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FEBRUARY 1999 MBA JOURNAL: INTERNSHIP INTERVIEWS Raghu Ponnapalli: Navigating the Internship Interviewing Process
I won't lie to you and tell you that my mind was on school work this term. Getting the proper internship is arguably one of the most important tasks facing any first-year student. As you may have surmised from my previous articles, I am focused on working in finance. More specifically, I'm looking to work in an investment bank, but getting a job in this industry is especially competitive. My task was to figure out which divisions within the major I-banks to target and to ready my resume and cover letter for each of them. A job in investment banking can mean many things as there are lots of tracks you can pursue. Among them are investment banking, sales, trading, research, asset management, and private-client services. Some of these segments can be broken down even further (for example, within sales, trading, and research, you typically have to consider whether you want to apply to the equity division, the fixed-income division, or both.) It's important to focus when you apply, because it doesn't look good if you apply to divisions with no obvious similarities. Having said that, I think I have multiple skill sets, and I had a strong interest in sales and trading as well as investment banking. I had a hard time deciding which to apply to. Unfortunately, the banks don't seem to give you much leeway in this matter. If you work in one of these functions over the summer, it's very hard to try to switch to the other for a full-time position. So the decision you make now becomes very important. One other bit of pressure: If you don't get that summer internship in a bank, it becomes even harder to get a full-time job in the industry. The other career options typical for MBA's are management consulting, working in industry, or doing something entrepreneurial. I do have a strong interest in someday working in high-tech or a startup, but that's farther off in my career plan. As for consulting, I didn't even consider it. A consulting career and lifestyle is one that I am not remotely interested in. The Process I started out the term by signing up for the mock interviews with second-year students and outside professionals provided by the Career Management Center (CMC). I also began solving as many brain teasers as I could get my hands on. This is an aspect of interviewing that is peculiar to banks and consultancies. They test you with these type of puzzles to help them gain an insight into your thought process. There are also longer versions of these interviews where candidates are presented with a case study. The entire interview can be based on a case question. Most consulting companies prefer case interviews. In fact, two large consultancies -- McKinsey and Booz Allen Hamilton -- actually helped us prepare for these interviews by running "Crack That Case" workshops. I had prepared a few cases but didn't really worry too much about it since I wasn't intending to apply to any consulting firms. We had about five or six companies arriving on campus every week for ten weeks to do their presentations and interview. Of the visiting firms, two would be banks, and the others would be consultancies or industry. Some banks didn't present at the school and instead, sent application requests directly to the CMC. Each week, I would attend the presentations, talk to recruiters, and then send in my resume the next day. Once the resumes were in, the waiting began. Typically, within a week, the companies would post a list of students that they wished to interview for the first round. (There is no bidding for interviews at LBS. All interviews are closed.) Hiring decisions were usually made after three rounds. The banks came evenly throughout the term, i.e., DLJ interviewed in week one, while J.P. Morgan didn't interview until week 10. This turned out to be a big advantage over what the process is like at other schools. The pace of company arrivals could help you gauge how well you were doing on a week-by-week basis. Also, people who accepted offers early on dropped out of the search, improving the odds for those remaining. This system also caused me to continuously tweak (hopefully improving) my resume over the term. The Results How did I do? Well, initially I did very badly. During the first few weeks, I got ding letters from all the banks I applied to. This was a particularly humbling experience. I had never had many problems finding a job before, so all this rejection was new to me. However, the rejections were the kick in the pants that I needed to shake off my initial complacency. I redoubled my efforts and made sure to follow up with the banks that rejected me. I couldn't quite figure out why I wasn't being selected for interviews. I had always assumed that a technical background and experience in finance would give me an advantage in the job search. However, many of the students chosen for interview seemed not to have any financial experience whatsoever. I was also at a bit of a disadvantage because I am not an EU citizen (although this is not a major stumbling block for large firms.) In any case, I was definitely being outclassed by the competition. I immediately decided to rejig my resume, this time downplaying my technical and financial knowledge and highlighting my more general skills. I also decided to focus more on investment banking. Sales and trading jobs in London were just hard to come by this year. I soon got invited to interview at four banks. However, I can't say for certain whether I got the interviews because I changed my resume. The whole job search is about fit. Maybe the initial rejections were due to specific requirements that those banks were looking for in their candidates. Who knows? In all, I interviewed with Deutsche Bank, ABN Amro, J.P. Morgan, and my old firm, ING Barings. The interview process can become very lengthy. One of the firms I interviewed with took five weeks to progress from first round to final round. In that one firm, I had about 17 half-hour interviews. Banks seem to love having all their execs meet you before they give you an offer, and everyone that meets you has to like you. I heard a story of one poor second-year student who had 48 interviews at one firm and still didn't get the job! Most of my interviews went well. They just seemed like extended chats about my background with some technical and current-events questions thrown in. I particularly enjoyed discussing the markets and didn't hesitate to share my views and forecasts. I think all the firms I talked to are great. I'm keeping in touch with people at all of them and not burning any bridges. However, in the end, I accepted an offer from ABN Amro. I'm going to work in investment banking this summer in their Financial Institutions Group (FIG). This experience should be very broad: I'll be working with the people originating deals, working on M&A transactions, seeing how they're executed, and working with the product groups. I'm especially excited about working in FIG because it seems to be run without regard to borders. I may get to work on deals around the world! Conclusions: What I Liked: · The slower pace of company arrivals and interviews. You had time to react to changing conditions. · The quality and quantity of the companies that recruited -- this means all the top firms in banking and consulting. What I Disliked: · Some companies tended to block out non-EU members from consideration. · There is no bidding for interviews. My advice for all of you soon-to-be first-year MBAs is simple. The internship interviewing process is harder than you think. Don't assume that just because you're in the MBA program, you'll get the job of your choice. There's a lot more to it than that: You may have all the skills but still not fit the requirements of the employer. I don't want to associate how I feel about my MBA solely with what kind of job it helps me get when I graduate. But in the end, it's an important factor. After having been through the recruitment process and having been successful in achieving my objectives, I'm definitely a happy camper.  Raghu Ponnapalli  | | [an error occurred while processing this directive] Learn about your online education options |
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