I just received an email stating I was pre-selected for a phone interview with my local Citiprivate banking division for the 2013 Analyst Program for recent graduates.
Based on my research on the forums, first-round interviews are usually conducted over the phone by an HR person; however, in my case, the HR person informed me that my interview will be held by the VP and Director of the PB division in my area…
Does it mean anything that I did not interview with HR? Have any of you gone through this? What kind of questions can I expect? Can I expect to take any sort of online (or onsite) exams?
These are usually basic screening interviews. You look good on paper (i.e good school, good grades, etc), now they mainly want to know that you aren’t some freak and that you have reasonable social skills (i.e. you’re confident, articulate, don’t have any weird speech impediments, etc). They’ll almost certainly ask you questions like “why do you want to work there”, “why do you want to that particular job” or “what job do you want to be doing”, “what do you think this job is about”. And they might ask you stupid HR type questions like “what’s your greatest strength/weakness”, just have something prepared to say that makes you sound intelligent without being arrogant. I’d imagine they’d keep it fairly high level at this stage, like I said, more of a personality test rather than a technical question. I’d imagine they would get “technical” as far as asking you what you’ve done before that would demonstrate your interest in this field (i.e. you read the wall street journal every day, and you’re really keen on such and such stocks, blah, blah, blah), just something to show that you’re not just applying to the job because you’ve heard bankers get paid a lot of money. I’m sure Numi will have more to add on this subject.
I forget where I got this list but if you prepare answer for each then I reckon you’ll have alot of potential questions covered.
Why do you want to work here? Why should we hire you? What do you enjoy most about your current job? What do you enjoy least about your current job? What can you do that other candidates cannot? What type of people do you like to be around? What types of people annoy you most? What three things will you least look forward to with this job? What do you expect from your employer? What would your previous supervisor say your weaknesses are? What would you say are your weaknesses? What are your major strengths? What are your employment goals for the next 6 months, 1-3, 5-10 years? What are your career goals for the next 3 years? What motivates you to do a better job? What kind of environment do you find to be demotivating? What do you need from an organization to feel motivated? What type of leader do you consider yourself to be? Why did you leave your last job? What three things will you not do on your next job? What is the most creative thing you have done in a past job? How did it occur? What does customer service mean to you in this role? What have you done to organize others? How can a supervisor or assistant help you reach your goals? How will working for us help you achieve your goals? How do you handle instructions that you do not agree with? How do you handle a variety of projects at the same time? How are you at offering and taking constructive criticism? How long will it take you to become a contributor? How do you monitor the progress of assignments and projects? How do you know you are doing a good job? Do you prefer to work alone or with a group? In what ways would you change your last supervisor? In what ways would you change your last job? In a past job, what created stress for you? Why? In your previous jobs, what kept you from coming to work for a day or longer? Give me an example of a difficult decision you had to make at your last job. How did you solve it? Give me an example of a recent situation when you disagreed with someone on the job. What were your options for settling it? Why did you choose the option you did? Give me an example of a time on the job when you found it necessary to share confidential information that you were told not to discuss. How did you make your decision? Describe a busy day at your last job. How do you organize a day like that? Tell me about a time when a friend, relative, or coworker asked you to do something which you felt uncomfortable doing from an ethical standpoint. How did you handle the situation? How is your relationship with that individual now?
I agree with this. Do yourself a favour and spend a couple of days coming up with good answers to all these questions. Then spend a couple more days locking yourself up in a room and practice actually speaking out your answers in front of a mirror over and over. Get to the point where your answers sound fluid and unrehearsed, pepper in a bit of light humour (don’t overdo it though, just something to show a bit of personality). Come interview day you’ll be able to grab bits and pieces from your rehearsal to answer 90% of questions they throw at you. And the confidence you’ll have from answering the 90% should carry you over to answer the 10% you haven’t prepared for.
I know it sounds stupid. It worked for me when I went for graduate programs.
Congratulations on your interview. In addition to above, I strongly recommend that you do a mock phone interview with a friend. For this sort of interview, how you sound on the phone is much more important than what you actually say. Practice speaking out loud is good - but it is better if there is someone who can listen to you and give you impressions. Also, if there is no one listening, you will not be nervous, so your mannerisms and smoothness might change. Good luck.
In addition to the awesome list by The_Dentist, I would recommend this list for more interview questions.
Glassdoor definitely helps if you need specific hints for some particular bank. Check it for sure, as CITI might have their favorite question. And bear in mind CITI is huge, so different branches can have slightly different interview tactics.
Also check Vault’s guide to wealth management. However, it gives more highlights on the industry as a whole, and the interview questions part is very thin, but better than nothing still.
