UBS Analyst Interview Questions and Answers

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Supportive interviewers made me very comfortable

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Show good interest in learning new things

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - There were two technical rounds and it was of 30 - 40 mins long and interviewer was friendly and made me confortable with them.

Round: Group Discussion
Duration: 20 minutes

College Name: IIT Kanpur

Round: Test
Experience: A written test for 2 hours. Around 15 were selected for the interviews. Eligibility to write the test was initially 8+ CGPA and was open for EC, CS, EE and IT. It consisted of Multiple choice questions on C-aptitude and General aptitude; a subjective type section that had riddles and some easy questions, another bonus section that had a real life problem (we had an easy question on Server topology that required some analysis on resources, latency and reliability).

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Warm-up questions on concepts like constructors and destructors, keywords like static, extern; difference between function overloading and function overriding etc etc. Then, little harder 2 - 3 questions on Binary trees and Maximum sub-array problem with optimal solution (divide and conquer). Resume walk through: I was asked to explain on Neural Networks and SVM as I had done quite a no. of projects on the same. They also asked me some questions on Astrophysics since I had said Astronomy is my hobby.

Round: MANAGERIAL ROUND
Experience: In this round they had given me specifications of a project and asked me how would I go about it. Decision making abilities are also checked by giving various hypothetical situations. They asked me in very detail about my internship as it was on Parallel Processing.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: HR was super friendly after which final results announced.

General Tips: If you have attended previous interviews or tests and not selected for the job, try to see where you went wrong and learn from your mistakes. I didn't do any explicit preparation for the tests or the interviews (which I think I should have). Do your homework after a test/interview if it went badly. My previous half a dozen interviews helped me crack this one. When facing the interviewer, carry a notebook, pen and a copy of your resume. When you do not know an answer, the interviewer might explain the solution or just ask you to refer a book. Take a note of this in your notebook. This will show your interest to learn things and how organized you are and also will help you do your homework for the next interview.
The panel that had come for us were extremely friendly. In the interviews, they let us complete our answers and were very patient unlike many other interviews.
Interviews are not so challenging. Know every single point written on your resume. Knowing something on Data Analysis, Machine Learning helps. Strong understanding of Object Oriented Programming is a must. Wear business formals for the tests and interviews (as the students writing the test are shortlisted based on GPA, they expected us to wear Business formals during the PPT and tests), preferably also a tie. Show interest in their company and keep smiling and stay positive.
Skill Tips: For all the Analyst positions in finance companies, a strong understanding of OOP concepts is required. Puzzles : gurmeet.net/puzzles/ This is by far the best collection of puzzles (with solutions) I have come across; and many questions in my previous interviews and test were asked from this list.
C-aptitude and aptitude practice was from the previous tests given for other companies.
Skills:
College Name: NIT Surathkal

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: Overall strength of the profile was assessed. Not much emphasis was put on CPI.
Tips: Having an experience in finance is a plus.

Round: Stress Interview
Experience: Lot of questions were asked on resume, work done in general, questions on answers I was giving.
Tips: I don't think any specific preparation can be done for this kind of interview. Being confident about your answer is the only way to crack this kind of interview. Questions as varied as 'Why Steve Jobs is cooler than Bill Gates' or 'What's the capital of Uganda' were asked, because my profile/answer had such references.
Don't bullshit, don't tremble and you will good to go!

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Since we are from Technical institute and not a finance institute, interviewers didn't expect much from us. Through questions, they were judging our motivation towards work. Questions like why finance, why Credit Suisse etc. were asked to see general motivation levels towards finance.

College Name: IIT BOMBAY

Round: Puzzle Interview
Tips: Prepare for questions on your resume, puzzles and a couple of HR questions.

Round: Puzzle Interview
Experience: A few resume based questions were asked too.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: They tried to judge how well the candidate would fit in with their company.

General Tips: Focus on the few companies that you want to get into, and prepare well for them. 
Do not give way to peer influence. Do what you want to, even if it is not the most sought after.
College Name: IIT KANPUR

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: My strong resume aided in getting shortlisted for Credit Suisse.

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: The GD went well as I did not haste into my chance and was calm throughout.

Round: Other Interview
Experience: The interview was with an alumni who told me that my GD performance was good, and asked me a puzzle. It was followed by some questions on my resume, mainly my internship.
Another puzzle followed, which I took some time to solve. I was able to solve the next one instantly,
Then I was asked to sell a crumbled piece of paper innovatively.

Round: Other Interview
Experience: This round was with a senior member in the company who asked about my resume, stay in campus, post of election officer and some tricky questions, which I answered well. A question on probability was asked. A few more puzzles followed, along with some questions on finance. He also mentioned that he did not expect me to answer these as I had no background in finance. But i was able to answer them.
I was then asked to leave and HR was called inside. I also had an interview with Diamond. The HR came to me and told me that they were interested in and asked me to stall my interview with diamond for a while.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: It was with VP and continued for 45 minutes with no puzzles, finances or cases. It was more of a discussion on all fields ranging from campus life to UP politics to Sachin's retirement, etc.
I was asked about my internship experience and the reason i wanted to join their company .

Round: HR Interview
Experience: It was with the Director, who said that he had a sore throat and hence would not say much. he said that they wanted to hire me and that I do not interview with any other firm. I was more than glad! I was the first person to bag an offer in the placement season.

College Name: IIT KANPUR

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: They didn't had any aptitude test, only resume based short-listing.

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: There were 10-15 students. There was 3 mins thinking time and 10 minutes discussion time. After the discussion each student was asked to conclude the GD and express his/her viewpoint.
Tips: 1. Jot down your point during the three minutes. 
2. During the GD make sure that you express your opinion coherently. 
3. Also make short notes during the GD which will be helpful in concluding it. 
4. While concluding the GD, ensure that you cover all the points discussed during the GD (notes will be helpful here) and in the end express your own stand.
Duration: 10-15 minutes

Round: HR Interview
Experience: It was a HR + Puzzle round. Panel was of Some junior management and the duration was of 30-40 minutes. By the end of this round, they were quite impressed and sent me for the second interview immediately.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: This round was based on Current Affairs and Finance and lasted for 20 minutes. And, I asked them a few questions about CS and job cutting etc. After this interview they had mentioned that they were quite positive on me and that I had to just interview with one more senior manager. This really boosted my confidence.

Round: Other Interview
Experience: It was also based on finance and current affairs. Panel consisted of the Senior most employee who had come for recruitment. After this round I was informally offered the job.

General Tips: 1. Even when you are unable to answer questions, don’t get bogged down or disheartened remain calm. DB quite often takes stress interview. Just keep your cool and smile while answering questions. 
2. If you do not know any answer, there is no harm is admitting that.
3. Be confident. Know your resume inside out. 
4. Practice a few HR interviews before the actual one. 
5. Also, communication skills in English are very important.
Skills: Probability and Statistics, Basic Finance, Puzzles, Newspaper and current affairs, Major events in the financial world over the past 5-6 years
College Name: IIT KANPUR

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: The company followed a resume based shortlisting and as far as I remember, the criteria they followed was to shortlist everybody with a CPI of > 8.5 . Also, they had shortlisted some candidates based on any background in finance (intern/projects). Many Maths and Economics students were shortlisted for this reason. (This was their first time in IIT Kanpur. So, I won’t be surprised if they vary their shortlisting methods).

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: 1. There were 14 people in total and 5 were selected from my group.
2. Evident from the number 14, the size of the discussion was too huge. It was going too haywire and some really good ELS people were a part of the discussion.
3. The only reason I got selected was maybe because I was the only person who was stating points in favor of Capital Punishment whereas everyone else was against it or maybe because of my resume.
(A thing to point out is that there were only 2 GDs and many people were stuck in some other companies. So, later many shortlisted people (who missed the GD) approached the Credit Suisse HR with the resumes, and were allowed to appear for the interviews.)
Duration: 10 minutes

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: 1. Panel was of 2 Senior managers from Prime Services, Mumbai and lasted for 25 minutes.
2. It was my first proper finance interview of the day, and was a bit nervous. Entered the room, was greeted by 2 young people who introduced themselves and started with ‘Is Kanpur always so cold ? ’. They made me comfortable by asking about the campus and stuff, and then asked me to introduce myself.
3. At the end of the description, I was asked about Antaragni, how big it is and where it stands next to Moodi (they were IITB alums you see).
4. Then they asked me to describe my work at Morgan Stanley in detail. The good thing was that one of them was from Credits (deals with credit instruments – CDS, Bonds), which was exactly my group in MS. So, I could easily get into the technicalities of my paper, and they really seemed impressed and asked more and more.
5. This went on for around 15 minutes. After this one saw one of them whispering in the other person’s ear (and I understood that they are strongly in for me ).
6. I was asked which companies I was interviewing with and what my preference was, and I seemed to convince them about my interest in Credit Suisse citing it was the second company I was interviewing with in the day :P.
7. Finally they asked me if I have any knowledge in finance, which was an obvious yes, they asked me to draw the payoff curves of a Call Option and Put Option (which was cakewalk for anybody who has read the first few chapters of Hull).
8. I was then asked a few simple questions on arbitrage opportunities in Futures and Options, which I successfully answered.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: 1. The panel was of 1 Manager from London office, 1 equities lady and 1 Head from Mumbai and lasted for 45 minutes.
2. Before entering, the HR seemed pissed off with me because I told them earlier that I would be back around 9.30 A.M. Citing several lame excuses like the companies did not let me go and pleading guilty, I entered the room.
3. Was greeted by three people who sat far apart, and they asked me to introduce myself. I started, was confused whom to look at (remember they were far apart :p), and started about myself.
4. They asked me about my internship at Morgan Stanley, was asked about my paper, but they didn’t want me to get into technical details.
5. After a brief description, suddenly the person from London started firing puzzles at me.
6. Then the lady asked me to estimate the number of street lamps in Kanpur. I started with the road length and some other statistics of Kanpur and classifies the roads based on : highways/main roads/lane roads and dusty roads, and assumed street lamps at different intervals for all of them, and then satisfactorily came to a result.
7. They guided me all through, whenever I asked them if this assumption was right or not. Then when I thought the interview had ended, the London guy through a peace of folded paper at me and told that I was a marketing person, and was supposed to sell this to them. (I thought where had I landed into :P ) .
8. I started off telling that the paper was special and had no creases on them, in-spite of how much you fold them. I was asked to think of something more innovative, and then I told them that the paper could be recycled over and over again and it was something that a pulp manufacturing company in U.S. had patented, and I had brought it specially for them.
9. After a bit more persuasions, this seemed conclusive and they moved on.
10. I was then asked to make a choice between Credit Suisse and DB then and there. (They somehow had come to know that I already had an offer from DB ).
11. I tried convincing them on why I wanted to join Credit Suisse, making an emphasis on their campus ppt, which was easily the best after the Goldman Sachs one. The discussion went on into different aspects from why I chose IITK over IITB and then if I had an offer from the top 5 Wall Street Banks, which one would I choose.

General Tips: I have watched this year’s placement process very closely and would like to point out a few things to the readers, which are very important.
1. Be Realistic : This is perhaps one of the most important factors in the placements. I have seen so many people expect so much from them and when they don’t get shortlisted somewhere, it’s the end of the world for them. You must understand that there are certain limitations on you because of your CV till date (however intellectual or Bakait you might me). The key to this is be realistic, like Being a person from MME or BSBE, its actually difficult for you to crack a quant firm like Goldman/Morgan because of your curriculum here (however good you might be at Algos or Maths), the good thing is to accept it. Not having tremendous peaks in your resume will in not place you among the 20 shortlisted in BCG for instance. So, on a very serious note, everyone knows inside out what he/she is capable of, so please be realistic in your ambitions and try to excel in the options you have. Believe me, the goals may not be sky-high, but definitely are achievable.
2. Resume : Over the years, all the firms tell us that IITB/D resumes are well made than IITK ones. Get some of the resumes from your friends over there, ask some of your IITK seniors for their resume, SPO is always there to help you out. But Please denote at least 2 weeks in preparing your master resume and sub-resumes for every company.
3. PPTs : Try and attend the PPTs of the companies. You can actually get to know a lot about the work culture there and what is expected of you in your initial years. It will help you decide if this is actually the thing for you or not.
4. Don’t Speculate : During October-Nov. , most of the students actually waste a lot of efforts in just speculating ‘Yaar yeh company toh ise le hi legi’. Believe me , it happens a lot, confuses you and wastes a lot of your time (especially if you are a 4 Year student.)
5. DPC : Please form a good DPC at least for your own sake. Yes maybe the post might not be of value, but a hard working student can make a lot of difference to his department placements. You cannot expect the OPCs to call in every company of your department.
College Name: IIT KANPUR