Worked for the "best enemy" of the bank I have an interview with

Water Cooler Careers
#1

Hello everyone,

The title says everything. I need some advice on how to approach the question I will be asked “Why don’t you want to go back to your previous bank?”. I have applied to both (I’m in the middle of my master degree) but so far I did not receive any reply from the bank I worked for (I worked in WM and I applied for ER). Should I just say the truth that I am applying to both if I had to chose it would be a very difficult choice ?

Thanks for your help,

Take care

#2

Just say you’ve seen behind the curtain, and it’s not all that.

#3

Dont slag off ur other firm.

Do tell them you’re looking at both, but your preferred choice is them and then rattle on about something great they’re doing.

#4

I wouldn’t say it would be difficult to choose. I’d just go with “I was really impressed by x ,y and z that your firm does, and I’d be excited to have the opportunity to work here.” Never be negative in an interview, ever. Just talk about why you want to join them, not why you might not go back to where you came from. Bonne chance mon amis.

#5

Thank you for your help. I will definitely follow your pieces of advice. The difficult part will be to convince them I am not just waiting for an offer at my previous firm. But I have prepared solid arguments for “why us?”.

Merci beaucoup!

#6

Yeah I agree with you mostly on this, but there are times to be negative. The first is salary. If you have offers that are higher and they are pushing a much lower salary on you, it might be time to face the facts to see if you can meet in the middle, match it, or form some type of bonus structure to make up for it. Also, this is a long term relationship proposition between the employer and employee. The interviewing goes both ways. If you have qualms about anything it is best to bring them up prior to joining.

#7

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

#8

Yes, you also need to make a convincing case that you will choose the competitor over your old company.

So, I imagine that the conversation should be something like:

  1. Old Company is really great, you learn a lot from smart people, bla bla bla. You *must* say this even if your old company was awful and the people were all clowns.

  2. However, based on your unique skill/personality/background, New Company is a better fit.

#9

In the end, they didn’t even mention it. But I was able to make a good point when talking about their firm and I got the offer :slight_smile: Thanks everyone!

#10

Congrats! I’d imagine it happens often enough in the industry its not really a big deal