10. INTERVIEW PREPARATION

INTERVIEW PREPARATION

Aditya Arora

PGP05 IIM Amritsar

Final Placement | Gartner Summer Intern | Ventura Securities Summer Intern | Opulence Business Solutions

“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 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.

Technical Skills

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: 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

around the stock market.

These are the skills that I feel are important and I am still persisting to master them.

At the end of the day, you just keep improving and you will get where you want to reach.

Sambhav Jain

PGP05 IIM Amritsar

Final Placement | Deloitte USI Summer Intern | Landmark Group

The entire preparation can be broadly divided into two components: 1. General Preparation: This will include preparation that would apply to most companies that a candidate would be applying for. 2. Organization/Role Specific: This consists of preparation that will be specific to the role/ domain/function and the organization.

Some pointers for general preparation

Technical Skills:

• Be thorough with the basics of all the subjects that you would be studying in your majors. For instance, a Finance major should be comfortable with the basics of Accounting, Corporate Finance,

Portfolio Management, Valuation, and Derivatives.

• It helps to have knowledge about the tools, databases, etc. that are used in the industry that you aspire to work in. For example, someone who wants to make a career in financial services is expected to have a good handle on Microsoft Excel.

Having knowledge about financial databases like

Bloomberg Terminal can be very helpful. You can show your proficiency in these by doing relevant certifications.

• In-depth knowledge about specific subjects can be gained by doing relevant live/academic projects. The practical exposure that you would get by doing projects will not only help you gain deep knowledge about the subject matter but also be a great addition to your resume.

• Stay updated with current events and happenings.

Read newspapers and blogs on a regular basis. My personal recommendation would be ‘Business

Standard’ and ‘The Mint’ for newspaper and

‘Finshots’ for online content.

Soft Skills:

• Having good communication skills is very important to crack interviews. Good communication skills (both written and verbal) is the one trait that all organizations look for in a candidate, irrespective of the industry/domain/role/company.

Spend a lot of time polishing your communication skills. Preparation for this can be done by mock

GD’s and interviews.

• The ‘Tell me about yourself’ question should be very well prepared. You should do a deep introspection about yourself and build a story accordingly. Try to make sure that your answer doesn’t sound mechanical, and it is something that accurately reflects your personality. This question is also an opportunity for you to drive the interview in the direction you want to.

Some pointers for Organization/Role specific preparation

• Go through the JD thoroughly and be clear about the role and its requirements.

• Do in-depth research about the organization. It should include what the organization does, the industry in which it operates, size, geography, and recent developments related to the organization.

• Add points in your resume relevant to the role you’re applying for.

• Prepare a couple of questions to ask at the end of the interview.

Some pointers for the day of the interview

• Try not to be too nervous. Be confident in your abilities and preparation to crack the interview.

• Don’t worry if you get an answer wrong. Nobody is perfect. Organizations are more concerned about traits like culture fit, trainability, attitude, potential, etc.

• Always smile when you’re interviewing. Try to have a conversation instead of having a VIVA.

Finally…. ‘Believe you can and you’re halfway

there.’

Kushagra Kukreja

PGP05 IIM Amritsar

Final Placement | EY Summer Intern | IndusInd Bank

Before filling in for a company or preparing for an interview, know about the company and the role it is offering.

Few things to be well prepared with before placements begin

1. Read quality newspapers and research articles. I have found “Business Standard” and “The

Ken” as extremely well researched sources of news and articles. company should select you for the role? Why as a fresher or workex, you are better suited than the other? (This part prepares me well for the final questions to the recruiter themselves and shows a level of commitment and preparation by the candidate) 3. Always prepare your resume according to the role. The goal is to weave a story around the role and your life. Use the experiences you have had from school to post graduation to further strengthen your candidature for the specific role.

4. Make sure you are thorough with your internship work. Be informed about the company and its senior management. Read news about it, its products, any mergers in the past, etc. If possible, try to connect it with your expected job role in the final interview.

Things to do just before inter view

2. Be ready with an “About yourself” and practice it long before any interview, if possible, with a friend who can suggest areas to improve. 3. Participate in extra-curricular activities, corporate & B-school competitions and sports. They help improve both hard and soft skills. They can grant you a common ground to talk about on. In one of my interviews, I was asked questions about a recent Formula 1 race and how F1 generates revenue?

1. Stop your revisions and calm down. All your focus should now be on giving the recruiter a run for their money! Placement season can be quite challenging. Even at your 100% you might not get through. Lot more than just your preparation will go into selection, factors which are out of your control – luck, previous workex, pedigree, mood of the interviewer, etc. The goal is “To become a better version of yourself” with each interview.

Things to do 1-2 days before inter view

1. Practice your About yourself. Keep what you feel will help you and remove unnecessary details. 2. Make write-ups of 4-5 pages on the company itself; Its history, products, people, global and local news, and its divisions. Another 2-3 pages about the role that is being offered; Why the

CFA PREPARATION

Chakshu Chawla

PGP05 IIM Amritsar

CFA LEVEL 1 CLEARED

My CFA preparation journey was long but I never felt like I was preparing for it until the last ten days of my preparation when I pull out all the stops. I like reading about financial management, especially about portfolio management and personal finances so reading Schweser notes about the same was not problematic for me any day. The big mountain in front of me was ‘Economics’, which I felt was a bit more demanding compared to other subjects as there are so many intersecting and overlapping concepts that it is very normal to confuse/mix them. While studying itself I knew I might forget some of them in the final exam so I made sure to revise difficult concepts (that need more cramming) in the last 2-3 days of my preparation. It worked for me but again there is no hard and fast rule and you should always go with your gut in terms of what you feel like revising in the last few days of preparation. Since most of the other concepts were covered till the 5th term of my MBA so a quick read of Schweser notes worked brilliantly for me. Although I do not consider myself an expert to give tips to crack the exam but a few pointers that I would like to mention that might help you are as follows: • Driving the last mile - The last 15-20 days are a make-or-break period. You can easily sail through the CFA level 1 if you go all in especially in the last few days even with average preparation before it. The other way around also, it might get problematic for you if you do not revise concepts in the last few days even with decent preparation before it. • Study material - Do not fall into trap of referring to too many books for preparation. Although CFA official material is preferred but in case of paucity of time, Schweser notes coupled with official mocks on the CFA website would suffice.

• The genre of CFA exam - CFA is more of a conceptual exam rather than a speed-based exam (like CAT) so there is absolutely no need to rush upon questions as you might end up messing up even sitters. Also, CFA L1 tests more concept-based questions rather than questions that involve real calculations so do not waste the last few precious days of your preparation solving lengthy calculation-intensive questions. • Keep in mind the subject-wise breakup – It is fine to leave one or two very difficult topics that have less weightage, rather than wasting time on them and not revising frequently asked topics during final days of preparation. • Make financial calculator your best friend It is preferred to buy a financial calculator at the beginning of the preparation itself so as to get used to it. Learn as many functions of it as possible as few of them are very useful in cracking complicated quantitative methods questions. At last, I just want to conclude by saying that do not panic over CFA exams, most of the concepts are already covered in MBA, you just need to brush up on some of the concepts based on exam pattern and your current state of preparation.