another way to distinguish yourself. For students in China, the problem of science and technology is relatively simple, so it is even more difficult to make mistakes. In order to compete with the natives, we must ensure that we are better prepared for scientific and technological problems than any natives, at least in this respect, we can't lose. How important are the issues related to markets and transactions? To what extent do you need to prepare? It depends on the style of each firm, but in my personal experience, few interviewers actually ask questions related to the market. After all, we are IBD, so we don't need to pay close attention to the market. You can properly prepare your own views on recent hot spots (but don't spend too much time, as long as you have an opinion, you can make it up) As for transactions, in fact, people in different departments don't know much about transactions in other departments, unless the transactions are really big and influential, so it is enough to have a basic understanding of some big transactions recently made by the firm. The bottom line, the market, and the transaction are not the focus of the interview. If you have time, you can prepare it by the way, which will add icing on the cake, but if time doesn't allow, you should focus on basic tech. Also, pay more attention to the information you want when preparing. Reading The Wall Street Journal extensively is a waste of time. Any questions? Read the original link