Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Want a Job on Wall Street? 'Let Me Sleep With Your Girlfriend'



Wall Street is rude, it’s crude and it will eat you alive. So interviewing for a job on Wall Street is no different.  It’s not a meet-and-greet tell-me-about this job or that experience. It’s more like a punch in the face. They’ll ask you hard questions, maybe inappropriate questions — all to see if you’re going to be able to run with the big dogs — or if you need to get your behind back on the porch.

“They’re looking for how you handle pressure. How you think on your feet. Are you the brightest of the bright? Are you a natural leader?” said Jeanne Branthover, head of global financial services at Boyden Global Executive Search.

Wall Street Oasis, a job-search site for financial careers, recently pinged readers for the hardest questions they were ever asked on an interview for Wall Street. The answers included such zingers as:

“You’re going to be working 110 hours a week here. Can you even handle that?”

Why don’t you have any offers yet? What’s wrong with you?”

“What single word would you use to describe yourself so I don’t walk out of here and forget you?” (Good answer: Unforgettable!)

“What line on your resume is the most bull****?”

“Do you view this as your dream career?” If you answer yes, “If in two years, you receive an offer for more money on the buyside, will you turn it down because this is your dream career?”
In an interview for a Goldman Sachs analyst position, the interviewer asked: “If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?”

In an interview where there were two interviewers, the one who was supposed to be the silent No. 2 asked just one question: "Are you trying to f*** us over?" The kid froze, the interviewer wrote in a comment on WallStreetOasis.com. The No. 1 interviewer jumped in: "Why didn't you just say no?!"

Want to hear more?  Go to http://www.cnbc.com/id/48246113

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