Recruiting Workshop Series Part I: Behavioural Workshop
Recapped by Chloe Macklin
This week, WCM partnered with Ivey Finance Club to provide first- and second-year students with a behavioural interview workshop, discussing key behavioural questions and core tenets of good responses. In this post, we’ll dive into some of the most common behavioural interview questions and focus on key takeaways surrounding strong responses.
Tell Me About Yourself
Tell Me About Yourself is arguably the most common interview question, and the most important discussion in the interview. Your Tell Me About Yourself will be the first impression you give to your interviewer and sets the tone for the rest of the conversation. A strong answer to this question is well-structured; beginning with your background, leading into your business interest showing how it evolved over time, then pivoting to your active experiences, illustrating how you’ve pursued these interests and learned from your experiences. The final component of a Tell Me About Yourself answer will bring these sections together, relating all three to the role you are interviewing for. In a Tell Me About Yourself response, delivery and relevance are of equal importance — making this answer conversational and not a memorized script is crucial to building a strong connection off the bat with your interviewer.
Why Banking / Why Finance
This question is likely the next most common interview question and is crucial in illustrating your candid interest in the field. As everyone will have different responses to this question, the key here is to conduct self-reflection, focusing on an answer that holds true as compared to what you think your interviewer wants to hear. As many potential candidates are likely to respond with answers they believe the interviewer is looking to hear, you have a chance to stand out in your response to this question. Follow up questions are common here, which makes having an honest answer that you believe in and can speak to beyond the initial response even more critical. Some potential ideas include having an impact, seeing unparalleled learning opportunities, and experiencing great variety in day-to-day activities.
Why are you interested in this firm
Why this firm requires some more external preparation than the above two questions, though it is equally critical to be honest and thoughtful in your response. A strong answer to this question will pull on networking conversations with current employees, illustrating that you have gone beyond a simple internet search and have truly thought through your fit at the firm in question. In this question, the more specific the better — explaining that a current employee told you about a specific new mentorship initiative the firm has developed is a much stronger explanation than mentioning you’ve heard the firm prioritizes mentorship. It is important to have a multi-faceted answer that ideally focuses on both professional and cultural points that are unique to the firm.
Strengths & Weaknesses
These questions can be phrased in countless ways with significant variation, though the core goal of the question is always the same. Example variations of strength questions could be: how would your friends describe you, why are you the best candidate for this role, what would your past boss say about you, and many more. The key here is to provide specific examples for your strengths — anyone can mention an adjective but showing how you have embodied this adjective is much more challenging. In both strength and weakness questions, it’s okay to use common topics so long as you have concrete examples. The second key to strong responses here is keeping the position you’re applying for in mind, thinking about what you’re trying to showcase broadly about yourself before answering either question. In responding to weakness questions, it is critical to phrase your response as an improvement story in which you can tell the narrative surrounding your weaknesses and show how you’ve worked to improve. Here, you have the chance to highlight your commitment to improving and your ability to learn from your mistakes.
Past Experiences
Often times, an interviewer will ask questions about your resume including past work and extracurricular experiences. Anything on your resume is fair game for an interviewer to bring up, which highlights the importance of honesty on your resume. There are an unlimited number of questions that could be asked here, meaning the best way to prepare for this type of question is to review your resume line-by-line, thinking through the most important points you’d like to highlight and brainstorming questions you may be asked. While you cannot possibly think of every possible question and answer, this exercise will help you respond to past experience-type questions regardless of the variation asked by your interviewer. Strong responses here are specific, concise, and relevant to the role for which you are interviewing.
Overarching Reminders
With all of the above questions and many other similar behavioural variations, the most important things to focus on are honesty, structure, and illustrating your personality. Approaching any interview, it can be extremely beneficial to decide on three to four main things about yourself you wish to highlight, and keep these characteristics in mind when crafting your behavioural responses. More than anything, behavioural questions are designed to determine if you are a good fit for the role both from the firm’s perspective and your own, again indicating the importance of self-reflection and honesty in the interview preparation process.
