I had my first AC today at Westpac, the first bank in Australia.
When I arrived there, went straight to reception desk and got my ID checked and received a visitor card so that I could enter the CBD Westpac building.
We’ve got 9 candidates for the afternoon session, during the information session we were told that they chose 19 of us out of hundreds of applicants nationwide. I wondered how many positions available in Quant…
I had group exercise first. 25 minutes reading time, then 3mins individual presentation time, after each member finished then started group discussion. It was funny that we were given 3 different scenarios and needed to choose 1 that has to put into immediate action. and I believe in this exercise, we were supposed to show our analytical skills, teamwork, and influence skills…since we were supposed to convince the others to get an over-all agreed decision. What I meant by “funny” was that four of us all chose scenario 1 and all had the same reasons. Nevertheless, it ran pretty well and I think everyone contributed evenly. I have to say, my team members were brilliant, and we all came up with all the different but useful suggestions accordingly. Before this I was so worried what I should do during the group task time. But later on, I found this is the least worried task I had since we were basically discussing with each other and presenting our ideas to the others who were actually in the same boat with us. It was not like you are doing an interview with some managers and 1-2 based, so less stress I suppose.
Interviews, I had two together without break..=.=” We were supposed to have each interview with two interviewers (one from banking and one from HR), the first one I had was with two guys from banking…and both were managers >< they asked quite a lot of questions, let me see if I still remember a few. *those short key words would be "tell me an example when you demonstrate …."*
- tell me what you have done so far and why did you choose to do it.
- responsibility
- the most proud achievement
- motivation question: why this program and what qualities you can bring
- customer serving
- analytical skill
- they found out that I spent a lot of time doing debating, so they asked why didn’t I do law instead. (though that was a bit out of track XD)
- they also asked me, you are doing ACTL which doesn’t really have anything to do with risk management….have you done anything in your courses relevant to RM?
- what software do you use for your assignments?
the second interview was conducted by one HR and one banking. Since they found that I didn’t have a chance to take a break (as the first two managers were asking too many specific tough questions) HR gave me two questions and then the banking guy just asked me some random questions.
- task, challenge you have faced and how did you plan to deal with it and how did the plan work
- obstacles you had and how did you overcome it. Normally I would answer this questions with the answer for Q1..however since it was given out earlier and I had to come up with another example…I said the language barrier happened in my group project during my exchange in Japan…lol
- what kind of assignments you have had? have you done confidence interval, derivatives, options etc…
- again I was asked what software I can use…
- why you chose to do film studies as your minor
- blablabla I forgot..
Overall it was okay I guess, at least I learned quite a lot about Westpac culture and those people I met they were awesome =)
It’s time to cram for those two most expensive exams and prepare for my application ><
Ha! I didn't know that people around me are actually expecting me to have a boring and gray life without any excitements but continue in having a life which is only fully with burdens and pressures. Funny to find that out!
I will leave here one day eventually. To where I don't know, but so far I do know that I don't like here. I don't know any place in this world that I can call it as my "home", but good to know that I do have a home in the heaven, with the great God.
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