GUEST COMMENT: What I've learned about succeeding in assessment centres

I've been through quite a few assessment centres in my time. I've also received quite a few offers of employment on the back of them. Having struggled through the presentations, group exercises and repeated interviews, this is what I've learned.

1) Stay cool

The right frame of mind is imperative. Getting through to an assessment centre is an achievement. This can make you nervous and prone to over-analysing things.

When you're sitting opposite a senior banker who's throwing questions at you, it's easy to lose yourself. I've seen candidates concentrate so much on what they're saying that they forget not to ramble or to recognise when the interviewer is trying to inject something.

Don't let the pressure get to you. Interviewers appreciate answers which stick to the point, and are delivered in a calm and engaging way. They don't want a robotic and lengthy speech.

Equally, don't be too arrogant. I know of candidates who've been rejected for being too full of themselves. Some of them are very humble people in every day life - they tried to compensate in their interview and went too far.

2) Treat the other candidates with slight caution

If you've made it through to an assessment centre, all that stands between you and an offer is 35 intelligent and determined candidates who are ready to do almost anything to seal the deal.

Even though I've been to a double digit number of assessment centres, I'm always surprised by the mind games other candidates attempt to play. There's pretending to be far superior than they are, or passing you false information which they hope you'll mention in the interview, or acting as if they're totally naïve and inexperienced so that they can surprise you when you least expect it in the group exercises.

Don't be influenced too much by what people have to say; remember the situation you are all in and take it with a pinch of salt. I've come across candidates who have tried to put me off from interviewing with certain desks, just because they'd interviewed there already and didn't want me to reduce their chances.

3) Over-prepare

In order to stand out you much know as much as possible.

I'm not talking about competencies: all these soft skills have been proven to HR in your first round interviews.

Now that the bankers are taking over the interviews, they're going to get much more gritty and technical.

In markets interviews, having knowledge on every asset class in a must, I normally break this down into equities, credit, fx, commodities and emerging markets.

The level of knowledge I'm talking about is in equities for example being able to talk about at least one company in particular and talk about its stock beta, historical sticky price barriers, current activity etc.

For IBD this would break down into DCM, ECM, M&A and Leveraged Finance. Knowing your

valuation methods is an absolute must. Assume that you will be asked to walk through a valuation with the interviewer.

The author is an anonymous student who's been through multiple assessment centres in investment banks.