Some of the most common interview questions for an investment banking interview include (some are a bit on the tough side but they DO come up very often, increasingly as a means of trimming down the candidate lists as the finance graduate job market gets harsher):
- How many degrees (if any) are there in the angle between the hour and the minute hands of a clock when the time is a quarter past three? [Typically asked during investment banking interviews for entry level investment banking graduate jobs]
- Find the smallest positive integer that leaves a remainder of 1 when divided by 2, a remainder of 2 when divided by 3, a remainder of 3 when divided by 4,… and a remainder of 9 when divided by 10 [Asked during interviews for quantitative finance jobs]
- Two standard options have exactly the same features, expect that one has long maturity, and the other has short maturity. Which one has the higher gamma? [Typically asked during interviews for bank derivatives trading jobs]
- How do you calculate an option’s delta? [Asked during investment banking interviews for derivatives trading jobs]
- When can hedging an options position make you take on more risk? [Typically asked during interviews for trading jobs]
- Are you better off using implied standard deviation or historical standard deviation to forecast volatility? Why? [Asked during interviews for quantitative finance jobs]
- Describe “duration” and “convexity”. Describe their properties and uses [Typically asked during investment banking interviews for graduate investment banking jobs]
- Two players A and B play a marble game. Each player has both a red and a blue marble. They present one marble to each other. If both present red, A wins $3. If both present blue, A wins $1. If the colors do not match, B wins $2. Is it better to be A or B, or does it matter? [Asked during interviews for quantitative finance or derivatives jobs]
- How do you “value” yourself? Here “value” means in financial terms [Typically asked during interviews for MBA finance jobs or experienced banking hires]
- What distinguishes you from other candidates we might hire? [Typically asked during investment banking interviews for graduate investment banking vacancies]
- If you could go on a cross-country car trip with any three people, who would you choose? Why? [Typically asked during interviews for corporate finance / mergers & acquisitions banking jobs]
- Tell be about a stock you like or hate and why [Asked by job interviewers for any accounting, finance or job!]
- What is the difference between default and prepayment risk? [Typically asked during interviews for credit jobs / risk management jobs]
- How would you move mount Fuji? [Typically asked during investment banking interviews for consulting jobs or graduate accounting jobs]
- Estimate the annual car demand for car batteries [Typically asked during interviews for corporate finance jobs, mergers & acquisition banking jobs or consulting jobs]
