早上收到一个miss call，号码６位数字的，就有预感可能是有offer啦。中午那个号码再次打过来，果然没错。刚接电话还是有紧张的，HR刚开始一直在说我performance，我想你不是在给我feed back吧。。。最后忍不住问下其他人都怎么样还有offer我的原因，因为我觉得昨天大家做得应该都不错吧。
HR的评论是：you have a solid academic background, have some very good examples(competency), scored very high in numerical aptitude test,and performed well in group discussions（算是performance不够完美的一项). 她建议我group discussions可以更aggressive一些，因为昨天被一些很aggressive的人press了，可以更强烈的反击和表现(我是尽量和大家和睦相处，不正面对抗），不过还是不错，因为you made some very good points(我说得不是很多).
准备
面试前做的准备不是很多，年初二下午的面试年初一晚上１１点开始准备，首先列表写出需要准备的topic. 然后搜索RBS news, deals(没找到…), 把最近关于亏损，nationalisation的评论都看下，以便表达still have faith in RBS. 然后上苹果女生看了两个不错的帖子，对Assessment Centre很有帮助．
http://forum.powerapple.com/modules.php?name=forum&file=viewtopic&forum=29&topic=107204&start=210
http://forum.powerapple.com/modules.php?name=forum&file=viewtopic&forum=29&topic=104882&start=50
再重温一下我自己发的帖子里大家的意见，hk_kitty的Bloomberg资料显示RBS EMEA syndicated loan排名第一，面试也提到了，谢过！
http://forum.powerapple.com/modules.php?name=forum&file=viewtopic&forum=29&topic=149268
早上起来先看新闻，ABN Amro deal了解下，想下怎么回答关于国有化，亏损，相信RBS的business model还是sustainable的。然后翻出《墨迹》，把曾子墨的面试经验和问题看一遍，还有她简明扼要的valuation介绍。
再看苹果的帖子，学习SWOT, 4P, 4C 分析以及应用（昨天早上才学会的 
）。对照了下Vault发现jeremyphen的帖子写得很好，还更加简明扼要。ricecookies的帖子对group discussion有详细分析，总结和leadership部分都写得很好，其中关于leadership部分我competency面试也有用到。“争，还是不争” 部分写得很细，不过短时间内没那么容易把人分成哪种菜鸟和哪种老鸟. Just be respectful.
然后就是Vault Case Interview, 只看了半个小时(没时间了 ），brain teaser, SWOT, examples etc. 然后Discount Cash Flow Analysis basics, Comps Analysis basics学习下，已经一点多了，赶紧出门…剩下一项competency question只能在地铁里想怎么回答了。全部准备时间大概６个小时吧。
Assessment Centre
Assessment Centre是2:00pm-7:00pm, 我1：45到了Algate East Station, 找了一下发现RBS就在我面前。进去已经有七八个candidate在等了，聊得正high，赶紧过去自我介绍，和大家聊天，熟悉一下group discussion比较好说话，最好交几个朋友到时候能互相support. Candidate哪里来的都有，有美国Michigan University刚飞过来的J，800美金的机票外加酒店费用RBS帮他付，第二天早上7：30就飞回美国。有瑞典哥本哈根大学的，有好几位在法国读书的…自然费用也是RBS全包。我本以为会遇见很多UK大学的同学，结果只有两个LSE的。除了我就一位中国人，一位在法国读书的漂亮mm X，和她聊了挺多的可惜她不和我一个组…和一个LSE的巴基斯坦的男生M聊得不错，后来group discussion都会互相让着点。除了我之外其他candidate全都是学Economics / Finance的，还挺好奇我学理科的也来做Investment Banking了。
RBS环境非常的轻松，HR叫我们help yourself with water etc, 然后我们一行人在那到处转悠到两点半HR才过来把我们分组。
这次Assessment Centre有12个candidate, 分成两组。 我们组的顺序是interview, case study & presentation, aptitude test, group discussion, 另一组的顺序是case study & presentation, aptitude test, interview, group discussion.
Interview
一位有三年经验的analyst面试我，先聊天，得知他工作的地方不是这里，这栋building是HR & back office的，他自己也花了半天找到这地方…然后问CV的问题，他手里有一张表格，几个标准competency questions，我回答他记notes. 在leadership example中他接着问了why were you chosen as a leader? Were you voted as a leader of the project? Competency question就不多说了，大家应该很熟悉了。我准备的几个example应该还不错，都是以前面试用过很多次的，没怎么再准备，按照S-T-A-R (Situation, Task, Action, Result) 和他讲故事就好。不建议背诵，这样很不自然，并且他问的和你准备的可能稍微有出入。
接着是随意提问了~
Q: The hours in IB is long, can you cope with it?
Q: What do you dislike about IB?
Q: What do you think your strength is, mathematical and analytical skills or communication skills?
Q: How did the financial crisis start? What’s your opinion on it? What’s subprime?
Q: If you are the chairman of Fed, what would you do?
Q: How is this crisis different from crisis before, like 1929, 1980 ones?
Q: Why RBS?
Q: Why do you think RBS’s business model is sustainable?
Q: Why is buying ABN Armo a bad decision? Is it just the price or is the unit purchased not very good?
Q: How much did RBS spent on the deal?
Q: I am a former ABN Armo guy and you are right. Most of RBS’ investment banking businesses comes from ABN Armo. I was going to ask you some technical questions but its unfair since you are not doing a finance related degree. Any questions you want to ask me? (躲过了techincal question 
)
期间我有stuck的地方他会指引我，告诉我you are on the right track, 最后出来时说hopefully will see you in the summer大概知道这关过了吧
Case study & presentation
Case study给我们40分钟时间读4篇文章并写一张presentation slide，然后是30分钟的interview, 其中5分钟做presentation 给一个Director, 25分钟director问问题。
4篇文章大都关于各国经济近况。6个人在一个房间里面，大家互相不说话，都抓紧时间读，写presentation slide. 前面我对宏观经济分析还蛮自信的，把文章都仔细的读，大家都开始写slide了我还在看，把重点画线并记在脑子里，presentation要讲到的bullet point写在笔记本里…最后剩5分钟了我开始写slide, 提笔狂书一气，等HR叫我们出去了才停。。。summary都写笔记本里了没时间也没位置写slide上面了。建议要早些开始写，后面时间会充裕些。文章一定要仔细读懂，对后面的面试帮助看大。
然后被单独分配到一个房间里面等director，等了半天终于来了。期间赶紧补充一下slide。握手寒暄后直接开始presentation (他握手可握得真紧。。。). 我的structure是按照各主要国家单独分析经济状况，然后summary, 找出opportunities for RBS。 Director貌似没有读过我们分配的文章，直接来面试的，对我的presentation没有太大共鸣，就叫我坐下来面试了。
Q: How did the financial crisis start and how did it spread into Asia?
Q: Why do you think Asia economies will recover sooner than western economies?
Q: What are the opportunities for RBS?
Q: Suppose a client needs money, but the bank can not lend to them, the bank does not have money, what can the bank do to help their client?
A: If the bank does not have money, the government can help the company, like they already did to provide capital. (我想你都没钱了还怎么帮人家。。。 转移到gov去)
Q: But how could the bank help?
A: May be M&A opportunities? The company may be able to realize synergies and reduce their cost.
Q: What about restructuring? (终于明白想引我到这个topic来。。。我半天没开窍他还是一脸严肃)
A: Sure. Yeah, restructuring could be an option…
Q: Many banks are switching their focus to advisory rather than debt and equity, why is that?
A: Because there is less risk involved. The client may not be able to pay back their loan, however there is little risk to do advisory business for our clients.
Q: In the economic crisis, which country will suffer more, Japan or Thailand?
A: Probably Japan. Japan is a developed country with slower economic growth than Thailand, its export to both developed countries and developing countries has dropped significantly and it has little room for further stimulus plan. Its interest rate is already 0.5% or so whereas Thailand has more room for government adjustments. Thailand has been hit very hard in 1998, where the Asia financial crisis started there. It has learnt a lesson from that and its foreign reserves is four times of that in 1998; Thailand can face the crisis better.
Q: Okay, in the economic crisis, two industries, textile and electronics, which one will be hit harder?
A: Electronics. When people have less money they spend less on luxury goods, electronics are more luxury goods and textiles are more necessities. Necessities are more income inelastic. (Director点头，记录…有机会表现一下knowledge of macroeconomics啦~ )
Q: What shall we do in the future and prevent such crisis?
A: We need to reduce risks in our operations and we need to make sure our customers have the ability to pay back their loans.
Q: You said about better managing risk, how do you better manage risk?
A:（想了好一会该怎么说呢。。。）Well, we need to be sure the customer has good credit history and has the ability to pay back when we offer mortgages, thus more careful due diligence should be conducted. Also our Asset Management needs to conduct more careful risk analysis when acquiring assets. We need to evaluate the risks ourselves rather than purely trusting S&P, who gave AAA ratings on sub prime… (说到这Director大笑起来).
Q: In the financial crisis, which industries will suffer and which industries could benefit?
A: I think most industries will suffer in this crisis as demand will decrease. About which industry will benefit…en…I think some hedge funds may be able to benefit by correctly predicting the market. Paulson & Co last week made 270m profit US dollars by shorting RBS’ shares. They had the short position for more than 5 months ago and covered the short position last Friday… 
(说完我面露难色，director楞一下没说什么… 本来没打算说的，可是当时没想到还有什么industry can benefit from the economic crisis, 只好说了…几天前RBS的share price跌得不成样子. 现在想想其实inferior goods industries may benefit)
Q: Who is the CEO of RBS? (估计是找不到问题问了。。。我直接说不知道，不过前不久RBS换CEO了。他接着问那前一个你知道吗？我说不好意思我也不知道他名字)
Q: What are your areas of interest in Investment Banking?
Q: Why do you want to do Investment Banking at RBS?
Q: What’s the method you used in planning the presentation and what would you do differently?
写了一些我自己的Answer，可能有不足之处，如有更佳的答案/建议欢迎指正 
未完待续。。
[ 编辑 williamhou 在 09-02-12 11:22 ]
恭喜LZ
恭喜LZ
恭喜啊…刚看了另一个MM拿到OFFER的贴…
LZMM是学金融的吧？ 
恭喜MM！
在现在能拿到ib的offer真是强人 
[ 编辑 windpaths 在 09-01-29 03:23 ]
LZMM原来有过internship么？ 这个是graduate programme 么？
恭喜MM啊！！！！
Assessment Centre是2:00pm-7:00pm, 我1：45到了Algate East Station, 找了一下发现RBS就在我面前。进去已经有七八个candidate在等了，聊得正high，赶紧过去自我介绍，和大家聊天，熟悉一下group discussion比较好说话，最好交几个朋友到时候能互相support. Candidate哪里来的都有，有美国Michigan University刚飞过来的J，800美金的机票外加酒店费用RBS帮他付，第二天早上7：30就飞回美国。有瑞典哥本哈根大学的，有好几位在法国读书的…自然费用也是RBS全包。我本以为会遇见很多UK大学的同学，结果只有两个LSE的。除了我就一位中国人，一位在法国读书的漂亮mm X，和她聊了挺多的可惜她不和我一个组…和一个LSE的巴基斯坦的男生M聊得不错，后来group discussion都会互相让着点。除了我之外其他candidate全都是学Economics / Finance的，还挺好奇我学理科的也来做Investment Banking了。
RBS环境非常的轻松，HR叫我们help yourself with water etc, 然后我们一行人在那到处转悠到两点半HR才过来把我们分组。
[ 编辑 williamhou 在 09-01-29 04:03 ]
spinal于2009-01-29写道:
LZMM是学金融的吧？
学理工科的 :cn08:
windpaths于2009-01-29写道:
恭喜MM！
在现在能拿到ib的offer真是强人
[ 编辑 windpaths 在 09-01-29 03:23 ]
谢谢！RBS的不很难，算比较轻松的AC啦 :cn09:
BTW我是男生...
mm好强，恭喜啦
mossflower于2009-01-29写道:
LZMM原来有过internship么？ 这个是graduate programme 么？
恭喜MM啊！！！！
这个是internship offer啦～
williamhou于2009-01-29写道:
mossflower于2009-01-29写道:
LZMM原来有过internship么？ 这个是graduate programme 么？
恭喜MM啊！！！！
这个是internship offer啦～
我一开始看标题也以为是正式工作的offer :cn14:
miss_waterlily于2009-01-29写道:
williamhou于2009-01-29写道:
mossflower于2009-01-29写道:
LZMM原来有过internship么？ 这个是graduate programme 么？
恭喜MM啊！！！！
这个是internship offer啦～
我一开始看标题也以为是正式工作的offer
graduate现在裁都来不及呢 :cn13:
恭喜恭喜，最近好消息真多啊， 牛年看来不错啊
是大二结束暑假那种intern吗
恭喜MM,
哈哈,我公司也在aldgate附近呢…
RBS今年亏了2.7亿…
是280亿吧