The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Northern Trust (London, England) in Apr 2011
Interview
I applied for the Northern Trust Gold Program in early March and got a response from the recruitment team on the 28th of March. As i had no internet in my house for a week I did not realise the company had sent me an email to be interviewed in that same week. However HR was sympathetic and allowed me to reschedule.
After several attempts to book a time slot to match the HR schedule and my own (I currently work at another bank) we finally agreed for 12:30pm on a Monday. Initially i was told the interview would last 20 mins, but in the last email I exchanged she said it would be 10mins instead!
I prepared myself prior the interview pretty well! Since I was at work I had to find a quiet and discrete location for the phone interview to take place. Nonetheless, all of this was in vain as the HR recruiter called me 20 mins prior the established time (its not like she did not know I was working), so I found that quite disrespectful.
As soon as I picked up the phone she went right at it, which meant i had to run out of the office! The only thing is, where I work there is poor network connection, so she had to repeat questions tonnes of times....and we actually lost connection at one point!
I was dissapointed not so much by the fact that we lost connection but by the fact that I told her as soon as I picked up that I was at the office and she was early. Again i didnt event get a reply...she just went straight to the questions.
Is this the way you seek for talented individuals? To be honest I think she was having a bad day and wanted to go for lunch earlier...since from the second we started speaking she seemed like she wanted to hangup.
All in all not a good representation of Northern Trust, Im sure (hope) she doesnt represent the rest of the employees.
Questions asked:
1. Tell me a bit about yourself
2. What is your biggest passion
3. What do you know about the organisation (i.e. explain what they do)
4. What was your biggest achievement
5. What part of your role do you think would be most dyre?
2 rounds of interviews before final decision. The process a couple of weeks. There were multiple interviews and a business case study. Most of the questions were behavioral, asking about why Northern Trust. A few basic market questions
I interviewed at the Chicago Office during my internship with managers in the specific area I applied into. There was only on technical question and everything was behavioral. Most interviews were just conversations and not difficult at all.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
List off all the working capital accounts on a statement of cash flows.