Interview tips.

okiew5 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Nuppal- > > You may have touched upon this before, but I was > wondering if you could touch upon your > background…school, graduation date, work history, > etc. Nothing specific, but rather just a general > overview so I can get some sense of where I am in > comparison as it seems we are in similar shoes. > > Thanks. School- Non “Target” Florids school, average grades, Awesome leadership experience there and did some pretty amazing philanthropy work (which actually doesnt come through the way i’d like it to in my resume, but thats neither here or there.) Academic Scholarship Community Service Scholarship CFA Sponsor Grad- May 2009 Work- Helped start a landscaping company between high school and college (again, the entreprenurial aspect doesnt come through in the resume.) Worked for a GA Commissioner freshman year internship Study abroad in Austria (no sophomore internship b/c of study abroad) PWM Internship with this bank, one of the bigger banks on Wall Street (again, think; MS, GS, BoAML etc…) Outside of that CFA studies, Fluent in French, Conversational Mandarin, Dual Citizenship and some other crap. iheartiheartmath Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Good luck man. I know JOE2010 and Captain Awesome > are trying to be nice to you in case you have to > hire their low-earning @sses at some point. Just > remember to shave your beard before you go in, > don’t want to look like you’re there to blow up > the joint. Yeah, I might wear a suit too, who knows what the speedo culture is like there lol.

Thanks-appreciate it. Best of luck in the interviews.

okiew5 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Thanks-appreciate it. > > Best of luck in the interviews. Well, what about you?

The interesting thing about massive overconfidence is that it seems to be an absolute prerequisite for getting into the industry, but once you get to the buyside, it seems to be a great predictor of disaster looming, inadequate critical thinking and bad risk control. What a paradox, eh?

bchadwick Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The interesting thing about massive overconfidence > is that it seems to be an absolute prerequisite > for getting into the industry, but once you get to > the buyside, it seems to be a great predictor of > disaster looming, inadequate critical thinking and > bad risk control. What a paradox, eh? Answering my own post (or really following on)… I think the issue is that many people cannot distinguish ordinary confidence from overconfidence. An essential part of portfolio management is to have a realistic vision of your own ability to be wrong, and size your positions appropriately to that level of risk. Very fuzzy? Put on a small position. Very sure, put on a large position. It’s actually not the level of confidence that matters so much - it’s making sure that your confidence matches what is appropriate. And my thesis is that both interviewers and interviewees have a hard time figuring out if the level of confidence expressed is appropriate. Maybe we can even break confidence down into 1) confidence about your conclusions on an investment, and 2) confidence on your ability to learn and do the job. I’d say that the best hires may be people who express low confidence of type (1) and high confidence in type (2) (backed with some kind of evidence). This means that the candidate won’t be making crazy concentrated calls, but will be learning and improving as they go along. The other issue is that on the sell side (as nuppal’s position seems to be), overconfidence is not necessarily a bad thing, since a salesperson being superconfident in their product can often make the difference between a sale and no sale. Since the sell side is transaction-driven, overconfidence can be a good thing, as long as you are overconfident to your buyer, and you are not the buyer/deal sourcer yourself.

nuppal Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Numi- I feel like I need to pay you or something. > You usually dont find info that good for free. What about a multi-input airline power adapter for lenovo laptops?

Part-time Crook Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > nuppal Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Numi- I feel like I need to pay you or > something. > > You usually dont find info that good for free. > > > What about a multi-input airline power adapter for > lenovo laptops? PTC whenever you say multi-input anything my mind gets sidetracked…

numi Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > nuppal - congratulations on making the next round > of interviews. Best wishes and keep us posted on > the outcome. > > TheAliMan, JOE2010, adehbone, eureka, etc. - > thanks for the positive feedback. I’m glad that > you found my interview tips helpful. Hopefully > there will be many other reports from AFers about > successful job interviews going forward. I printed your post and put it in a folder I have where I keep all sort of things concerning interviews.

I have a coffee interview on Friday. Luckily, it is being presented to be without even being known publicly. I will have numi’s recommendations in hand while we’re talking. Ha!

TheAliMan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I have a coffee interview on Friday. Luckily, it > is being presented to be without even being known > publicly. I will have numi’s recommendations in > hand while we’re talking. Ha! There ya go! Things are looking good for the AF crowd! T-15hours and 30 minutes till my interview tomorrow. Nervous wreck.

If anyone cares, I picked up the Behavioral Interview Guide for Finance Jobs from WSO. Although it’s tailored to bankers, and the suggestions are kind of trivial, there is still some useful information in there and it’s all formatted nicely. The Technical Interview Guide was a very bad purchase though, especially for us CFA candidates and charterholders. Very basic stuff that everyone should know anyway. Pure play method for unlevering equity beta? We got the equation stored in long-term memory, yo!

nuppal Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > T-15hours and 30 minutes till my interview > tomorrow. > > Nervous wreck. I’m a nervous wreck too. Our MMMF tryst in NYC is on the line.

@ Aliman - I got my dirty little mitts on a Vault guide and it is really good. Hit me up if you want it. @IHIHM - Dont worry MMMF’s are in order soon. Daviskr is already in NYC prepping and I need to nail this interview in 1.5 hours. Should be a go. Boy o boy, I am nervous…

Good luck.

Thank you sir, ok, signing off unitl post inverview. RIP-Me

**UPDATE** SO I just got off the phone for the second interview. I spoke with two people, the first was 10 minutes long (its fine though he said he only had 15 minutes) and the second was 35 minutes long with the next in line after the frist guy I spoke with. Call 1- First real interview I have had where the interviewer was throwing out arithmetic questions ( I think I did well though I got 2/3 on my first try and on the 3r [decimal notation of 3/8] I answered .28 and he said “are you sure?” and I go uhhh WAIT NO! .375, thank you CFA bond notation!) He asked about AP exams, math classes, SAT scores and a basic summary of my self (which I had ready to go, thank you NUMI). It was still rpetty stressful and I was shaking after that phone call. At the end of the call he asked if I would want to speak with the next person in line after him (he is the CAO) and I said absolutely. Call 2- Much more relaxed, more of a business case setup (again, I have only had one case interview before this one). He asked me how I would analyze two companies and which were stronger. I truly feel like I did not do well here, however, I dont know. He then asked from a public perspective, how would I value these companies…blew that outta the water. Thanks again CFA. I said I would analyze their debt structure, performing a basic bond valuation technique then look at their dividend structure and use a DDM model to calculate expected earnings. Then I would use their Debt/Equity structure and calculate their WACC to help gain a general idea about how much a potential project would cost them, then I would finally use RRR to get an idea of how much I should expect to be getting outta the company. He then talked about his position and the group that he works in and the duties of the role for about 8 minutes. I asked a few strategic questions. It then sounded like he needed to get off the phone so I said it was nice talking and he said have a good day. *click* Should I be worried, i didnt hear anything about time to hear back. My gut feeling is yes, I should be worried… I am still a nervous wreck and I am sure I left things out.

Did you call in sick today? Or was this done in a conference room at work?

I just took my “lunch break”

Nuppal, sounds like a stressful interview. I am sure you did better than you think. It is always easier to remember things you think you “screwed up” and not remember the things you answered really well. Good luck man.

Yeah, I mean, I know I did well in SOME aspects. I asked some good questions and definitly related well to the material/job descrip. However, I know that I didnt do well on the first portion of the case and I am freaking out about not hearing back and having no time frame for that.