Sunday, September 14, 2008

Interview series 3: JP Morgan Asset Management graduate recruitment, London

Back in 2005, I had an application for a graduate program to work within equities investment department at JP Morgan Asset Management . The whole process was expected to involve online application, if successful, online numerical and verbal tests, if successful, Assessment Centre, and if successful, a series of interviews with my immediate colleagues. I reached until the Assessment Centre stage. The Assessment Centre consisted of a group session and two rounds of interviews. Note that current recruitment process might differ compared to 2005 recruitment season.

1.Online application
You are given a relatively lengthy application. The areas to fill include your basic details, department you are applying for, education, language skills, computer skills and extra curricular activities. You will also be given an area to edit, answering competency questions such as "How do your skills and experience make you suitable for a role at JP Morgan?" and "Why you have chosen this department?".

2.Online tests
Once successful on the online application stage, I had to take online numerical and verbal reasoning tests. You can practise SHL's trial tests here.

3.Assessment Centre
The Assessment Centre involved a group exercise lasting 50mins and two 30min interviews. Click here for more on what to expect during assessment centres and how to handle them.

Group exercise
We have been given 4 different topics to choose from, 45mins time to discuss the chosen topic and 5mins to present it by one of the team members.
Chosen topic: Present 3 most important points to include, to the Head of Marketing at Virgin Group, in the brochure about commercialising space flight.

Interview one:
Interviewer: Fixed Income Portfolio Manager
-Tell me about yourself;
-What is the difference between trading and Portfolio Management?
-Why did you do your MSc?
-What did your MSc give you?
-What was your dissertation topic?
-On the buy side it is important to be able to persuade someone; give me an example of when you had to convince someone.
-You have £10m; how would you invest it?
-What makes a great portfolio manager?
-Give me an example of when you had to solve complex problem in different ways.
-How many barbers are there in Uzbekistan (a type of brain teaser)?
-Give me an example of when you failed to achieve something.
-Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
-Do you have questions for me?

Interview two:
Interviewer: Pan European Equity Research , COO
-Tell me about yourself;
-How do you think the group exercise went? What went good and what went wrong?
-How do you think you have performed? What would you do differently?
-How would you motivate someone if you were given a chance?
-If someone tells you that you are not performing well, how would you respond to this?
-Give me example of when you made a mistake.
-Do you have questions for me?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Very useful info. Raxmat, Botir aka!

Unknown said...

hi i have a question, which division under asset management is that interview for? cos they have global portfolio, multi asset class etc.

are the interview between all these divisions the same? and what level of knowledge of which asset class is expected for global portfolio, if you know.

thanks

botirvoy said...

hi Elvina,
This was for Equities division. At the time, I believe selection process was the same for all front office roles within asset management division. Only interviews were for relevant roles. Dont worry too much about a particular asset class. As far as you show awareness about the asset class, you should be fine. JP Morgan invests in many asset classes and it would not be fair to expect from student deep knowledge of the product.