Interview Mishaps and Their Takeaways
I’ve decided to change it up just a bit for this article, and instead of lecturing, I’m going to turn the tables on you and ask for your worst/most embarrassing interview stories along with the lessons that you’ve learned from them. Fact is, everyone messes up in an interview at some point, and it is in these mishaps that we improve our interviewing technique thereby strengthening our candidacy and appeal. Ideally, with every story posted here in the comments section, the takeaway will help all of the readers to avoid making similar mistakes. So, post away, or rather, comment away, and let the chips fall where they may. I’ll kick it off:
I remember an operations interview I had with Deutsche Bank the summer of my junior year. It was the final round superday event, and I was on my 5th of 5 interviews. Unfortunately, my 5th interview was my two-man interview (meaning two interviewers vs. yours truly), and they played up the good cop/bad cop scenario to a tee. Essentially, one of the interviewers sat there, silently, leaning back in his chair observing, while the other asked me some fit and technical questions. Everything seemed to be going pretty well, and then the silent man, bad cop if you will, spoke.
His initial question was something along the lines of, “so why do you want to do operations, anyway,” to which I gave a decent response (considering I didn’t want to do operations at all, but hey, I needed an SA in either banking or from a BB, if not the combo of both), albeit a bit jumbled. Without batting an eye, he followed on with, “well do you want to make operations a career, and, if so, where do you see yourself in 5 years, 10 years?” Now, I’m not going to lie, I was screwed – I tried to fudge some sort of a coherent response, but I just didn’t do enough research to know how to answer – 5 years? My only thought was, “I hope I’m out of here in 5 minutes, and in 5 years, I hope to be nowhere near an operations desk.” I couldn’t, however, really lead off with that response – probably wouldn’t have been what they were looking for.
So there I sat, fumbling around and stuttering my way through a poor and unprepared response. Bad cop then followed up with, “so I don’t think you know much about operations, what do you think your day to day will look like, and do you think it will be challenging enough for you on an intellectual basis – what kind of work do you find most interesting, anyway?” Yup, toss in the towel, raise the white flag, I was done. After stumbling through one more answer (I mean they are in operations, so to say it’s not intellectually challenging would be the equivalent of slapping them in the face with a glove) and essentially accepting defeat, the interview was over, I asked a few good questions to try to win a few points and hoped for the best.
The takeaway – always know exactly what you are interviewing for, what the job entails, the hours, the skill set, the challenges and why it’s of interest to you. Know the position, know the firm, and practice. You don’t have to love the position that you are interviewing for, but it always feels good to get the offer. So put some time in to prep, don’t be lazy with it, and remain confident. The reason why bad cop kept pushing me was because with each question he could probably tell that I was getting just a little more nervous/anxious/uncomfortable/etc, and that’s what interviewers will attack. Stay calm, focused and relaxed, do your homework, and enjoy yourself (not too much though, you are interviewing after all).
So there you have it, one of my interview blunders (and yes, I have others). Now it’s your turn – leave some blunders and lessons below, and let’s all learning something.
Hmm…
I was interviewing for a private investment summer internship with my university’s endowment. I had accepted a study abroad scholarship so I knew what I was doing for the summer but I had already signed up for the interview slot and thought I might be able to defer until the fall if I got an offer. She asked who else I had interviewed with and I named a few investment banks. Then I mentioned that I hadn’t gotten an offer–she didn’t even ask, I just volunteered it. I knew right away that I had made a mistake but at that point it was too late.
Takeaway: When asked what firms you are interviewing with just say, “I’m going through the process with [banks].” If they press you over offers, be honest, but many times they won’t.
When interviewing for a consulting firm I made the mistake of putting a language in my resume that although I understood I couldn’t speak it properly. In the last interview with one of the partners she started to speak to me in that language and ask me a couple of questions… although I could understand her I could say much… as a result i dind’t get the job…
Lesson: Don’t lie on your CV… you can “enhance” but don’t lie…
I was interviewing with a hedge fund few weeks ago (maybe a month), I got absolutely no competency based questions, all were macroeconomic questions! In quite details, I must add. And I paniced at the flurry of questions! Stagflation > Recession > Deflation > Inflation???
I was really surprised and totally not prepared for it. I keep upto date with all the major economics and financial events, but havent brushed up on macro economics in a while. Atleast not after the interview.
Takeaway: Go through you first year or second year Macro notes, they always come in handy!
Had a 2 v 1 interview with Merck. Bad cop asks me why am i majoring in finance? I respond, genuinely interested in the markets and the economy. Bad cop: what’s going on in the markets? Me:… I know the administration signed the bailout plan other than that I’m not sure what’s going on.. was too busy with my studies.
After that response, i got 1 more question and it was GG.
When I was a sophomore, I got my first ever IB interview which was scheduled to be 2 days after I received the invite. As a sophomore, this caused me considerable stress as I was not very prepared. It had always been my goal to get into IB so I studied incredibly hard to prepare for the interview. Went over every single technical question I had access too, mock interviewed with other people, etc. Unfortunately, I tried to prep for so long that I ended up staying awake until 5am the night before to cram….the interview was at 9am. I figured “oh well, I’ll just drink some coffee and kill it like I would an exam”. Needless to say, I didn’t kill it. I was very nervous, ended up stumbling over easy behavioural questions that I’d normally nail, and when it came to technical questions my brain could barely process what they were asking let alone give thorough answers. I ended up making the second round, but frankly I attribute that to pure luck because the interview was awful.
Takeaway: get a full night’s sleep before the interview. It’s not worth cramming last minute – you either know your stuff or you don’t. If you’re going to be able to tackle the trickier technical questions, you’re going to need your brain to be fully rested & as sharp as possible.
..this is really embarrassing, but one of the biggest blunders I ever made was straight out of college, when I interviewed for a position with a really big firm. On my resume, I featured a couple of impressive-sounding classes (for lack of extensive experience), one of which was all about the study and use of algorithms in programming (it was actuality some easy bullsht c++ course). I was coasting through the interview up until I was asked to explain what were programming algorithms, how they were relevant to the field…. etc, etc – this is not something I reviewed closely, and because the class was basically crap, I didn’t even have anything good to contribute off the top of my head – I must have looked like a total idiot when i completely froze up…. needless to say, the interview went kind of downhill from there and I never heard from them again
lesson learned: know your resume (and take serious classes seriously)
Nice comments so far everyone! I am really pleased that I am not the only one who has blatantly flopped on his face during an interview. Keep them coming and thanks!
Made fun of the MBA program at my school (seriously, its world-class but the people don’t work at all…think only undergrad Ivy b-school and you’ll know which one I’m talking about). Turns out interviewer was an MBA alum from my school. Never heard from them again.
Takeaway: Don’t make fun of anyone. Not even as a joke.
It had been a year since i graduated and hadnt looked at finance in that amount of time, as I had taken a gap year. I returned to try and get IB jobs so set up a bunch of networking/informational interviews. One that I went to, at a regional boutique specializing in oil and gas, turned out to be a real interview for a position. I had done my research on the company and the industry and nailed all of the behavioural/fit questions however, they asked me how to value oil and gas companies and what the difference is between valuation of O&G vs. any other firm. This is not what I had prepared for in any way so told them about our misunderstanding of interview types. A few awkward jokes were made and needless to say i didnt get a call back.
Takeaway: Prepare for every meeting coffee/lunch/phone info session as if it were an interview.