FIRST HAND: Making it to the 2nd round at Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs did not run a traditional assessment centre for potential interns. Instead candidates lucky enough to make it through to the second round were grilled in the interview room several times in quick succession.
My three interviews were administered by three different professionals from different areas of the investment banking division (IBD), which was my chosen area. There were no HR representatives involved in this stage of the process, they simply set up the interviews and let the 'professionals' do their work. The interviews are also one to one (as are the majority of Goldman interviews); they don't seem to favour the panel interview.
Two of my interviewers were on the Goldman graduate programme and one was an Associate within IBD. Each interview lasted between thirty and forty minutes and contained a mixture of technical, numerical and commercial awareness questions. Their questions varied from, "Where do you think oil prices will go?" to, "What makes you think you can handle the pressure here?"
We were moved from one interview to the other with alarming speed and so interaction with other candidates was impossible. It was a stressful day, something cleverly orchestrated by the HR department no doubt; yet another test in the gruelling recruitment process.
Overall it was a good experience for me (as a third year undergraduate) to see what the process and entailed and what was expected of potential hires but it's certainly not for the faint at heart!
