Invesment Banking - Questions and Chat

I have updated the chat widget by chatopica to host a chat and question widget that all visitors can use to ask questions or chat generally about Investment Banking. Enjoy!

Online Tests and Interviews

I use statcounter on this blog which tells me many of you are searching for help on the numerical tests and competency based interview questions. So to help you I have compiled a list of places you can find practice tests. I have also compiled a list of questions both from my experience and others that i know. I hope this helps.

Online Tests - Numerical Reasoning

SHL - This is the official SHL site, most banks use these guys for their testing. They provide practice test, But please be aware, the practice tests are much easier than the real thing for some reason!Nonetheless, its a great way to familiarise yourself with the questions.

efinancialcareers - I have used these guys personally and the tests they provide are brilliant! A simple registeration is needed.

More Practice Tests - This site offers some questions too, not that high tech though! Also the questions are more mathematical and no "reasoning" involved.

Different types of tests - This site has the usual numerical reasoning tests it also has other tests which you may be given at an assessment centre such as Numerical, verbal, abstract, competency and personality tests. For some reason HSBC loves to use the personality tests t see i you would fit into the company and then they give you the numerical and verbal reasoning tests. A bit backwards if you ask me!

Interviews - Examples of Competency based questions

Competency based interviews have under lying themes when you are asked questions. Most questions that you will get asked will have at the base level these questions:

"Why do you want to work for XYZ company?"

"What makes you suitable for this role?"

In essence, interviewers are trying to answer these questions. They do this by directly asking you the above! Or they ask the following questions or both the above and below:

"What interests you about the job?"
"What can you bring to our organisation?"

"Tell us a time you have worked in a team?"
"What wasa your role?"

"Tell us a time when you had to plan a project"?
"What did you do to ensure that it was successful"?

"Tell us a time when you used your imagination/creativity?"

I hope the above has helped. If you have any questions, i.e. how to answer such questions please comment and i will try to help you answer them. I shouldn't really since some of you could be my competition!

Best books for Investment Banks

I've have a load of books that all claim to get people into invesment banks. Have they worked? No idea. So I would like to complete a list of books that people have found useful. So please let me know using the comments below. If there are also books that you would like to read give me the names and i will provide a ebook link for you to download and read as a pdf. That is if these books exist as ebooks!

The best book that i have come across is called: All You Need to Know About the City: Who Does Why and What in London Stock Financial Markets - Amazon Link

I actually got the above book from Golman Sachs during my spring internship.

Investment Banking Interview/CV/Application Tips - Videos

I have compiled some good videos from youtube for you to watch just before your interview. The last one should definitely be watched. It is an excellent funny video - it also gives, surprisingly, a few good tips on interviews. Some of the videos also show you how the investment banks are fighting for talent, which is you!

Too hard to get into a TOP tier bank?

If you are finding hard to get into top tier banks [the bulge bracket]. Then it may be a good idea to get into a lower tier bank first and then work your way up. However, this will take time. Anyway, here is a list of banks that i found for all of you to go through and apply to! I hear you groan. Yes it does take ages to fill in the online apps but it has to be done.

A.G. Edwards
ABN Amro
Alliance Bernstein
Allianz
Ambrian
Babcock & Brown
Bank of America
Bank of Nova Scotia
Barclays
Bear Stearns
BMO
BNP Paribas
Boenning & Scattergood
Brown Brothers Harriman
Brown, Shipley & Co.
C.E. Unterberg
Calyon
Canaccord Adams
Cantor Fitzgerald
Carnegie, Wylie & Co
Cazenove
CIBC
Citigroup
Close Brothers Group
Cowen Group, Inc.
Credit Suisse
D.A. Davidson & Co.
Deka Bank
Deutsche Bank
Dillon, Read & Company
Dresdner Kleinwort
Dresner Partners
Drexel Burnham Lambert
Evercore Partners
Financo Inc.
Fortis Bank
Fox-Pitt, Kelton
Friedman Billings Ramsey
Genuity Capital Markets
Goldman Sachs
Grace Matthews
Greenhill & Company
Greif & Co.
Grupo Santander
Hambrecht & Quist
Hambros Bank
Harris Williams & Company
Hilco Corporate Finance, LLC
Houlihan Lokey & Zukin
HSBC
Imperial Capital, LLC
ING Group
Investec
Investment Technology Group
J. & W. Seligman & Co
Janney Montgomery Scott
Jefferies & Co.
Jordan, Knauff & Co.
JP Morgan
Kaupthing Bank
KBC Bank
Keefe, Bru & Woods
KeyCorp
Kleinwort Benson
Kuhn, Loeb & Co.
Ladenburg Thalmann
Lazard
Lazard Capital Markets
Legg Mason
Lehman Brothers
Macquarie Bank
Merrill Lynch
Miller Buckfire
Mizuho Financial Group
Monte Paschi di Siena
Montgomery & Co.
Montgomery Securities
Morgan Grenfell
Morgan Stanley
Natixis
Needham & Company
Neuberger Berman, LLC
Newbury Piret
Newsouth Capital Inc.
NIBC
Noble Bank
Nomura
Nomura Securities Co, Ltd
Oppenheimer
Park Lane Investment Banking
Perella Weinberg Partners
Pete J. Solomon Company
Petrie Parkman & Co.
Piper Jaffray
Prudential Securities
Putnam Lovell
Rabobank
Raymond James
Robert Fleming & Co.
Robert W.Baird & Co
Robertson, Stephens
Royal Bank of Canada
Royal Bank of Scotland
Rutberg & Co.
Ryan Beck & Co.
Salman Partners Inc.
Salomon Brothers
Sandler O'Neill
Saxo Bank
Schroders
Smith Barney
Societe Generale
Stephens Inc.
Stifel Nicolaus
T. Rowe Price
ThinkEquity Partners, LLC
Thomas Weisel Partners
Toronto-Dominion Bank
Transparent Value
TSG Partners, LLC
UBS
Unicredit
Wachovia
Wasserstein Perella
Wells Fargo
William Blair & Company
WR Hambrecht+ Co.

Starting Salary from Front Office to Back Office

I found this on a great site. Somebody did research on the salaries for those that work in investment banks and i think they are quite accurate or at the very least a good approximation. Let me know if you know otherwise so i can update this. [Use the comments to do this]

Money is in UK Pounds (£)

Front Office:
IBD............................................... .35K (26.25K taxed)(with bonus of double digit %)
Sales and Trading.............................33K(24.75K taxed) (with bonus of double digit %)
M&A............................................... 34K (25.5K taxed) (with bonus of double digit %)
IBD (M&A) ................................... 37k + 7k signing bonus 12 months bonus : 100%-150% of base. (58.6K taxed assuming 125% bonus and 35% taxed)

Middle Office:
Risk (Credit, Market, Operational)........30K (22.5 taxed) (with bonus of around 20-30 %)

Back Office:
IT................................................ .28K (21K taxed) (with bonus of around 10-20 %)
Operation.......................................25 K (18.75 taxed) (with bonus of around 10-20 %)

Summer Internships at IB (the real deal)

As you can see from my other post I am applying for an industrial placement to investment banks but I am also applying for summer internships. I've pretty much sent off all the applications that I want to top tier banks which include Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and Citi (previously named citigroup).

The Way it Works

The way all the investment banks recruit is so similar that they use the same companies to design and make their applications! You'll get the obvious personal details followed by your academic results during the online application process. Some banks also put in competency based questions like "Tell us about a recent development in the industry that may affect us" - this was an actual question from BarCap.

After you complete your application most banks will invite you to a numerical reasoning or verbal reasoning test. Sometimes both! This is where the huge filtering happens. Some banks also filter at the first stage when you send out your application. They filter according to your grades (A Levels for the UK). Most banks have minimum criteria of AAB - this will of course go up and some banks my have higher or lower requirements but this is the usual standard. Tough? Well IBs (Investment Banks) don’t want to pay around £35,000 a year starting salaries to complete idiots!!

After successful completion of the application and tests you may be asked for a first round interview which can be over the phone or face to face. After this there may be another round which usually is an assessment centre with the other candidates and you participate in group projects, presentations etc. Plus an interview on the day. This is the general method but some IBs will adopt different methods that suits them.

After all the above they may yet again be a final round interview! You think this is hard work?! Well during my spring internship (1 week) at Goldman Sachs an MD (Managing Director) spoke to us. He told us that he was interviewed 13 times by different people prior to joining Goldman Sachs! He thought this was crazy and he spoke to his new colleagues on the first day and told them about his interviews. They all replied that he was lucky since some of them were interviewed over 20 times!!! So I think it’s fair to say that we have it good!?!

If you have any questions you can use the comments below.

Industrial Placement Application to Investment Banks

For a start filing in those online applications take ages and whats worse is when you are offered to take the numerical reasoning test and you fail it you are rejected straight away! Then you think "man that was a waste of time". But you just have to remember to keep going. Churchill said "if it feels like your going through hell then keep going".

I have to undertake a year in industry as part of my course. I want a career in an IB (investment banking) - mostly because of the money! ;)

I've applied to about 10 banks and i am still waiting for their response. I've done all the numerical reasoning tests and i have only failed one of the which is quite good i think. For those interested, i failed the Barclays Capital test - they seemed hard for some reason?!

Will keep you updated on my pursuit of working for an IB!

How to choose a domain name for my website?

I've been racking my brain for months now to find a domain name! I've come up with a few:

www.ithink.com
www.thedebateroom.com
www.freeyourmind.com ;)

But of course with millions of sites that exist these are already taken. Damn. Anyone have any ideas on how i can come up with a name?

Laziness & Procrastination - two things that i don't want to exist

My web project is about 60% complete i did all the hard work - the coding, the design etc. Now that i have reached the last stage. I am getting so lazy, i am doing other things and wasting time! Why?!! I don't know, even as i write this blog entry i am supposed to be working on the project. I think i need a new plan of action? I just don't even know where this laziness has come from!

What is laziness? Laziness is the lack of desire to perform work or expend effort.

At least i have some music on my blog!

Music in my Blog - Don't you like it?

I thought i would post some music - one choice only of course - the king of rock - Elvis! One of my favorites - "Blue Suede Shoes" - by Elvis Presley. A quick history lesson:

"Blue Suede Shoes" is a rock and roll standard written and first recorded by Carl Perkins in 1955. It is considered one of the first rockabilly (rock and roll) records and incorporated elements of blues, country and pop music of the time.

If you don't like it tell me by commenting, but it has to be for a good reason!

Is this a miracle i am making two posts today!

This is an interesting article i read about the Ogaden today:

Ogaden’s Plight: The most crippling problems that faces the Ogaden

The developed countries in this world are travelling to the moon and back, breaking new boundaries in science and surpassing economic growth that can only be dreamt of. Then why is the Ogaden, and for that matter Africa, still crawling in the mud?

Historically, Africa has been robbed of its people by slavery and robbed of its natural resources in the time of the so called “Scramble for Africa” which is known to us as the African Colonisation (19th century). So Africa was initiallay crippled. However, some countries fared better than others. Ethiopia was the only country not to be colonised by the Europeans as it was overcome by greed and helped the Europeans to take over Africa. The most unfortunate is the Ogaden region, which funnily enough was given to Ethiopia as a “thank you” present by Britain which was and is still illegal. Ethiopia still continues to ravage the Ogaden with its brutal and inhumane regime.

The Ogaden has been through so much and many of its problems are due to external parties, mainly the meagre help from the international community. The international community has turned their backs on the Ogaden region, mostly because to the Ogaden region would mean straying away from their path of the world economic race. Ethiopia’s illegal regime is covering up the Ogaden’s right for freedom. It is also well on its way to put it self in a favourable light to the international eye. I would very much like to meet Ethiopia's PR & marketing team as they are doing a very good job of twisting the truth in the Ogaden region!

Freedom for the Ogaden region is an arms length away and it is only a matter of time till the Ogaden region gets its deserved freedom! But the Ogaden region needs to accelerate this time since it has been freedom less for some time now and the rest of the world has advanced both economically and technologically. Once the Ogaden region gets its right to freedom, it has to catch up to the rest of the world and most of Africa is struggling to do this so it’s imperative that the Ogaden region wins freedom as quickly as possible.

Ogaden Journalist

The Ogaden region will get their freedom soon enough.

I told you i was going to talk about anything and everything.

Today i just put in a new chat client for blogs from chatopica.

Its pretty sweet, try it if there is someone else there. I have chosen a PHP Programming and Web Development discussion since i am near the end of developing my web project which is mostly written in PHP. I also use MySQL of course and JavaScript to make it look cool! But man, its hard. I am a one-man-band-wagon doing everything from design to actually making it which very very hard, believe me, especially if its a huge project like mine. I started in June by the way!

Enjoy the chat client people.

Oh and my property fetish today from Nestoria is Houses for sale in St Albans

Houses for sale in South Kensington

Houses for sale in South Kensington
Originally uploaded by abshirf2

Another beautiful pricy house in South Kensington.

Houses for sale in Baker Street

Houses for sale in Baker Street
Originally uploaded by abshirf2

This house is amazing so is the price but what your paying for is the classy London location of Baker Street!

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A new age has Dawned

I have started blogging! Right, this is a milestone in my life, i must not mess it up!

Instead of babbling along as usual, i'll tell you what i am going to include in this blog. I am going to include anything and everything! I am going to include my thoughts and events that astonish me, so that you can enjoy (hopefully) reading it.