Overcome a weakness to achieve a personal or professional goal

Tell me about a time that you had to overcome a weakness to achieve a
personal or professional goal.
This is either an easier or more difficult adaptation of the standard “What is your greatest
weakness?” question, depending on your perspective. It’s a more difficult question for candidates
who are determined to whip out the overused “I’m a perfectionist” answer, thinking that
it’s the only weakness that investment bankers are willing to accept. Why is the question more
difficult for these candidates? Because this question almost forces honesty out of you. Even if
your greatest weakness really is your insistence on perfection, it would be pretty difficult to cite
an example of a situation in which this personality trait seriously threatened your ability to
achieve a goal. Why do we actually think this version of the question is a little bit more
candidate-friendly? Because you can be relatively honest about your vulnerabilities while
demonstrating that you’ve successfully overcome them in the past. When it comes down to it,
that’s the issue that self-awareness questions are intended to address. Investment banking
recruiters aren’t looking for perfect people, but they are looking for people who intend to work
hard and learn from their mistakes.
Bad Answers
Take your pick.
• I can’t function on fewer than 8 hours of sleep a night.
• I’m easily intimidated and I tend to take things too personally.
• I tend to resent it when people tell me what to do.
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• I don’t look great in black, navy, or gray.
• Anything else that is fundamentally incompatible with a career in investment
banking.
• Mediocre (but clichéd) answers that your interviewer may not believe
(whether they’re honest or not):
- I’m a perfectionist.
- I have trouble saying “no.”
- I have a tendency to overcommit to projects at the expense of my
relationships with friends and family.
Good Answer
Candidate: To be honest, I’d say that one thing I’ve really had to work on has
been managing my time without external deadlines.
We know what you’re thinking: bad time management? Isn’t time management pretty important
to the analyst or associate role? Hold your horses—this candidate does a good job of
giving a candid answer without making her interviewer break out in hives. Believe us: It can
be done!
Candidate: I’ve never had a problem managing time when I had a lot of specific
things to get done: I never missed deadlines in college, for example. I
never turned in papers or assignments late, and I always knew the course material
by the time I had to take an exam. I’ve actually always preferred working in
deadline-intensive environments. Particularly in college, though, I wasn’t very
disciplined about managing my time in advance of the deadline. I did a lot of
things at the last minute—always to a high standard, but always at the 11th
hour. Maybe I liked the adrenaline rush; I always did better under tight time
frames, so I became really bad about putting this off until the last minute.
Okay, so she’s basically saying that she’s a chronic procrastinator. She puts things off and
puts things off until she can’t put them off anymore, and then she panics at the end but get
things done to a high standard (which her 3.7 GPA substantiates). Could procrastination be
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a problem in investment banking? Absolutely! But here’s the truth of the matter: Any
weakness that you name could be a problem in banking, or in any job that you’ll have over
the course of your career. That’s not the point. The point is, do you know yourself well
enough to know what your weaknesses are, and have you thought about how they may affect
your ability to succeed in a given role?
Candidate: These bad time-management habits presented an interesting challenge
during my senior year in college when I decided I wanted to do a thesis
project. You don’t have to do a thesis at my university to earn your degree, but
you do have to write one if you want to participate in the department’s Distinguished
Majors Program. I really felt strongly about writing a thesis; I wanted to
develop a very specific area of expertise, and it was important to me to have a
tangible product at the end of my 4 years that I could have a real sense of
ownership over.
Lovely! A perfectly legitimate, well-defined goal with solid, credible motivations behind it.
Plus, she’s mentioned that the thesis project wasn’t a degree requirement, so she’s probably
scored extra points for choosing to do more work than she has to.
Candidate: I knew it was going to be difficult for me to organize my time
without any sort of real deadlines. The thesis counted for three credits, but
there were no classes, no midterms—nothing other than a deadline looming at
the end. Plus, it was my last semester in college—so there were a lot of
distractions to keep putting off my thesis work.
Interviewer: So how did you overcome your tendency to procrastinate?
Candidate: I know it sounds obvious, but the first thing I did was choose a
topic that really fascinated me. That definitely made time management a little
bit easier—I could choose the subject that I was researching and writing about,
so I usually looked forward to working on it. If it had been a project that I
didn’t feel so strongly about, it definitely would have been harder.
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Aside from that, I basically created deadlines for myself, even though no one
else was creating them for me. At the beginning, I set a schedule that laid out
exactly what I had to accomplish each week. That was an accomplishment in
and of itself. I had never taken the time to organize a work schedule for myself
before—I’m generally too impatient to take that much time planning in advance,
so I usually just dive right in without always having a clear idea of where I’m
going. I gave a copy of the schedule to my thesis advisor, and I requested
biweekly meetings with him. Even though these meetings weren’t required, I
knew that they would keep me on track. My thesis advisor was a professor that
I really respected, and I would have never wanted to waste his time by coming
to a meeting with him unprepared.
This candidate proves that you don’t have to defer to the hackneyed “I’m a perfectionist”
response to create and sustain a favorable picture of yourself. She’s candid about her biggest
weaknesses, but her answer demonstrates that it’s a surmountable one; she anticipated that she
might have a problem managing her time from the outset, so she took active steps to ensure
that she stayed on track.
Candidate: Finally, I set myself up for success by removing distractions wherever
I could. I always used to write papers and study at home, but I knew I’d
have a harder time being disciplined if I had to deal with all of the distractions
at home. I worked at the law school library instead, where I wasn’t as likely to
run into people that I’d want to sit and catch up with. I worked on the thesis at
the same time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—just as though it were a
class—so that I’d treat it like any other commitment that I couldn’t just skip or
put off. I’ll admit it was a difficult transition to make. There were definitely
weeks that I started to get behind on the schedule, but creating a detailed,
written schedule for myself really helped. It was so much easier for me than it
was for classmates who ended up cramming all of the work into those last 5 or
6 weeks. Now, I’m considerably better about time management because I’ve
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learned what a huge difference it makes. It’s worth the extra time it takes in the
beginning to know you’re not going to have a heart attack at the end.

Example of Interview Questions

Remember the rules for self-awareness questions:
1. Predict, prepare, and practice.
2. Be honest, but emphasize the positive.
3. Keep your audience in mind.
As you prepare for self-awareness questions, ask yourself the following:
• What were the motivations and decision-making processes behind each of
the experiences summarized on my resume?
• What personal qualities do I possess that would make me a particularly
strong candidate for an investment banking analyst or associate role?
• How would other people (friends, colleagues, classmates) describe me?
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• What are my personal and professional weaknesses, limitations, and
vulnerabilities, and how might they impede my success in an investment
banking role?
• What have been my most significant failures and mistakes? What have I
learned from each of them, and how have I applied these lessons to other
endeavors?
Question 1
Why did you choose ABC University (or XYZ Business School)?
Question 2
I see that before business school, you worked at Fix My Business
Consulting for 3 years. Since consulting firms are so focused on
developing their analysts and associates, I’m sure you participated in a
fair number of performance reviews during your tenure. What did your
last performance review say?
Question 3
Tell me about a time that you had to overcome a weakness to achieve a
personal or professional goal.
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Capacity Questions
Remember the rules for capacity questions:
1. Be prepared for confrontation.
2. Imply—but don’t state directly—that your previous achievements prove
that you’re highly capable of doing the work.
3. Remember that capacity refers to more than just intellectual horsepower.
As you prepare for capacity questions, think of specific instances in which you
have demonstrated the following characteristics:
• Exceptionally high performance standards
• Considerable intellectual curiosity, quantitative aptitude, and analytical ability
• Willingness to work extraordinarily long (and often unpredictable) hours
• Willingness to do unglamorous and tedious grunt work
• Abilities to learn quickly and work efficiently
• Consistent attention to details, even under significant time constraints
• Ability to stay calm and productive under pressure
• Capacity for juggling several complex projects (at various stages of
development) simultaneously
Question 4
Of the academic and work experiences listed on your resume, I wondered
if you could discuss the role that required the most juggling or
multitasking of complex projects?
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Question 5
Describe a time when something that you worked on—whether in an
academic, extracurricular, or professional setting—required considerable
personal sacrifice. How did you stay motivated to achieve your goal
despite the sacrifices it required?
Interpersonal Aptitude
Questions
Remember the rules for interpersonal aptitude questions:
1. Where possible, highlight the team-based components of the pursuits
listed on your resume.
2. No bragging, blabbering, or bluffing.
3. Get comfortable, but not too comfortable.
As you prepare for interpersonal questions, think of specific anecdotes or
experiences that will help your interviewer assess the following:
• Whether you are extroverted, social, affable, and likely to thrive in a dynamic,
team-based environment
• Whether you are likely to be a consistently positive contributor to the teams,
especially in high-pressure, time-sensitive situations
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• Whether your communication skills will inspire confidence among colleagues
and clients (this includes both effective speaking and active listening)
• Whether you take direction and criticism well, that is, without taking things
personally and creating conflict (i.e., whether you have a “thick skin”)
• Whether you can successfully navigate intraoffice personality conflicts
(especially avoiding them in the first place!)
• Your ability to manage difficult and demanding personalities effectively,
particularly when faced with competing priorities from different deal teams
Question 6
Have you ever had to work with someone that you didn’t particularly like
or get along with? How did you overcome personality differences to get
your job done?
Question 7
I noticed that here at Stanford Business School, you currently serve as
the co-president of the student association. I wondered if you could
describe your role in this group, focusing on the people management
(rather than the project management) component of your job. If I spent
some time here on campus and spoke to the students who worked with
you in this organization, what would they say that they liked (and
perhaps disliked) about working with you? Do you think that you were
an effective manager?
Question 8
Have you ever worked on a team that didn’t achieve its objectives? Why
do you think the team wasn’t effective?
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Commitment Questions
Remember the rules for commitment questions:
1. Know exactly why you want to be an investment banker.
2. Examine your resume and transcript for anything your interviewer might
perceive as a gap or inconsistency.
3. Remember that investment banks love to be loved, just like the rest of us.
As you prepare for commitment questions, make sure you’ve given some
thought to the following questions:
• Why am I pursuing a job in this industry; specifically, why am I pursuing a
job at this firm, in this specific function?
• How will I walk my interviewer through my resume in a way that suggests a
logical progression to a career in investment banking?
• Are my reasons for pursuing the analyst/associate track thoughtful and
credible?
• How will this job advance my own personal and professional goals?
• Can I provide a realistic outline of the roles and responsibilities of an
analyst/associate? What does an analyst/associate do every day? What is
appealing to me about assuming those responsibilities?
• Do I understand the extent to which the profession requires personal
sacrifice? How can I convince my interviewer that I have thought this
through?
• If I secure an offer at this particular bank, will I accept it? Why? What makes
an offer from this bank more appealing than an offer from another?
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Question 9
Describe what you think the role of an investment bank is.
Question 10
Why do you want to be an investment banker? Explain how you arrived
at the decision to pursue an analyst position in investment banking.
Question 11
So I know why you want to be a banker, but why here specifically? I
mean, if we at ABC Bank give you an offer, are you going to accept it
over your other offers?
Question 12
Aside from the hours, what do you think you’ll like the least about
investment banking?
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Technical Questions
Remember the rules for technical questions:
1. Keep your answers short and sweet.
2. Think concepts, not formulas.
3. If you don’t know, then just say that you don’t know.
As you prepare for technical questions, keep the following things in mind:
• For finance, accounting, and economics majors: What was the most
complex or difficult concept you encountered in your quantitative studies?
Would you be able to explain this concept to your grandmother so that she
would understand it (or at least so that she wouldn’t lapse into a coma)?
• For nonquantitative majors: Can you use your common sense, analytical
reasoning, and business intuition to walk through a case-style interview
question on valuation? If faced with a technical question regarding valuation,
what top-line concepts will you draw on to craft an effective answer?
• For MBA candidates with banking experience: Do you know the deals
cited on your resume inside and out? Can you answer detailed questions
about the financial projections, transaction structure, and valuation behind
each transaction?
• For MBA candidates without banking experience: Have you reviewed
your graduate-level finance and accounting courses so that you know the
material cold? Can you demonstrate a strong enough foundation from these
classes to hit the ground running as an associate?
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Question 13
If you had $10,000 to invest—but you had to invest the money in a single
common stock—which company’s stock would you choose, and why?
Question 14
I see on your resume that you worked on the acquisition of Company B
by Company A. I wondered if you could tell how the buyer arrived at a
value for the seller, and tell us whether you think it was a good deal.
Question 15
So far, we’ve talked a lot about multiples: You’ve mentioned EBITDA
multiples in your discussion of the analysis you did at Morgan Stanley,
you’ve talked about P/E multiples in your analysis of a common stock. I
wondered if you could tell me what a multiple really is—to say that a
company is trading at “eight times.” How would I make sense of that?
How is that meaningful to you? What does it tell you about the
company?
Question 16
If I asked you to tell me what a skyscraper in Manhattan was worth—
let’s say the one we’re sitting in right now—how would you go about
valuing that skyscraper?

Dos and Don’ts in an Interview

Don’t Ramble
If you do, you’re considerably more likely to lose your way—and more likely to
exhaust your interviewer in the process! One insider recalled his very first Super
Saturday interview with two senior vice presidents of Goldman Sachs’ M&A
group. After the 30-minute interview was over, one of the bankers followed the
candidate out of the interview room, closed the door behind her, and said,
“Listen, you’re going to do great here. But in your next few interviews, you have
got to be more concise!” This candidate only needed to hear this well-intentioned
advice once: He took a less-is-more approach in subsequent interviews, secured
an offer, and spent his next 3 years as a Goldman analyst. Remember, it’s easier
for a recruiter to ask follow-up questions than it is for her to rein you back in
after you’ve gone off on a tangent.
Learn How to Read Your Interviewer
Along similar lines, some interviews find long-winded answers particularly
repugnant, while others may as well have a therapist’s couch in their office for
you to lie on during the interview (the former group is far more prevalent than
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Interview Roadmap
the latter, however). Some are more intense, while others treat the interview as
a relaxed, get-to-know-you session. The more promptly you can pick up on
your interviewer’s particular style, the better off you’ll be.
Don’t Ever Bad-Mouth a Previous Employer or Colleague
In fact, you should be wary of sounding even the slightest bit sour on your
previous work experiences. Not only would doing so suggest that you’re generally
negative and cynical, but it would not go over well at all with notoriously imageconscious
investment bankers. If you use the interview as an opportunity to vent
about a previous employer, your interviewer will wonder how you’ll talk about
this company when you’re given the opportunity at an interview, a cocktail party,
or in the dentist’s office for that matter.
Recruiters know that it’s a small world, and the last thing they need is a former
employee griping about their beloved firm.
Keep an Interview Journal
It doesn’t have to be a glossy leather cover embossed with your initials, and you
don’t even have to keep it on your bedside table. Our point is this: If a question
comes up once, it’s quite likely it will come up again. Particularly if you feel you
haven’t answered a question effectively, take a minute or two after the interview
to jot down the question and outline what you would say if given a second
chance. You’ll be glad you did when you hear the same question again in subsequent
rounds.
Answer the Question Asked
We know it sounds obvious, but it’s easier said than done (particularly if you’re
a rambler). If you’re really set on a banking career, chances are you’ll have more
interviews than you’d care to remember. Some candidates get so accustomed to
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Interview Roadmap
fielding questions, they become robotic: They hear a few key words, and they’re
off on their unintentionally well-rehearsed spiel. Interviews will indeed begin to
sound the same, but don’t forget to listen to the question!
Think in Bullet Points and Key Takeaways
Not only will this type of thinking in your interview preparation stages keep
you focused and concise, but framing your responses this way in the actual
interview will endear you to your investment banker-turned-recruiter. Bankers
love bullet points and key takeaways: If you can speak their language, they’ll see
you as one of their own!
Don’t Lie, Embellish, or Exaggerate
Remember what your mama said: When you tell one lie, you have to tell five
more lies to cover up the first one. For each of those lies, you have to tell five
more, and so on. Mom was right about this one; it’s hard enough to keep your
stories straight through countless rounds of two-on-one interviews when you’re
actually telling the truth, so don’t make it harder on yourself. Plus, Wall Street is
a small town. Analysts at one bank are often roommates with analysts at
another. Word gets around, and the truth almost always prevails in the end.
Don’t tempt fate.
Act Happy and Excited to Be There
We know that interviews are inherently stressful, but interviewers simply won’t
rally behind a candidate who seems uncontrollably nervous or just plain
miserable. Keep reminding yourself that interviews are fun—when else do you
have the opportunity do talk about yourself for 30 minutes straight?

What Are Interviewers Seeking?

Similar to their counterparts in virtually every other industry, investment banking
interviewers can take an interview in a number of directions depending on the
candidate’s unique background, his or her own style, personality, and (often
times) mood on the particular day. Nonetheless, seasoned interviewers (often
senior bankers or recruiters who have watched generations of junior bankers
come and go) mention the same “critical success factors” over and over again.
Not surprisingly, demonstrated excellence in one area can often compensate for
apparent gaps or deficiencies in others. For example, if your resume, transcript,
and work experience suggest that you’ve never met a number you didn’t like,
you can expect your interviewer to place less emphasis on your quantitative
ability in the interview. Also keep in mind that certain firms, groups, and
individual interviewers assign greater relative importance to some attributes
than others.
However your interviewers choose to slice and dice them, these are the qualities
they’re looking for:
• Interest in (and commitment to) investment banking
• Intelligence
• Energy
• Exceptional stamina and drive
• Quantitative/analytical ability
• Interest in financial markets
• Enthusiasm
• Poise
• Attention to detail
• Humility
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Interview Roadmap
• Self-awareness
• Judgment
• Maturity
• Multitasking ability
• Can-do attitude
• Resilience
• Confidence
• Teamworking ability
• Interpersonal skills
• Cultural fit with firm/group
The Shortest Distance?
If the list of attributes above seems like a lot to remember as you try to navigate
your way through EBITDA and DCFs (all the while minding your Ps and
Qs), take heart. We’re not suggesting that you try to convince your interviewer
that you possess all of these qualities in the course of a 30-minute interview.
Your task is much more straightforward: Regardless of the way these characteristics
add up in each candidate, all recruiters are looking for three basic things
when they interview you:
• Whether you’re capable of doing the work
• Whether you really want to do the work
• Whether they think your prospective colleagues would enjoy working with you
As a general rule, the early rounds of interviews will focus on the first two
questions, while later rounds will devote proportionally more time to answering
the third. Through our conversations with recruiters and recently hired insiders
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Interview Roadmap
alike, we’ve identified five primary categories of question on which interviewers
rely to make these assessments:
1. Self-awareness questions
2. Capacity questions
3. Interpersonal aptitude questions
4. Commitment questions
5. Technical questions
Our insiders report that interviewers typically have a top-ten list (or, perhaps
more realistically, a top-three or -four list) of all-time favorites in each of the
categories listed above. We’ve compiled those favorites into a master list for
each of the five categories. But we haven’t stopped there. In each of the five
sections, we’ll also tell you what these types of questions really tell your
interviewer about you, and (in case you were wondering) how on earth they
relate to your ability to succeed on the job.
In addition to the specific attributes that these questions are intended to assess,
recruiters will be on the lookout for evidence of other qualities—otherwise
known as intangibles—throughout the entire interview. For example, do your
eyes light up with enthusiasm when you talk about discounted cash flow? Do
your answers sound heartfelt and impassioned, or is it blatantly obvious that
you’ve answered these questions hundreds of times and could probably recite
them in your sleep? Are you comfortable and self-assured talking about your
background and accomplishments, or does self-confidence quickly disintegrate
into self-consciousness as soon as you step into the interview room? Interviewers
don’t measure these intangibles through specific questions, but rather
through their well-honed intuition. Whether they admit it or not (or whether
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they’re conscious of it or not), recruiters subject you to two “tests” as you
navigate the interview:
The CEO Test
As we’ll discuss later, recruiters quickly dismiss candidates who assume that
they’ll be advising CEOs on their first day of the job or who cite CEO
interaction as the primary reason for pursuing a banking career. Nonetheless,
associate candidates will ultimately be expected to build strong relationships
with their clients, and even junior bankers are highly likely to interact closely
with the CEO or CFO of one or more clients over the course of their 2- or 3-
year analyst tenure. As such, your interviewer will want to ensure that you
wouldn’t embarrass the team or tarnish the firm’s good name if you had the
opportunity to interact with a client’s senior executives. As you answer each of
his questions, the recruiter will be looking for evidence of maturity, credibility,
judgment, tact, and diplomacy. Of course, he’ll also be assessing whether your
presentation style is polished, the extent to which you are both articulate and
thoughtful, and whether you mind your manners and observe the rules
governing interview etiquette.
The Cubicle Test
If you’ve done a fair bit of research before picking up this guide, we probably
don’t need to elaborate on this one. As we described in Beat the Street, every firm
has its own version of the Could I Get Along With This Person? test. Our
counterparts in the world of management consulting, for example, refer to this
as the “airplane test.” It goes something like this: If your interviewer were
seated next to you on an airplane for hours on end, what would happen by the
time you reached your destination? Would your interviewer want to adopt you,
or enroll in a witness protection program to avoid you? In the investment
banking ranks, the confined space in which you’re more likely (in fact, certain)
to find yourself is the cubicle, but the underlying principle remains the same.
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Even if you convince the interviewer that you possess every other attribute
critical to success at his firm, you probably won’t secure an offer if prospective
colleagues can’t imagine that they’d enjoy working with you. Investment bankers
know all too well that their colleagues—to a greater extent than deal flow,
exposure to senior management, or their firm’s “brand name”—will drive their
experience at the firm. Because of this, your interviewer will be on the lookout
for humility, generosity, approachability, friendliness, and a well-developed sense
of humor. Would you be an entertaining and sympathetic office-mate for 100-
plus hours per week? If the analyst in an adjacent cubicle broke down at 3 a.m.,
just as you were packing up to go home, what would you do? Would you stay
the extra 2 hours to help him out, even if it means sacrificing precious sleep? A
strong team orientation (and a generally positive attitude) is of critical importance
in banking, and recruiters have a sixth sense for detecting it during
interviews.