Could anyone give me some advice for an onsite interview?
I’m going to be interviewed for an entry-level credit rating research role. I have not worked for investment industry before, so I am not sure how to prepare for it. Guess there will be technical and situational questions. Do I need to practice financial modeling? What else should I do?
Thanks for reading!
If you still have decent time, I would recommend reaching out ex-employees in LinkedIn of that company who served in similar role before, and ask them to share their experience and some guidance. It worked for me once.
Thank you!
You should probably do a mock interview with someone to practice talking in finance jargon and even soft questions like “why do you want to work here”. Talking somehow never turns out like how you pictured it in your head.
“cuz ur really close to where i live” is a bad answer btw!
Never ever ever ever say the most common things that everyone repeats.
Why should we hire you:
“I will work very hard”
I always say I’m a hardworker, such a pity I am (
Thank you so much for all your replies!
Here’s my feedback:
They focused on my past experiences, which are my disadvantages because they were not investment industry related, and they asked about my motivations for working there. Only one of them asked technical questions. No behavioral or situational questions asked.
Guess my background is not sufficient for the job, sad…
By the way, I would much appreciate it if you could suggest me some entry-level job titles to search. I’m not a new graduate but my experience for a full time job in finance sector is not competitive. I majored in finance in graduate school but still find it hard to break into this industry. 
Have you read David & Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell? Often times our biggest disadvantages are actually our greatest advantages. You just gotta spin it that way in an interview.
No, I haven’t. I’ll have a look and try to make my disadvantages become advantages. Thanks a lot!
I strongly recommend that you continue pursuing the CFA designation. The curriculum is rigorous, and the tests are no walk in the park. I obtained my CFA when I was in my 60s. By then, I had been the Controller of one sizable company, and the CFO of another enterprise. The CFA courses are rigorous, and the three annual tests one has to pass are demanding. The CFA Institute also has sky-high ethical standards, thank goodness. I’ve never regretted the time and money I spent in the latter part of my career to get the CFA designation. Once you get it–and it is a demanding process–you’ll be very glad you have it. Good luck!
No Problem, I’ll recommend you to be in touch with your seniors and ex-colleagues, who are working in the same industry especially for credit rating research. Also i suggest you to must try some free tools which are available in the market create some dummy data and do all the required experiments on that with the help of these free financial analysis tools you will gain some fruitful practical knowledge. Which will help you more in your interview rather than studying theories of books. If you want to know some names. Let me know i can suggest you.
Cheers!