Once you have reached the interview stage of a recruitment process, the role or internship is yours for the taking. You’ve clearly met the firm’s initial requirements in terms of academic performance, prior experience, motivation and the like. However, now you will need to support the assertions made in your application, evidence your communication skills and demonstrate in greater detail how you have acquired a foundation of the key skills, strengths and knowledge required to succeed in the role. With this in mind, this course focuses on how to prepare for interview and assessment centres. 

Core elements of interviews

There are four key elements that firms tend to focus on when setting application questions and interviewing candidates, so try to bear these in mind whilst preparing for interviews and assessment centres:

Competencies, strengths and experiences

Firms will want to gain an insight into the skills and capabilities you have developed through your studies, extracurricular activities and work experience. You should therefore remind yourself of your personal experiences, positions of responsibility and extracurricular involvement and focus on the skills and abilities you have developed.

Career motivation

Firms will want to understand your motivation for pursuing your career of choice, so you will need to reflect on how your experiences have influenced your decision to pursue your desired career.

Firm motivation

Firms will want to know your reasons for wanting to work for them. Research the firms you are applying to/interviewing at so that you are able to differentiate them from their competitors and explain why these differentiating factors particularly appeal to you.

Commercial awareness

Firms may want to see evidence of your interest in and understanding of current affairs and the industry you are looking to work in. In this context, you might be asked to discuss a recent commercial news story or comment more generally on the industry trends that affect the firm and its clients. As part of a commercial assessment, you may also have to complete commercial case studies or tackle interviews that require you to discuss, for example, key business concepts, commercial risks and opportunities, different options for financing deals, mergers and acquisitions and more. You may also have to explain the role of the firm/different departments when advising clients in different contexts.

Psychometric tests

Psychometric tests, situational judgement tests and e-tray exercises are used by firms to test certain skills, abilities and thought processes that can indicate a candidate’s suitability to a particular role. These tests are also typically used by firms to whittle down vast numbers of applicants to a more manageable pool of interviewees. When assessing the results of these tests, many firms simply require candidates to meet a certain fixed benchmark in order to progress through the relevant stage of the assessment process, although most firms won’t reveal what that benchmark is.

Presentations and case study interviews

As part of a commercial assessment, you may also have to complete commercial case studies, evaluate fictitious client/business scenarios or tackle interviews that require you to discuss, for example, key business concepts, commercial risks and opportunities, different options for financing deals, mergers and acquisitions and more. You may also have to explain the role of the firm/different departments when advising clients in different contexts.

These types of assessments may require you to complete a written report, deliver a brief presentation on information that you have been provided and/or answer a number of questions on business issues and how a firm can assist its clients. As part of this process, you may need to identify certain risks and suggest how these could be mitigated; draw out potential opportunities and suggest strategies that could be employed to capitalise on each; recommend which steps a fictitious client should take; or compare various options (e.g. potential acquisition or investment targets), then form an opinion on which to pursue and justify this decision. 

For example if a client is considering purchasing another firm, what are the different financing options available and the corresponding advantages and disadvantages of each? How could such a transaction be structured? What are the primary risks and how can they be mitigated? How can the firm help? These types of questions are covered in the City Career Series Commercial Law, Investment Banking and Consultancy Handbooks, as well as in our commercial awareness-related courses.

Group and negotiation exercises

Many City careers involve employees having to regularly work in teams. This may be internally within their particular departments; internally within their firm but with a number of different departments that have a role on a different aspect of a deal (for instance the tax or regulatory implications of a transaction); with employees working within a different office within the global network of offices (if the firm is international); and/or with other types of firms. 

An assessment centre group exercise could involve, for example, completing a creative task (e.g. building a Lego tower), engaging in a fictitious commercial negotiation, or discussing various commercial courses of action as a group before agreeing which one to pursue.

Market-sizing and brainteaser questions

Certain assessment centres, especially in the context of investment banking or consulting, may require you to tackle “market sizing” questions or “brainteasers”, but these are very rare in the context of commercial law interviews. These questions are designed to assess the thought process you follow and logic you apply when tackling a challenging problem, and test how well you react to unexpected questions under pressure.

Q. How many footballs could fill up Wembley Stadium?

Q. How much milk does Starbucks use on a typical working day in the UK?

Q. How many shoes are sold in India every year?

Q. How many cars are there on average in the UK at any given time?

When answering these types of questions, you are not generally expected to reach a final numerical answer that is particularly close to the true value. However, you will be expected to advance reasonable/rational assumptions and estimations along the way. It’s therefore essential that you think out loud so the interviewer can follow your thought process. 

One way to approach market sizing questions is to break the question down into little problems and then consider (out loud) all the possible variables that could affect the answer. For example, If you are asked how many cars are sold by BMW in the UK every year, does this mean only cars branded with the BMW logo, or cars produced by BMW (for instance, Minis)? Does this only include new cars, or the sale of second hand BMWs? Do you include cars sold by UK dealerships to purchasers in other countries? 

You should also try to strike a balance between pragmatism and accuracy throughout, for example by rounding up numbers and working with averages when necessary (just to ensure that you can make calculations mentally if required).