INTERVIEW PREPARATION
Final Placement | Gartner
strong and that often brought a lot of arrogance unconsciously while I was answering the questions. There is a very fine line of difference between being humble and being arrogant. So be humble while answering be it technical or behavioural questions. Your ability to be a smooth conversationalist can take you a long way. A person short on technical can still clear a lot of interviews if the interviewer can get comfortable talking to you.
Summer Intern | Ventura Securities
Technical Skills
Summer Intern | Opulence Business Solutions
Technical skills may differ from role to role but I would like to stress on a few important takeaways from my 2 years of experience:
Aditya Arora PGP05 IIM Amritsar
“Job Interviews are like First Dates, First Impression Counts” Understand the Job Description People often make this mistake; they go to the interview without understanding the JD and the requirements. Understand the requirements, bring out your prior experience of any kind in your resumes or your answers. It is one of those hygiene factors that will bring you in the consideration of interviewers. Build your story This is the universal truth for any interview be it finance or marketing. So the most important answer that you will have to prepare is “Tell me something about yourself”. This is most cases is the make or break question. You can drive your interview around your introduction. But it should not be bland and come out as you are reading your resume, it should come out as your life story and there should be a logical transition from one thing to other like how you got interested in finance or your past experiences that make you the best candidate for the current role. First impressions always matter and it will help the interviewer remember you. Soft Skills
The biggest mistake that I had committed over interviews and realized quite late was that I was technically
INTERVIEW PREPARATION
Sector and Macro Understanding: Pick a sector you like and follow it religiously. It helps a great deal to drive an interview or a conversation. During one of my interviews I had a conversation on the telecom industry for 30 minutes out of 40 minutes of interview. Reading a financial newspaper like Business Standard and Business Line will really help you. You can use PressReader (IIM Amritsar students), The Ken and ET Prime - these will really help you in the long run. Corporate Finance: Make sure you understand the fundamentals very clearly. People are often grilled on something as simple as WACC. A great source to learn the fundamentals : Aswath Damodaran YouTube playlist Accounting: You need not to be a CA but you should understand how the 3 statements are linked together. You can pick up CFA L1 FRA book to get a clear understanding of the subject. Corporate Valuation and Portfolio management: There is no better place than the Aswath Damodaran’s Corporate Valuation class on YouTube. If you have knowledge of the stock markets and invest, do bring that as one of your strengths and you may never know your interview may just revolve
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