Goldman Sacs interview questions




    What Goldman Sacs test on :

    Goldman visited our campus for STRATEGIC ANALYST PROFILE. This page has all the research I did before appearing for my interviews (other people's experience), as well as the questions asked from me  (personal experience)

    Written round
    30 MCQ for us in 1.5 hours. Seems like a lot of time, but the questions were tough and took around 6 minutes each. Some were similar to what we get in our BTech mathematics and computing subjective examinations
    • 5 Logical reasoning :had vector spaces and machine learning. Why was this called logical reasoning? I have no idea
    • 10 Quant : pure mathematics: probability ( Central limit theorem, random walk, z variable, various distributions: Bernoulli, Weinberg). The  kind of questions you get in IIT exam + some puzzles (none of the standard ones)
    • 15 Computer science : calculate complexity of best methods to solve a question (algorithm analysis), operating system questions on page faults and multi-level index


    I read on glassdoor.com that  in addition there is one essay titled "Why are you the best fit for Goldman Sachs?" The topic of this essay is common in all campus placements.
    So I prepared for it too, never got to write my speech


    Probability questions :
    1. We are in a junction. p is the probability that at least one car will pass through it within the next 20 minutes. Give me the probability that no car will pass within the next 5 minutes. 
    1. Suppose you toss a fair coin 400 times. What is the probability that you get at least 220 heads? Round your answer to the nearest percent. 
    2. A drunk man walks back with probability p and forward with probability q(=1-p). He is standing on the edge of the cliff, find the probability that he survives
    3. There was a question on maximum likelihood estimate :



    Puzzles asked :

    1. There are 13 red, 15 blue and 17 green butterflies. 2 butterflies of different colors merge and for 2 butterflies of 3rd color (1 red +1 blue=2 green). What color butterflies are left in the end ?
    1. There're 10 steps ahead of rabbit and she can jump 1 step or 2 steps at a time. How many different ways for her to reach to the top. 

    Ans : Basic Recurrance formula F(n) = F(n-1)+ F(n-2) . Expalation : Asume rabbit wants to climb the 10th step , it can either make the jump from 9th step or from 8th step . F(1) = 1 - can take only 1 step F(2) = 2 - can take 2 single steps or just take a 2 step jump . so 2 ways . Solving this recurrence relation should give the result . Time O(n) & Space O(1)



    1. Given N noodles in a bowl and randomly attaching ends. What is the expected number of loops you will have in the end?  


    Ans : You just have to recognize that the number of loops on the nth trial is

    N(n) = 1/( 2n - 1 ) + N(n-1).

    so

    N(k) = 1 + 1/3 + 1/5 + ... + 1/k 




    For  software development profile :
    1. From C there were questions on register , enum etc storage classes.
    2. C++ questions were mostly of class related , inheritance , friend function etc.
    3. SQL:  some queries . Interview had the question :
    Ways to Improve SQL Query Performance
    Make sure the tables are normalized to the appropriate degree, then that they're indexed correctly. Those are foundational. From there, improvements can normally only come in the 5-10% range



    Expect questions on coding applications in finance world.
    Example :
    What would be the best approach to handle real-time intraday data storage? Example can be prices of stock ticks

    Ans : Plain binary files. 
    Can't beat them. With today's fast computers any superimposed database layer will create unnecessary overhead (speed and code).

    Datafields:
    Byte key (trade, dom bid/ask event, volume, others)
    Single price
    Long volume
    Long timestamp (millisec from 00:00 same day)

    One file per symbol per day.
    Very simple to access, search, analyze.





    They sometimes hold a GD
    The topic is the same every time : you will be given a sheet with some 12 people, occupations and personality . Then you are told that they are on a sinking ship and you can save only some, say 6. So you discuss and choose people with good justification


    For the interview:

    What's a superday? 

    A day of one-on-one meetings with employees in a particular division or group. Do know where Goldman Sachs stock is trading that day. Do not be late.



    They usually start with tech questions and the interview goes in the direction you want to.

    + points if you can talk about and are prepared for :
    • finance option pricing, no arbitrage principle (For strategist profile)
    •  brainteasers and puzzles
    • current events : if an investment banking position
    I prepared questions like "How does Goldman make profits?", latest IPO, company stock price, markets in general, option trading

    Goldman's advice: "Demonstrate a passion for financial services." 
    <picked directly from their website>


    For a pure investment banking role , here are the questions I picked from glass door. This is for Quant role (Usually PHD s in financial mathematics)


    1. How does the PE of a firm change after a stock split?  
    Ans : When stock splits, price changes to half, so does the earnings per share. (As number of outstanding shares double). So P/E does not change.

    1.  What is outlier? Why we are concerned about them - give a situation ? How to detect it?
    Ans : Make up a situation. My favorite one is that if Bill gates walks into a bar, the average income of every person present jumps to a million.
    There, Mr. Gates is your outlier
    Use statistical tools to detect them


    1.  2008 crisis-extreme value theory?

    1. Suppose you have three call options on the market, with strikes 10, 20, and 30. Suppose the call option with strike 10 costs $12, the call option with strike 20 costs $7, and the call option with strike 30 costs $1. Does there exist an arbitrage opportunity? 

    Ans :
    here is an elementary model-free theorem that says that call option prices are a convex function of strike. In this example, they are not so there must be an arbitrage.
    By Jensen' inequality, the average of 10 call and 30 call should be greater than 20 call. Here 20 call is overpriced
    The way the theorem is proven is to take the portfolio 
    +1 C(10)
    -2 C(20)
    +1 C(30)
    Long 10 call and 30 call and short the 20 call
    and observe that the pay-off is positive or zero so the price must be positive. 


    Study links :


    1. A 2 year bond, yield 6%. A 1 year bond, yield 4%. What's
       the implied rate for the bond that starts one year from now? 

    Rate of Interest = ((1.06)^2)/(1.04) - 1 This comes from No Arbitrage Principle. On solving it gives you 8%. This is valid only if the bond under consideration has the maturity of 1 year.

    Study links :






    1.   What do you mean by lift chart?
    2.  Stability of a system?
    3. Describe eigenvalues and eigenvectors?
    4. What do factor analysis
    5. Give me three stock picks and why.  What is the 5 yr bond rate?

    Know your basic finance well : duration, convexity, CAPM and economics (inflation/deflation)

    General tips :
    If you can talk about this, win-win situation
    They also asked about current finance news
    Interact with and learn the names of your interviewers, you may be questioned on this later, and people skills are highly valued.
    Read about the company, and the division to which you are applying, know exactly what it is they do.
    Read the Goldman Sachs annual report (available online)
    What we expect you to accomplish early on, what attributes make our top performers so outstanding, what you can do to truly drive results, how you’ll be evaluated --all the things that matter to you and to us and our businesses.



    Bring a “project.": Do a little research about the company. That’s not impressive; that’s a given.
    To really impress the interviews:
    "tell us how you will hit the ground running and contribute right away -- the bigger the impact the better. If you bring a specific skill, show how we can leverage that skill immediately.
    Remember how we see it: We have to pay you starting day one, so we’d love to see an immediate return.
    We want you to ask for the job… and we want to know why.
    By the end of the interview you should have a good sense of whether you want the job. If you need more information, say so. Let’s figure out how to get you what you need to make a decision."

    That article is a must read for every interview you go to





    Do negotiate :

     Many year-end bonuses are tied to performance metrics and the amount can vary depending whether certain milestones are met. Sign up bonus is easier to negotiate because it is a onetime thing.





    I am writing this page due to sunk cost fallacy : the 12+ hours I spent on researching about GS should be shared and saved (This way I can get rid of the albatross around my neck)
    Most of the research was picked from glassdoor.com . Thank you for the wonderful website and tool.
    Disclaimer : I do not own most of content .

What does a Business Analyst do ?




Data-driven companies treat their data as a corporate asset and leverage it for competitive advantage. 

Business analytics (BA) is using statistical analysis iteratively to explore organization’s data. These patterns can then be exploited for data-driven decision making
They can be used to automate and optimize business processes.

Examples of BA uses include: 
  • Exploring data to find new patterns and relationships (data mining)
  • Explaining why a certain result occurred (statistical analysis, quantitative analysis)
  • Experimenting to test previous decisions (A/B testing, multivariate testing)
  • Forecasting future results (predictive modeling, predictive analytics)


Answering questions like :
Why do we observe a pattern?
What will happen if we change dependency x?

What else does the data tell us that never thought to ask?
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CRACKING THE GD WAS NEVER THIS EASY : USE THIS FRAMEWORK

IN THE 2 MINUTES GIVEN BEFORE DISCUSSION STARTS


Write down these point on the paper given to you and fill in accordingly
  • Rural vs urban India
  • Government allocation of money/funds
  • Medicinal use (grass is yellow : marijuana: treatment of cancer)
  • Stakeholders (customers, villages, students, teenagers)
  • HISTORICAL CONTEXT
  • EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • DEMOGRAPHICAL
  • ECONOMIC ISSUES



GD is never a debate

MIDWAY CONCLUSION:
After 6-7 minutes, give a small conclusion as to what has been done till now. You can say "We have discussed positive points like <> and downside like <> . Let us now discuss the solutions of this problem. I suggest…. " <put up a point>
This way you speak in general for 10 seconds when everyone shuts down and then you can control the group and say a point that everyone notices

Be a combination of professor (preach your points and get everyone to agree) and butcher (use the "I agree, but" technique) . You should get people to agree with you as well as say your points well.
You have to be persuasive as well as aggressive. People skills as well as a firm hand is what the company is looking for.

Modulate your voice. High tone when saying something important and softness and politeness with general words. Your statements should always end politely.

"My friends, we are deviating from our discussion topic. <put up your point>"

If you feel someone is saying fake data, "I think we should check the authenticity of the figures you are putting up but according to <some trusted newspaper/stats>" or "I think the data you are quoting is not from a reliable source"


When someone interjects you in middle of a point, say "Please let me finish my point dear friend"


When you conclude at the end, say "according to us" and sum up all the points nicely.
NEVER add a new point in conclusion. You can say "The solutions and suggestions that have come up are <>"


When you start a GD, define the scope of the topic 1st




Never point at someone , not even through a pen. Use the whole palm to gesture. "My respected colleague /friend "


You can give a chance to the people agreeing with your point. This shows that you are a team player. "I think my colleague would like to add something, lets give him a chance to put forth his point"


****************************************************************************
Wars are like volcanos, they destroy what is, yet create what is not


Nod along. Do not cross legs, don’t play with pen or point at someone. The hand should not be too far away from body
  • Do not focus on metaphor more. If your point is invalid after 2 minutes, let it go. Don’t stick to it
  • Continue discussion forward. Agree and repeat what other person said and then add more
  • Raise voice when no-one is listening and keep speaking continuously
  • Summary in between always helps
  • Look at people who are speaking the point, don’t sway away from topic
  • "we have discussed foreign examples, lets discuss Indian examples and experiences"
  • "we have discussed old wars and history, lets focus on current scenario/present"

Summary :
  • We had a fruitful discussion
  • Repeat topic
  • Diplomacy
  • Look at the person who made a specific point

Conclusion: Summary + own opinion








SAMPLE GD TOPICS


Tie vs hammer : blue collar jobs vs executives(white collar)

It was engineering a mistake? (seems like a pi has been slashed through)

A ship where you can save 3 out of 10 people or none. You always have to stick to the fact that you save all people.


Sources for more topics:

http://www.gdtopics.com/
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What do consultants really do ?



This video is one of the very best in giving you ideas about management consulting. It will help you specifically answer the HR questions and show your understanding of the work.You can revolve your list of key skills around the work and its specific parts 

Why ZS associates/ Business analytics

ZS presentation at your campus will be enough to give you a good idea of roles and responsibilities.

Do participate in the ZS campus connect competition, it will give you idea about the kind of work you will be doing. Also, winners get bumped up to interview round



Consulting at ZS is not like Mckinsey/Bain who offer solutions to management problem . ZS claims to work on implementation of solutions.

Roles

Business Analyst- BA will offer sales and marketing analytics, data driven decision making process. 
Business operations : will plan, run and execute plan made by BA, refresh and fine tune the plan according to results and reports. 
Business technologist : build tools for the same



Thinks to talk about in interview:


Z space : collaborative platform + forum to ask questions and leverage knowledge of previous cases within the organisation


Visibility and responsibility : ZS allows freshers to talk to clients in US and doing front end work like giving presentations .


 ZS campus connect competition


I got a my first close experience with the business case through ZS case study. Here are my notes on the same
You can exploit these to understand business analytics

  • First of all : Segmenting data
    •  I got to know what kind of raw data consultants get, and to try and gauge what is important and what is filler
    • (We didn’t have to go and ask for data, I am glad) Question : how do you know what subset to ask data from? It's not like you are given 10 factors and you pick from them. You have to brainstorm and imagine all possible useful metrics
    • With data, seeing connections is easy. Tough part is to check if those connections are true and meaningful or just random sampling misfits
  • Second  : Call plan according to segments and Segment re-evaluation if results hey-y
    • Re-evaluation principals and ideas on quarter results. Modifying action plan and operations
  • Segmenting our raw data after cleaning
    • Choosing important factors by combining variables into more meaningful metrics
    • Preventing over-fitting in raw data
  • New product :
    • (industry specific) : Dose in kids, pregnant woman, elderly
    • Is it a substitute for our existing product?
    • Can it fit into existing distribution network?
  • Other issues like
    • Reallocation of sales rep
    • Sales call plan
  • What information to show to client, what to show to sales head, what to show to sales rep
  • IT considerations
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Why Deutsche Bank

Here is some information I gathered to answer the "Why us?" question. Pick up the points and use them in your interview. All the best !
Deutsche Bank : announced co-CEO’s Anshu Jain and Jurgen Fitschen would tender their resignations, paving the way for the appointment of former UBS CFO and bank restructuring expert John Cryan to be appointed as the bank’s next CEO.
Investors gave little support to Jain and Fitschen’s so-called ‘Strategy 2020,’ a plan to :
  • maintain a universal banking business model
  •  top-five global market share in capital markets and investment banking businesses worldwide,
  • reducing leverage by up to EUR 150 billion and operating costs by EUR 3.5 billion.
  • Credit Suisse analysts believe that Deutsche Bank can plug a capital gap by doing an initial public offering of Postbank, but they also foresee investment bank restructuring as returns on capital stagnate and trading operations consume an ever greater percentage of the bank’s balance sheet
40%  of Deutsche Bank’s shareholders then voted against the discharge of the management board, a widespread disavowal of Jain and Fitschen’s plan.

They see a scenario where Deutsche Bank cuts investment banking assets by a third to EUR 310 billion by 2017
Disclaimer: I do not own any data and cant recall the source. I will add the credits if someone points it out.

Why Goldman Sacs

Here is some information I gathered to answer the "Why us?" question. Pick up the points and use them in your interview. All the best !

PS: Goldman is know to have an essay question in its campus hiring rounds.

Goldman Sachs International
One employee touted recent tweaks to the firm’s culture, coupled with giving young talent meaningful responsibilities, as major factors in recruiting and retention.  Goldman is one of the best firms on the Street at giving junior bankers the ability to step up and have meaningful client interactions. ”It’s rewarding to work at a firm that’s shown such a deep commitment to recruiting and retaining a diverse employee population, and that truly believes that its future success depends on its ability to attract a diverse workforce.”
News on Goldman

  • Alibaba has appointed a former top Goldman Sachs executive as president of the group to lead the Chinese e-commerce giant's international expansion and lure top global brands looking to sell their products via the world's second-largest economy .Michael Evans, a former Goldman Sachs vice chairman, will focus on building partnerships with big brands and retailers in Europe, America and Asia to help them sell on China's massive consumer market. He has been an independent director at Alibaba since its initial public offering in September.
  • Petco Animal Supplies Inc has hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc to lead a potential initial public offering or sale that could value the pet supplies retailer at between $4 billion and $5 billion, including debt, according to people familiar with the matter.

The top two investment banks in FICC - JPMorgan and Citi - have earned $8.9 billion this year from those divisions, compared to $10.1 billion in the same period last year, Coalition's data shows.

Fix income instruments : bonds,, currencies, and commodities. Doing well in FIX income and equity

The Goldman Sachs Group is a leading multinational investment banking, securities and investment management that provides wide range of financial advice and services to an international client base. It also engages in mergers and acquisitions services, asset management, prime brokerage, market making and private equity deals. Their clients include governments, public authorities, corporations and financial institutions.
The firm employs 31,700 people worldwide and offers employees the possibility to work in another country and to promote within the company. Last week, for example, Goldman Sachs announced its newest class of 28 managing directors. What was actually impressive was the fact that a 28-year-old got promoted. However the all-time youth promotion record belongs to Eric Mindich, who became partner when he was 27.

With a very clear and strong vision and culture within the firm, Goldman Sachs considers that their people are the greatest asset they have, so they invest in their employees’ career. As a leading company and top investment banking, Goldman Sachs only hires talented candidates who can cope with stress and work in a fast pace environment. They are looking for the best. If you think you can meet their requirements, do not hesitate to research further about their careers opportunities and programs. Besides, Goldman Sachs has just eased work conditions of junior investment bankers!


Lloyd Blankfein : CEO of Goldman Sachs.

Firstly, Blankfein said you must not fear change. – The finance industry has always been through change, it is nothing new. The people who succeed will be those who are, “flexible and nimble,” – who know the business and the process rather than a particular product and its execution.
Secondly, Blankfein said you must not be rampantly ambitious. Live in the moment and do what you’re doing well
Thirdly, Blankfein said you must, “make yourself coachable.” Make yourself, “the kind of person that people want to help… Don’t be too defensive, be open to criticism.”
A podcast series called "Exchanges at Goldman" available on iTunes

Disclaimer: I do not own any data and cant recall the source. I will add the credits if someone points it out.
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