Lehman Brothers Interview Questions
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Lehman Brothers graduate interviews are likely to take place at the firm's London office, in Canary Wharf.
The graduate application and interview process is as follows:
Application Process
Interview Process
- First round interview
- Second round interview
- Third round interview
For each division applied for the Lehman Brothers interview process is very similar, until the third round interview stage. Further details are given below.
Online Psychometric Test
After filling out the application form, you will be required to sit a psychometric ability test. The test is the GTIOS psychometric test.
Most people will need to practise the numerical reasoning test to pass it. Pages 7-23 of this book
may prove extremely useful in preparing for any of the numerical tests.
Interview Questions
The interview questions for the Lehman Brothers graduate scheme will be divided into a mixture of personal questions, competency based interview questions and commercial awareness questions.
You can reasonably expect to be asked the following questions at interview:
- What attributes do you consider to be your strengths?
- What would you like to improve about yourself?
- What do you think would make someone a successful analyst or associate?
- Describe a leadership role that you have held and what you have learned from it.
- Describe a time you worked in a challenging team environment.
- Describe a time when you have taken significant initiative.
Typical commercial awareness questions (but may not necessarily appear in your interview) include:
- What do you consider to be the long-term global impact of the current price of oil?
- What time of year would a ski lodge be likely to need more financing? For what?
- Where do you believe the equity market is heading this year and why?
First Interview
Questions you are likely to be asked at the first round interview stage are:
- Give an example of a time you've shown initiative.
- It's 6pm and you're just leaving the office. You have to prepare an important piece of work for 9am the next morning, and then the head of the division invites you to a formal breakfast at 8am the following morning. The breakfast would be a great opportunity to network with several senior people there, but the work is important - what do you do?
- Have you considered which division you might be interested in?
- Tell me about a time you've had to solve a difficult problem in your academic studies. How did you overcome this?
- Tell me about a team situation when communication has broken down for you.
- What are your two biggest areas for development?
- If we gave you an offer of a graduate job, would you continue to court other investment banks?
- How would you choose which firm you want to work for?
- You've just had lots of brochures printed for a meeting with an important client, and you realise you've made a mistake in them. There's not enough time to print them again, what do you do?
Second Interview
You can expect the level of your second interview to be higher than the first, with an increased level of detail required from you. You will have two 45-minute competency based interviews with one different interviewer each time.
Candidates can sometimes find interviewers at the second interview stage very combative and argumentative. The interviewers want to test candidates to breaking-point, and see what effect pressure and being positioned in a difficult situation will have on candidates.
Third Round Interview
The final round interviews vary based upon which division you are entering. At Lehman Brothers, there are four main classes of interview at graduate level:
Investment Banking Associate
For investment banking, top rate business analytical skills are required, and this will be the focus of the final round interviews.
Candidates will be asked to participate in a case study interview. Lehman Brothers quote that they will be assessing:
- Business sense and strategic orientation
- Accounting knowledge
- Finance and valuation skills
In practice, they will be assessing your commercial awareness, your ability to analyse problems and think of solutions, and your ability to perform basic calculations. Some accounting experience will be beneficial and you should understand how to read and interpret a companies financial statements for this exercise.
You will be provided with some background information on a fictional company, along with its financials (of which there are about three pages), and this will be the centre of discussion for the duration of the case study interview.
An example of the type of case study question Lehman Brothers might pose would be:
"Company X is considering buying Company Y. As Company X's banker, how would you advise X to proceed based on the background information we have provided?"
Private Investment Management Associate
For any kind of private wealth management, the most important skills are interpersonal social skills, as you will be dealing face to face with particularly important clients. For this reason, at interview you will be required to demonstrate good sales personality traits. Lehman Brothers state they will be assessing the following core competencies:
- Client relations orientation
- Business building skills
- Market interest and analytical ability
You will be tested on your cold calling skills and market knowledge, and you participate in a mock client meeting role play.
Finance
For candidates applying for careers in finance and accountancy, you will be asked to attended an assessment centre held in February/March. If successful you will begin working in the summer. The assessment centre is more inline with the accountancy assessment days at the Big 4 accounting firms, and consists of:
Numerical Test
According to Lehman Brothers:
"The numeracy question is adapted from the syllabus of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). We will assess your ability to arrive at the correct answer as well as your confidence and explanation of the reasoning behind your answer. We have found that this process helps students understand the type of work they will perform should they join the Finance division and follow the CIMA course."
Interview
The interview will be with two finance managers and lasts approximately 45 minutes. They will be assessing:
You should show an understanding of finance and management accounting. Day to day to asks will involve working with spreadsheets, performing bank reconciliations and updating the general ledger.
You should have a clear understanding of the CIMA qualification and what is required of you in order to achieve it, and what consequences there are if you fail any modules. You will likely also be asked how you will cope while studying and working at the same time.
Group exercise
According to Lehman Brothers, Group exercises give you the opportunity to demonstrate your teamwork and leadership skills. The firm are looking for people who cannot only work productively within a group but also take the lead as and when they are required to do so.
Operations
For graduate entry into the operations division, you will be asked to attend an assessment centre in February or March, to begin working in the summer. The assessment day consists of:
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