Hey guys, I have an interview for a FI analyst position soon, and would like to know what type of technicals I could expect. Never interviewed for an asset management company before, so any help would be appreciated. Thanks
First off, good job. Like you I have no asset mgmt experience so my first interviews at asset managers weren’t very good, but I’ve had a couple of Portfolio Analyst interviews at FI shops. Questions Various brain teasers, math questions (see the other thread - surprising square root q). How do you invest in your personal account? Where is the S&P 500 right now? Dow? NASDAQ? What is the current 10 year Treasury rate? 30? 5? etc. Basically you should know the whole yield curve. I was asked about yield, duration, convexity, partial duration, etc. Why do MBS have natural call options? What is a ballpark figure for a AAA corporate spread relative to a Treasury? What about high yield? Overall, I think I didn’t get those jobs b/c of a lack of experience. There really wasn’t much I could do about that when my competition were previous credit analysts or worked on bond portfolios for years. I just tried my best and one of the interviewers told me I did a good job for not doing FI for a living.
how do you all land such interviews where you haven’t had experience doing it prior?
niraj_a Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > how do you all land such interviews where you > haven’t had experience doing it prior? I don’t know. I do have finance experience but I’m not at an asset manager. I work in retirement planning (DB/DC). I think I have done enough projects at my job that my resume appears that I have some good Excel skills and some technical knowledge to recruiters and hiring managers. Also on most of my interviews, the companies mentioned liked my academic background. One thing that a PM once told me on an interview at a large asset manager was, “A lot of our best people never had any experience before joining our company.” So it will be difficult to get a job, but keep this tidbit in mind. And I just actually did a phone interview yesterday for a MO-type position at a HF. It isn’t investment research, but I would have various FO-type duties such as looking at portfolio analytics and deciding which trades will actually get sent to the trading desk based on market liquidity, costs, and optimal portfolio allocations. Also, another thing to note is I once met a FI PM while I was studying at the library. I saw his L1 books and talked to him and now I get advice from him from time to time. He said young people shouldn’t be so focused on getting that great job but rather they should be looking to get into good companies, even if its back office. Two people at his firm started out in back office but now they’re fellow PM’s. This isn’t possible at a lot of companies but it is at some. I also met a SVP Trader at an interview a couple weeks ago and she started out in BO as well.
topher Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > First off, good job. Like you I have no asset mgmt > experience so my first interviews at asset > managers weren’t very good, but I’ve had a couple > of Portfolio Analyst interviews at FI shops. > > Questions > Various brain teasers, math questions (see the > other thread - surprising square root q). > > How do you invest in your personal account? > > Where is the S&P 500 right now? Dow? NASDAQ? > > What is the current 10 year Treasury rate? 30? 5? > etc. Basically you should know the whole yield > curve. > > I was asked about yield, duration, convexity, > partial duration, etc. > > Why do MBS have natural call options? > > What is a ballpark figure for a AAA corporate > spread relative to a Treasury? What about high > yield? > > > Overall, I think I didn’t get those jobs b/c of a > lack of experience. There really wasn’t much I > could do about that when my competition were > previous credit analysts or worked on bond > portfolios for years. I just tried my best and one > of the interviewers told me I did a good job for > not doing FI for a living. I feel ya bro. I had an interview for a junior FI role a few months ago. I found out I was the top candidate, but lost the position due to an internal hire. Oddly enough I got that guy’s old job with the firm. I found out that basically he didn’t measure up to me on experience or how he conducted himself in the interview. He just had great connections with the PMs and HR didn’t have to worry about hiring somebody new so he got it… I was already pretty ticked about the whole situation and got even more pissed when I found out that my new job was his old job. But I know that I can at least get into the that role this way now. Hopefully I’ll pass L2 this year and then apply for a equity/FI role with the firm in a year.
When we interview, we ask questions for three reasons: to test their knowledge of the fixed income markets, to test their ability to answer questions they do and don’t know and to get a sense of their interest in the business. When we interview it is entry level so the range of knowledge is large. Not knowing fixed income inside and out is not a disqualifier. Being a poor interviewer is a disqualifier. Some of the questions we use are: Explain the difference between a stock and a bond? Explain why the yield curve is upward sloping? What does the Federal Reserve do? If a bond is quoted as 99-12 what does that mean? If I told you the yield curve will definitely steepen, how would you suggest I position my bond portfolio? If the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell, what would you expect to happen in the bond markets? Would you expect the yield of a callable bond to be higher or lower than a non-callable bond? Who buys bonds and why? We usually ask some more technical questions that we don’t really expect for them to get right. This is to see how they respond more than anything. What is contango? If the one year rate is 2% and the two year rate is 3%, what is the one year rate one year forward? Explain negative convexity? As an MBS buyer why might I prefer a seasoned pool?