Nomura Interview Questions & Answers

In the final stage for a Graduate role, I went through two 30 minute one-on-one interviews with senior members of the finance team. The interviews were short and two the point, mainly focussed on past internship experience and what sets me apart from other applicants.

What is your Unique Selling Point? Describe your internship role as if I were a layman with no industry knowledge.

Remain calm and keep talking - selling yourself every step of the way. Focus on Nomura's key competencies.

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The first round was a single one-on-one interview with a senior member of the finance team (in my case an Executive Director). All questions were competency based, using my CV as a background to delve further into my experience and test my suitability. No industry specific knowledge was required.

"What is your worst character trait? What are you doing to overcome this?" "Give an example of where you have presented information in order to make something happen/persuade someone to take a different point of view?"

The group exercise cannot be prepared for - just be in the right mindset to work as a team and keep an eye on time. The interviews should be prepared thoroughly, use the information from their careers site as that will really help.

In the final round, we began with a group activity involving all 5 candidates. We were asked to organise a charity night at a cinema and given a pack containing various quotes and e-mail communications. From this, we had 45 minutes as a group to cover all aspects of the evening - planning, finances, projected earnings for the charity, etc. After this, we each had another two one-on-one interviews with senior members of the finance team. Both lasted 45 minutes and used only competency-based questions.