J.P. Morgan interview questions

A recruiter from England contacted me directly and said that I was recommended for a very senior role in JP Morgan in Israel (VP level). Conducted some basic skills interview and screening on the phone, asked about my salary expectations and forwarded the request to the local hiring manager in Israel. A few days later someone contacted me and told me about the group, project Athena which is spread across 3-4 Geographies, Israel, London, New York and Singapore (I think) Told me they have a long process but that the work should be interesting and the pay is top notch. After that he asked me a few quick questions on the phone (C++) and scheduled the first interview. Overall in the process I had *11* technical interviews, 7 in person and 4 additional ones over the phone with Executive Directors from New York. Each interview was a pass/fail - if you fail you don't go forward, if you pass you do. For the entire interview process you are given a syllabus, which looks like a list of all the topics in computer science studies bachelors. You are instructed to study and study hard, because the interviews are hard. (Quite an unfriendly approach given that the recruit only VERY experienced people, and expecting someone to spend days/weeks on studying for interviews isn't very reasonable) Yet, I spent a few days studying. Each interview included usually about a dozen technical questions, logical/mathematical riddles and some interviews included design questions as well. It seemed to me that the interviewers didn't look for a good programmer but for one who can answer the most trivia questions regarding computer science. Of all the interviews I've had 3 where I had to use my head, and the rest were based on whether you know the answer or not. Most interviewers are friendly, some or not - some expect you to know by heart C++ definitions of a c++ standard. Some expect you to know python standard by heart, others expect you to explicitly know things you have no experience with. Some interviews seemed like the whole point was to see how one copes with stress, i.e. the interviewer asked give me a list of criteria to differentiate between multi threading and multiprocessing when designing a system, when I asked how many criteria he looked at my CV and said - well you have about 10 years of experience so give me 10.. When coming to talk about the salary during one of the technical interviews which was done by the hiring manager he asked he again about how much I make and simply stated that I would start with roughly 25% more on my first year, and from there on the salary can only grow. My overall experience is not very positive, since after spending so much time on the hiring process no feedback was given besides a brief email stating we decided not to continue the process after your last interview. (which was after the 11th technical interview, excluding the initial screening by the recruiter, and the brief interview before setting the first 1:1 interview)

I applied for the Summer Asset Management Internship - Sales and Business Development (which is the UK Fund Sales Division). I had to fill in the usual application, including a cover letter and attaching a CV. There was no online testing. Therefore, it took a lot longer to hear a reply than most other banks, as they sort through all the applications manually. I got an email telling me I got through to the first round, which was a 15 minute phone interview. The interview was with an MD in the division. Although the MD did ask me some questions, a lot of it was to do with the programme and he talked for the majority of it. In the interview, he described the four main sections with the UK Fund Sales division you can get an internship in - take note of the divisions and what they do as they may ask you which of the divisions they have mentioned best suits you (although the info is available on their internship website, with a bit of digging around). I heard back the next day and got invited to an assessment centre for a weeks time. The first exercise was a 'thinking/brain teaser' exercise, which you cannot really prepare for. They give you 8 sets of cards and each set is a different colour. A set has around 20 cards with information on them. Some cards have blanks on them and you have to use the information on the other cards to fill in the cards with the blanks. The second part of the day was a presentation. You were taken to a room and given 40 minutes to read and plan to present to some JPM employees. The booklet you were given contained some information about a company and some possible smaller companies they could invest in. They point of the exercise was to rank the smaller companies in order of your preference and say why you like it and why you don't etc. The next part of the day was a group exercise. You are split into teams of up to 6 and taken to a board room, where there were three JPM employees. In the room was a piece of paper with four possible projects your team could undertake. After lunch is the individual interviews. You have three individual interviews with three different members of the team, from different levels. All my interviewers were so nice and I never felt uncomfortable. They will ask you the basics, why JPM, why asset management, what does an asset manager do, what does JPM asset management do, what is sales and business development, what role would you prefer being part of in the sales and business development team. The other questions were mainly based on personality and like work experience, societies, teamwork, leadership, individual projects you've done etc. In my last interview, I got asked about what I would invest in .. stocks, bonds, emerging markets etc and I kind of fluffed that up but if you prepare for this question really well then you could be very impressive. Overall I would say that the successful candidates who got the internship, in my opinion, got it due to their past work experiences etc. The two people I knew who got a place had either done a year in industry, or worked in an asset management firm before deciding to come to university. So what they're looking for is technical knowledge, existing experience and a good personality rather than top grades from a top university. Obviously this is just my own opinion.