Tulane University Freeman School BLOG

I came across this list from one of the various job sites (erecruiting, vault, etc.) that I subscribe to. 100 interview questions that seemed to get asked a lot.

You can read all 100 below or download the list here (rtf) or here (pdf)

100 Potential Interview Questions (no particular order)
1. Tell me about yourself.
2. Tell me a joke. (Make sure it is clean)
3. Why sales & trading?
4. Why are you passionate about the markets?
5. What is the square root of .1?
6. If we gave you the offer right now, what would you say?
7. Why this firm?
8. What other firms are you interested in?
9. Who is our CEO/Chairman? What is our market cap? What is our stock price?
10. Equity or fixed income?
11. Why should we hire you over the other 100 candidates we are going to interview this year?
12. Who do you know at this firm?
13. Sales or trading?
14. What makes a good sales person?
15. What makes a good trader?
16. Name 3 sectors that you are long.
17. Name 3 sectors you are short.
18. Name a stock in each sector in the two questions above.
19. Give me 3 stocks you are long.
20. Give me 2 stocks you are short.
21. Why business school?
22. Why Stern?
23. What’s your favorite class? Teach me something from that class. What was your grade in that class?
24. Do you like Stern? What do you like/dislike?
25. Where are the S&P 500, DMA, and NASDAQ? What are the percent increase/decrease YTD? Last 12 months. Last 3 years.
26. Same questions as #25 for FTSE and NIKKEI.
27. How do you stay up to date with the markets?
28. Name 3 things you read in the paper today and tell me why they are important to the markets.
29. If you could have dinner with anyone dead or alive, who would it be?
30. What is libor? What is libor’s current level?
31. What is spot? What is a forward rate?
32. Draw today’s yield curve: 3m, 6m, 2yr, 3yr, 5yr, 10yr, 30yr.
33. Describe yourself.
34. How would a friend describe? How would you boss describe?
35. What kind of manager do you like?
36. How do you work in teams?
37. Describe a time when you worked successfully in a team.
38. Describe a time when you worked successfully as a leader.
39. Name 3 traits to describe yourself.
40. Name 3 strengths.
41. Name 3 weaknesses.
42. Why wouldn’t we hire you?
43. If I gave you 1 million dollars, how would you invest it?
44. What’s the-safest possible investment in today’s markets?
45. What role does the housing market play in the economy?
46. Where is the economy going? Why?
47. What was the most recent unemployment, consumer confidence number, housing starts, personal spending etc. etc. number? (know all recent economic data points)
48. What do these data points mean for the economy?
49. Based on this, where would you invest? (do your recommendations for stocks and sectors etc. jive with your assessment of the economy?)
50. Name a fixed income product you would recommend me buying.
51. What factors control currency exchange rates?
52. What is duration? What is the duration formula? How does it work?
53. What is Black-Scholes? What are the main components of B-S?
54. What is 13/16?
55. Here are three sectors (Paper, Defense, Tobacco, Technology, Software, Healthcare, it could be anything). Are you long or short and why?
56. What is the biggest risk you’ve ever taken?
57. What’s your biggest failure?
58. What’s the most important thing to you?
59. How has b school changed your life?
60. What is the yield curve?
61. What motivates you?
62. What is your least favorite class?
63. What’s your biggest accomplishment?
64. Give me an example of something quantitative you’ve done in the past.
65. If you haven’t done an informational here, why not?
66. What do you think the FED will do at the next meeting and why?
67. What did the FED do at the last meeting?
68. Do you agree with the FED’s actions?
69. How can the government influence the economy?
70. If you couldn’t do sales & trading, what would you do?
71. Name the best party you’ve ever been to.
72. If you had a day to do anything you like, what would you do?
73. Where do you see the S&P 500, DJIA etc. in the next year? Why?
74. If interest rates drop 20 basis points, how much does a zero coupon 2yr bond’s increase/decrease?
75. What makes you unique?
76. What do you think of affirmative action?
77. What do you think of the president?
78. What is the price of oil, natural gas or gold?
79. Walk me through your resume.
80. Why did you change jobs from abc to xyz?
81. What’s your favorite sport?
82. What interests you outside of work?
83. Tell me what a trader does.
84. What is the dow jones industrial average? How does it work?
85. Tell me something you’ve quit.
86. How do you value a company?
87. What ratios do you use when valuing a company?
88. When you look at a company’s financials, what do you look at first, second, third and why?
89. Name a time when you’ve sold something.
90. What are your short/long term goals?
91. Have you ever dealt with an ethically ambiguous situation? What did you do?
92. What is CAPM? Why is it useful?
93. Where are the following currencies trading? Euro, Brit. Sterling, Yen.
94. A sports player (let’s say baseball) will have the option to get paid a fixed bonus (let’s say $5 million) or a bonus based on how many homeruns he has hit over the course of a season. If he chooses the bonus based on homeruns, he will get paid $166,000 per homerun that he has hit over the season. The baseball player will have to make the choice between either bonus structure halfway through the season. How would you value this option at the beginning of the season?
95. How does inflation affect the bond market? The stock market?
96. Outside of classes, what is your favorite thing at school?
97. A customer gives you a buy order which you complete. Afterwards, she/he claims it was a sell order what do you do?
98. Where do you think interest rates are going? Does this always depend on the FED?
99. Why would you pick our firm over the other firms that you are interviewing with?
100. Do you have any questions for me?

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