Today we bring to you the summer internship selection experience of
Kunal Jain, IIM Lucknow. He did his summer internship with
JP Morgan Chase. He shares his interview process and a basic finance preparation guideline.
1. How many rounds were there for the process?
A total of three rounds of interview.
Two with seniors from the team and one with the HR.
2. What was the approach adopted to prepare for the interview?
I was aware that JP Morgan offers FICC Markets profile, hence I prepared on
general macroeconomics both domestic and global. I also revisited concepts of fixed income and derivatives from CFA. Lastly I prepared thoroughly on Indian banking sector and the role of RBI and different monetary policy instruments used by RBI.
For the HR round, I had prepared well on the set of generally asked HR questions for finance companies. One more thing which is important from interview perspective is
knowing your CV well, I had ensured that I did a lot of
mock interviews before the D-day.
3. How was your interview experience with JPMC?
The interview focused largely on the things mentioned in my CV. I think for summer internship process the focus of the interviewers is to find out how well do you know what you claim to know.
First two rounds were technical where I was asked lot of questions on a
bank’s risk management policy and how do they use different
financial instruments to hedge their risk. Besides this, I was also asked a
lot of questions on my personal equity portfolio.
4. What are some good sources to prepare from?
The IIM Lucknow library is very rich with the subscription to all the
major international financial press. I used them regularly to update myself on everyday events in the markets. For studying finance concepts I used my
CFA material.
Some other sources:
John C Hull - Advanced derivatives
Investopedia - For covering basic finance concepts
5. Can you give a timeline for your finance preparation?
I initially started with my CV, before going into term break I had covered HR questions and CV.
In the term 2 before the placement week, I dedicated most of my time in revising finance concepts and following markets.
6. Some Dos and Don'ts?
Dos: Be prepared on your CV thoroughly. If you have finance qualifications
revise and prepare all the concepts covered in those qualifications,
Don'ts:
Don’t try and cover too many concepts, prepare the concepts you know in-depth
7. How can people with no prior background in finance work on their profiles?
They are general looking for people who are genuinely interested in finance. Hence, if before coming to campus if you don’t have any background in finance you can pick courses like
NCFM (NSE ACADEMY'S Certification in Financial Markets), Coursera etc. to show your inclination towards finance. For people who don’t have undergrad in finance, they can highlight any finance related projects that they might have done in their undergrad days.
8. Any final word of advice?
Summers as a process can become daunting if prep is not planned well. Ensure that you judiciously allocate time and give enough importance to preparing CV and HR answers.
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About the Author:
Priyanka is a second-year MBA student at Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow and is a member of InsideIIM’s second student team. She is also a part of PRiSM, The Marketing Cell at IIM Lucknow.