一Kellogg MBA 中国学生在香港Banking 的实习

一Kellogg MBA 中国学生在香港Banking 的实习


Andy Ma's Summer Internship Story – Banking in Hong Kong

转载自华人帮（www.dragonlinkage.com）

Background:

Andy is a 2nd year MBA student at Kellogg. Before Kellogg, he has spent 1
year in advertising and 5 years in consulting. He worked for PWC consulting
and Rolandberger, focusing on consumer product and industrial product
sectors. Andy got his bachelor’s degree from Shanghai Jiaotong University
in 1999, majoring in international trade.

Overview of Andy’s Summer Internship

Over the summer, Andy has worked in the investment banking department of
Credit Suisse First Boston in Hong Kong.

How did Andy get his summer internship offers

Andy got 7 internship I-bank offers totally, 2 based in NYC, 5 based in HK.

As Andy estimated, about 70 students at Kellogg regularly attended events
hosted by investment banks. Since the beginning of first year, Andy
attended almost all events organized by the investment banks. Although Andy
didn’t get in the closed lists of banks in New York, he placed all his
points to bid for the opportunities to interview with 4 banks —CSFB, Morgan
Stanly, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs – and won them. As Andy said, not
getting in the close lists was not a disaster. He finally got offers from
CSFB and Morgan Stanly after the interviews.

In interviews with banks in Hong Kong, Andy entered most of the final rounds
, and finally got 5 offers.

Andy chose CSFB Hong Kong for his internship because of culture fit and more
exposure to Asia market., Learning that Andy had made up his mind to work
in Hong Kong, CSFB transferred his New York offer to Hong Kong after a VP
from CSFB Hong Kong talked with Andy over the phone for about one hour. He
chose CSFB, which he believes to have a more humanity culture among banks.

Tips for a successful interview

1. To relate past work experience with the banking job is very important.

Andy successfully related his past experience from two aspects. First, he
used examples in his past experience to prove that he is a person with focus
and commitment, which were important factors that banker considered in
choosing among candidates. For example, while many consultants start as an
generalists, he focused on two industries in Rolandberger; while many b-
school applicants tried to maximize the chance of admission by applying for
many schools, he only applied for two business schools. Second, he used his
past experience to explain why I-banking was his first choice. Having
served many Chinese clients on her previous consulting projects, he realizes
that Chinese companies are catching up with their western counterparts in
terms of strategic thinking, and financing is the next crucial step for
Chinese companies to further develop. As a former consutants who had
extensive experience in strategy, Andy felt like that he should learn
financial skills if he aspired to have some impact to shape the industries
in China, and I-banking jobs would provide an ideal opportunity for him to
learn.

2. Get to know the focus of interviews of the banks

According to Andy, the NY bank interviews were quite different from those of
their HK office. NY bank did not ask many technical questions. Their focus
in the interviews were to evaluate the candidate’s cultural fit and overall
business sense. Questions included behavioral such behavioral questions as
“why banking?”, “why this school?”, “what are your friends’ comments
on you?”, etc..They would also give the interviewee case-like questions, e.
g. “If you need to present a buy-out issue to a client tomorrow in 5 slides
, what would you put in those five slides?”; “Are you following the market
? Can you share with me what is happening these days?” Whenever possible,
Andy would relate his past work experience to the answers. For example, when
asked. “what factors would you consider when you evaluate a company?”,
many interviewees would simply mentioned the different factors involved in
those evaluation models, but Andy pointed out that the factors would be
significantly different for different industries, and went one step further
to describe each of those factors in the industries he worked on before.

Andy suggests that preparation on technical skills and financial knowledge
is important for interviews with banks in Hong Kong. Hong Kong banks put a
strong emphasis on technical skills.. Questions ranged from “why is bond
rates higher than the bank’s interest rate?” to details about various
financial models..

Andy was asked to disclose GPA in almost all banking interviews.

3. Be honest and calm

Andy also met questions to which he was not sure about the answer. By saying
“I don’t know, but I would like to try.”, Andy could still leave a
impression of being honest and risk-taking.

Andy’s responsibility on his internship

Andy worked in Investment banking department/Corporate finance function. His
responsibility increased gradually as he demonstrated more and more
capacity in work. His tasks included: editing or writing documents, updating
or building model sheets, providing recommendations for improving the
financial models, etc.

Approximately 50% of his work was about deals, and another 50% was about
pitching. Andy found good understanding in accounting is important to
improve work efficiency. From the internship, Andy thought he got a better
knowledge of various products of a bank and the execution process of a deal,
e.g. how to write a pitch book, etc.

Working hour was not as long as expected. Usually, Andy could leave office
before 11 PM. He believes it is due to the result-oriented culture at CSFB.
Employees’ time is respected, and face time doesn’t matter;

Andy’s suggestion on what 1st year MBA students should do to get summer
internships in banking.

Not getting in closed lists is not the end of the world. Doing good
interview is extremely important.

First, to get the interview invitation, polish your resume well and show
execution ability even if you have no financial modeling experience.
Convince yourself why you would like to do banking and present your self
well in interviews. For banking in NY, it is more important to show good
common sense and culture fit than technical proficiency. For banking in HK,
be well prepared for detailed technical questions.

Be calm in interviews, and show that you are easy to get along. Don’t be
embarrassed by difficult questions. Make the interview an interaction
between the interviewer and you.

Finally, choose the bank that you feel most comfortable with. That is
important for good performance.