SEO/Ibanking phone interview

<p>Good luck to you too, mate. I'm sure we'll all need it. I think I have a guarantee into research analysis at Barclays (through a non SEO route-connections), but I would love to be admitted and participate through the program.</p>

<p>Hey Shostakovich - which is your favorite version of the 5th symphony?</p>

<p>National Symphony Orchestra- Mstislav Rostropovich</p>

<p>Teldec label</p>

<p>unbeatable!</p>

<p>I was wondering is it a bit easier, gpa wise, to be competitive for the accounting internships with SEO? Or is it the same for all the programs 1400+ SAT, 3.7 GPA? Or can one be competitve with a 3.5+ overall and a strong accounting record(3.7+)?</p>

<p>For those of you applying are you guys sophomores or juniors?</p>

<p>As for me I'm a sophomore, and I don't know whether or not I want to apply to teh firms individually. I mean SEO states that if i get rejected from a firm i can't work there, and I am almost positive I will be turned down at all teh buldge bracket firms such as goldman or morgan, but then again, if I don't get the SEO internship i might as well have applied...ahhh i hate these conflicting scenarios</p>

<p>Well I'm a first year with (sophomore/junior) standing at my school from AP credit.</p>

<p>damn that is impressive</p>

<p>if you dont get in then there is absolutely no hope for me =/</p>

<p>i hear that if you get in about a week or two they call you to let you know weeks before the jan 23 deadline? I know that happens at the very end near feb or march, but do you think they will stick to a jan 23 deadline for everyone or let people know early?</p>

<p>In preparation for the summer, does anyone know when SEO gets back to you on their decision? I applied first round</p>

<p>by 1/23</p>

<p>message 2 short</p>

<p>ugh i am a failure today i had an interview</p>

<p>Anyway the interview place is in New York, right on Wall Street, and I walk in dressed up in a suit and stuff, except like since I'm still a student and probably retarded I had a blue The North Face Jester backpack instead of one of those nice leather businessman suitcases. When I walk into the waitign froom theres a table for us and I sit down, and get all these weird expressions from people seeing me with my bag. And then, the "sizing up" part comes up to see whho else you're completing with, and I realize that of the 5 other people there 2 were from harvard, 2 from wharton, and the last one was from NYU stern =/ ...also they started talking about venture capitol and random finance crap and i felt so out of place :smith:</p>

<p>When I finally go into the interview, I was drilled with random questions and technical questions left and right, with questions such ranging from specific wall street events to finance to random questions. The stupid thing was that one interviewer weould as me a quesiton, and in the middle of my explanation another interviewer would jump in and ask me another question completely off topic... And then one guy asks me a case/guesstimate question to estimate the number of sweatshirts my university sells. They give me a piece of paper and I reach into my messy bag and try to get a writing utencil but I can't find one, so I end up pulling out like an eraser and a mechnacial pencil that doesn't work. Instead I attempt to figure out the entire question in my head, which got really messy, and they were pretty unimpressed.</p>

<p>Rather than a half hour the interview lasted like 15 minutes, and at the end the guys were like do you have any questions about the program? I asked if they participated in it and one guy responded he did and he said he hated it... and then there was this awkwardness and I acknowledged that most people didn't like ibanking after a couple of years and he agreed. and then the interview was over.</p>

<p>ugh lesson is be more prepared than i am, and expect these elitist attitudes. oh well i am only a sophomore so hopefully next year</p>

<p>awww...you sound frazzled, I'm sure you'll be okay...just hope hope hope- you never know---</p>

<p>did they ask for your resume though..and what kind of technical questions/random stuff did they ask you...sounds kind of scary...~!</p>

<p>there weren't that many technical questions, although there were some such as the repo market, and i explained things to them such as cash and carry trade and stuff like that, although there were many different interviewers and another interviewer told me he didn't have any tech questions! so i guess it depends on who you get</p>

<p>woops!I don't even know what a repo market is---I'm really scared...I have mine today (friday) at four pm...</p>

<p>you forgot to answer, did you have dto hand them copies of your resume- gosh I feel so unprepared- I'm a sophomore too</p>

<p>did they ask you number questions...</p>

<p>like 38 * 29?</p>

<p>no they didnt ask for a resume... i brought a couple copies just in case, but the fact of the matter was once i walked in and sat down they started drilling me with questions so that i forgot to ask them about resumes and they didn't mention them either</p>

<p>no number questions for me</p>

<p>and if you don't know what a repo market is then i highly suggest you quickly go read up a vault guide... the repo is the biggest market that banks secure loans because the rate is a lot cheaper than the Fed Funds Rate...bascially what it is is collaterized loans... good luck</p>

<p>thanks so much- I'm readin it up right now-</p>

<p>hey guys!!!
just got back from my interview too. my experience was TOTALLY different from dpa's, which is actually typical like everyone has been telling me. I dunno why, I just had a NICE group of interviewers I guess. They were sooo friendly and supportive to me. They didn't ask me anything technical in finance, but loadz in accounting. Also, they didn't ask me that guesstimate question I've been prepping for for weeks >__<. I got out pretty quickly, I think my interview went for less than 20 minutes. First I thought it was a good sign, but now I'm little skeptical cuz it might mean they figured my incapability quickly enough that they decided to kick me out sooner than other candidates.</p>

<p>I DUNNO. Kinda worried now. But watever, it's over. Wish you guys BEST LUCK with your interviews. If you get it you sure deserve it. As dpa said, most candidates are Ivy + 2 smarties.</p>

<p>thats nice to hear yuki! congrats! lucky you too! hehe</p>

<p>anyone know when we're supposed to find out? i don't know why i still care but I just need that rejection so I can focus on applying to other internships as early as possible. Are they going to stick to the 1/23 deadline or let us know as early as next week?</p>

<p>hey dpa dun congrat me i think my chance is just like yrs. we poor things >___< </p>

<p>I talked to different SEO alum from previous years. Some got results on the 23rd, some as early as the 10th. I guess those kids that did best will get notification first.</p>

<p>omg! I had like th eworst interview experience ever---
so first of al I was stranded in boston on route to NY for like two days cos my plane wouldn't take off...so effectively, I hadn't slept for two days...on the day of my interview, my plane after delaying me for two days took ages (about two hours ) to land and so I was late for my interview! can u imagine?!</p>

<p>So I ended up being late for my interview by about twenty minutes and the interviewers had to call me on my way and ask me if I was still coming, which I thought was pretty sweet but then I felt so bad...gosh</p>

<p>and so I get there, typiclly frazzled and exhausted and trying m best to be professional and composed--</p>

<p>they asked me a question about what the dow closed at and I drew a complete blank...I'm not even kidding...a complete bank since I was overcome with exhaustion and I blurted out 1,700 and then 17,000 and the lady who was interviewing me jst like started freaking out and started yelling at me and then I said it ws because I hadn't slept in two days and that I don't eactly memorize the figures even though I follow it for my student group! crap!</p>

<p>and then I kept analyzing complete bs..and said high interest rates were gud for bonds and that at&t was a growth stock...oh crap!</p>

<p>They hated me...it was so depressing and I studied and planned so well for this int. and it went so poorly...I feel so awel! arrrgh!</p>

<p>I can definitely relate to everyone that's had bad in-person interviews so far, but I've been talking to SEO alums and they've been telling me that as long as you answered 90% of the questions correctly, no matter how frazzled you were while answering them, you should be cool. This is how mine went:</p>

<p>I got there at around 2:20pm for my interview @ 3:10pm. They had us all waiting in a conference room, and the group I was with was pretty cool - everyone was talking about how unprepared they felt, etc. There were copies of the WS Journal on the table. For those who haven't had their interviews as yet, ESPECIALLY for those doing IB, take my advice and READ THE JOURNAL! The first few questions they asked me were about the stock market, and thank God I had read it before I came, so I killed 4 out of 5 questions about it.</p>

<p>Things seemed to be going well, until they started cutting off my answers to ask me more questions. BTW, i had THREE INTERVIEWERS!!!!! Two is bad enough, but three is absolutely brutal, because they don't stop. They were all successful SEO alums and you cen tell they take pride in SEO and who they let into the program. Anyway, they moved on to a math question (31 x 29) which seems simple enough, but try to do it in 20 seconds with the guy talking all the way through and telling you that you can't use pen and paper. Then came a couple questions about past experiences, where they kept interrupting my answers to ask completely off-topic questions about my family and why I chose the college I went to. The case question/brainteaser was "how many soccer stadiums are there in the US", which I was somewhat prepared for, so it wasn't too bad.</p>

<p>They asked a couple more experience questions, then the "give me your 30 second sales pitch question". All in all, this was the most intense interview I've ever had in my life. As much as I prepared for it, somehow I wasn't prepared for the questions they had for me, as well as the whole 3-person spitfire question thing which definitely caught me off guard.</p>

<p>As long as you answer their questions without seeming TOO stressed, you should be cool. Good luck to everyone else.</p>