Mullyman Wrote:
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> Find out anymore info on the interviewing process?
Hey sorry for the long silence, but I wanted to finish the entire process before posting again and telling you all about it. So here goes.
On Sat the 13th I was woken up by a phone call which I did not make in time. It went to voice mail, with a message from a really nice sounding lady from Bloomberg asking me to give her a ring. Still very groggy I called her back and instead of inviting me for an in interview, as I was expecting, she launched right into a telephone interview. Luckily the questions were pretty easy. About an hour later I got an invite to a recruitment event on Wednesday the 17th.
Twenty of us attended the event, which included a tour, a q&a session and job shadowing, followed by an interview. All Bloomberg interviews are competency based (use the STAR method for all answers and you will be fine) and will, for this role, be conducted by two people of similar seniority, one from sales and one from analytics. This interview was relatively basic and focused on what I knew about the company and its products. During more open questions I discussed opportunities around the maemo operating system as well as the situation in Greece.
Early the next morning I received an invite the next interview on Monday the 22nd. The interview followed a similar process, with the exception that all candidates came at separate times, so no indication of who made it through to that stage. The two people conducting the interview were a bit more senior and seemed to cover aspects of my CV that were skipped in the previous round. Questions again focused on Bloomberg’s products and services, while finance questions related to the impact of future Tory and Labour policies. I was also asked to sell the terminal to client considering using a specific competitor (not one of the big names). Lastly we discussed growth prospects and a potential regional marketing opportunity.
By the next morning I received an invite for the final interview which was on Thursday the 27th. This was the big one as it was with the head of analytics for EMEA and a senior sales manager. It was also the shortest of all the interviews and the one in which the questions were the most challenging. That being said, I did really well since I had quite a few prepped answers ready and did not fall foul of any questions. Technical questions were on CDO’s and bonds, I also got a question on mobile technology and a scenario based sales question. On the last one I took a risk and rephrased the scenario to make it more challenging, which they loved, and then proceed to make the sale.
I got the job offer 6 minutes after I walked out the front door.
Just some general pointers, really know your own CV and prepare for questions relating to any part of it. This might seem like a no brainer but every interviewer had at least one left field question. For instance, I was asked to teach one interviewer the fundamentals of my hobby using just three points of interest. Also prepare at least 2 questions for each interviewer and don’t ask obvious stuff, rather ask pertinent but challenging questions, that reflects well. That being said, everyone likes to talk about themselves, so some personal questions might also score brownie points.
I also had a chat with somebody in HR and found out that of the 20 who made it through to the requirement event, 4 finally got offers.
And that concludes the longest post I have ever made on any forum and I have made it while I am at the pub!
