LBS MIF Interviews

LBS MIF Interviews

In LBS interviews are conducted by alumni or senior admission staff of the MiF programme and your interview will take place in the region in which you are based. Based on interviewer availability, you may be asked to travel in order to complete your interview. Both technical and behavioral questions are asked in LBS MIF interviews.

LBS MIF Frequently Asked Interview Questions

1. Why are you interested in Finance ?
2. What do you want to do after graduation?
3. Tell us about your long term goals?
4. What are derivatives, options, value at risk, proprietary trading?
5. How can you use your current background in your future career in finance?
6. Why LBS?
7. What would you bring to the student body and the program?

LBS MIF Interview Questions – 1

Both technical and behavioral questions. Mainly, we went through my resume. The toughest question was why I was interested in Finance. (My background is high-tech) You need to explain where your interest in finance stems from. It needs to be genuine and real. You need to have a story to tell.

Another important question was what I wanted to do after I graduated. Again, I need a good story to tell. “I want to work in the Finance industry” is not good. “Investment banking” is better, but not specific enough. Research the departments within the type of company you want to work for, and have a couple of words to say about the position you want to take. I also explained to him my plan about job search, which would begin even before the program would start. I’m planning to get a summer internship, and get CFA qualification.

What about my long term plans? I already had an answer in my essay, but I had to defend my position. Your interviewer may try to convince you that you had a boilerplate answer, and the worst thing you can do is accept that.

Some tehnical questions about finance. What are derivatives, options, value at risk, proprietary trading. Don’t make things up. If you don’t know the answer to a question just admit it, and say you are eager to learn what the answer is. Although you’re not expected to already know everything that would be taught during the program, you need to have some knowledge.

How can I use my current background in my future career in finance? I said I can use my strategy and sales experience if I were to work for a trading group in an I-bank. He said I-Bank trade desks do not do much sales. I told him that as I get higher in the group I believe I would have more sales responsibility to mutual funds etc. He bought into that.

Being in the US, why am I applying to LBS? Did I think about the finance programs in the US? Now be careful. This is a trick question. Here’s why. The finance programs in the US (not talking about finance oriented MBA programs here) are geared towards churning out quants. For example Berkeley’s Haas is a great program, but it’s financial engineering. He was basically trying to gauge whether I knew what I wanted. So I gave him the answer he wanted. (I think). I said I was interested in a leadership role in a finance organization, not being a number jock. (Nothing wrong with being a number jock, I just don’t want it). The only program similar to what I wanted was Princeton in the US, but I’d prefer LBS over Princeton due to many reasons.

What would I bring to the student body and the program? Need some creativity here. I think these boring questions are designed to see your out of the box thinking. They want to see sparks in your eyes when telling a story. Some originality needed here. Not sure if I was successful, but I said being a manager in a public company, I know what the shareholder expectations are, and I know how these requirements translate into daily work load. I also bring significant international experience (I live in the US, but I’m not American), and I’ve had this kind of experience already once. Finally, I’m technically savvy and can help people. He said these were all great reasons, but don’t try to over emphasize technical background much. MiF is more technical than MBA, but you’re not going to be a quant. So don’t brag about your technical qualifications much.

The interview took about 1 hour and 15 minutes. The original allotted time was 45 minutes, so we went over a little. He answered a lot of my questions. I realized most of my questions had one “official” and one “off-the record” answer. Off the record answer was universally more useful.

LBS MIF Interview Questions – 2

I was interviewed in Round 1. My interview location was the alumnus’ office. I have noticed that for LSB interviews, in most cases, the interviewer and candidate are of the same gender.

The interviewer gave me a presentation topic to work on during the interview and told me that she was more interested in checking my ability to put my thoughts in a structure manner rather than my knowledge about the topic. Apart from the presentation, the other questions which were asked are:

1. Run me through your resume
2. Few questions related to me job experience and other things I mentioned in the application form
3. Why Finance & Why LBS?
4. Other schools I have applied to and which one will I choose if I get through all
5. What if you don’t get through LBS this year and LBS asks you to apply again next year
6. What is your leadership definition? Are you a leader?
7. How will to contribute to peer learning at LBS
8. Talk about your strengths & weaknesses

The interview lasted for almost 2 hours. It was a pretty exhaustive one.