Application questions: What steps did you take in determining which investment banking firms you applied to?
What steps did you take in determining which investment banking firms you applied to?
Why are they asking this? Here, the bank wants to find out the extent of your research skills, especially how thorough your research is and how logical your approach is. The bank is looking for thorough, accurate and logical research; organisational skills; the ability to write concisely, etc. It then wants you to express what is important to you in the bank you join - and relate that back to the firms you are applying for.
They will want to see a clear strategy of how you, as a candidate, went about gathering information about the different investment banks; how you disseminated that information; and how you then went about making your choice of which firms to apply to.
How should you answer? You should cover what research you did, why and what conclusions you came to. You should source your info from, for example: a) the individual bank's careers website; b) financial websites & press; c) finance careers fairs; d) workshops related to the sector; e) speaking to peers, alumni of where you are studying, friends and relations in the business.
And what mistakes should you avoid? 1) Responding in generic terms that cannot be quantified - eg. saying "I wanted to apply only to the top investment banks". 2) Getting facts wrong, for example saying you wanted to apply to those banks with global graduate programmes when they only offer regional options.
