Let's talk about how to pass HSBC's video interview
[Music] What's up, guys? It's Mike from Job Ready
English. Welcome to another video in the past the interview video series
Where we break down the interview processes and most common
questions for the world's most famous companies to help you
get hired so let's get into it today we're going to talk about hsbc
hsbc is the second highest ranked bank behind jp morgan in the times top 100
graduate employers and he's going to be looking to hire
about 600 graduates this year the hong kong and shanghai
banking corporation is 156 years old serving over 40 million customers in 64
countries hsbc recently hit the press due to the fact that they publicly said
that they would support china's stance in hong kong and all the troubles
that have happened over there and also more recently the fact that
they said that they would let their workers
work from home on a friday and do zoom fridays so
i guess that's something one thing i really find attractive about hsbc and
this has been true since 2018 is that they have followed pwc and
setting up a new headquarters in birmingham they actually
invested over 200 million pounds in the west midlands and
they have two and a half thousand staff now based in birmingham this follows the
likes of bank of america jp morgan morgan stanley
and a lot of banks have gone to places like dublin
chester glasgow and have outsourced some of their back office
operations because it's a really great opportunity for graduates who don't want
to go to london quick fun fact hsbc's head offices are
always designed with feng shui principles in mind the two golden lions
called stephen and stit which sit at the mouth of hsbc's uk
headquarters in birmingham or there to enable the
correct flow of qi or energy to come through the building
so let's talk about hsbc's video interview this video is going to
be a little bit different i just want to warn you
because to be honest when we had a look and did a research into what different
candidates were saying about the process they said a lot of different things some
of them said they had a short higher view interview
some of them might have had an hour-long interview some of them may have had a
telephone interview so as ever it's up to us to really
present good information high quality that is helpful for you so
what i'm going to do today is is that i'm actually just going to
pick out a series of questions that i found that either highly likely
or something for you to think about and i've actually picked out
nine questions for you today six questions i'm going to cover in depth
and this is going to cover motivational and sjt style questions and one
competency question and also i'm going to talk about three
technical questions to think about related to this role
now any of you who have watched our videos before will remember in the video
that i did about jp morgan and barclays that a lot
of the banks now are altering their interview processes
or at least they have been for some time to be specific
to the role and the same is true of hsbc so make sure that you're aware of that
and that you know to expect that right so let's talk about the questions
if you're wondering about how to prepare answers for questions how long should i
speak for how much should i write i would aim for two minutes that's a
good safe bet and that's about 250 words good news for
any of you if you're sitting there thinking you know what i really struggle
to write scripts i struggle to write answers
we've got just the thing for you we've recently released a series of templates
and sample answers on our brand new gum road store and you
can buy these all for less than the price
of a takeaway domino's pizza the reason why we released these templates and
sample answers was because we had so many students ask
us about how can i write this question the problem that you have
of a lot of videos that you watch today about interviews is they will tell you
kind of robotically what to say
whereas the way that we tend to approach these types of questions is
things to think about how to say it and why you should say those things
and those templates are going to be a massive help to you and they're going to
really cut down the amount of time it takes for you to
write out the perfect answer so check us out on gun road
okay so let's get into those questions for those of you who have watched the
video before it's going to be no surprise
here boy you're enjoying this video please guys
smash that like button drop us a comment about what video you'd like us to do
next and make sure you subscribe to the channel
to get new videos every week to help you get hired
so the first question is obviously going to be why hsbc
so if you're thinking about why hsbc please don't give out a generic
answer you would have already heard some good facts that i spoke to about
like that they have over 40 million customers that they operate in 64
countries they're 156 years old how do i know that
these are good facts because i can't say them about anybody
else so a good way to think about this is to think what are five facts
that i could only say about hsbc and more importantly what are five facts
that are really interesting to you i spoke to a wonderful young man who
booked one of our hourly sessions which you can do
down below in the description and he was talking to me about going to work for jp
morgan chase in the united states and we were talking
about his answer for why jp morgan he said you know what i sound
a little bit flat i sound a bit like i'm reading out a
list and i was like yeah you know what dude
because you're not interested in what you're saying and actually when he got
to a certain part when he talked about diversity
and what jp morgan was doing there i heard his tone of voice go
up and as soon as i heard that i knew that he was interested in what he was
talking about so don't just list out those five facts
make sure it's something that is interesting to you question number two
why this role of course they're going to say to you why do you want to work in
investment banking why do you want to come and work in risk
in uh operations in the dirt right so how do we prepare for
this so this is a two fold answer number one explain
what you'd be doing time and time again i deal with this with candidates
who book sessions with us they'll be like oh i want to do this job because
it's good and i'd get paid a lot and blah blah blah
i just think dude come on that's the same as everybody else
you don't want to be giving the answers that are the same as everyone else
so first of all what would you be expected to do in this operations role
at hsbc well you know be working to support the
traders what reconciliation statements signing off payments right
that's the first half so anybody watching you and that video is going to
go oh you know what that guy's cool he
knows exactly what he's going to do what's the second part well you're going
to talk about the skills that make you good at that role whether that's
attention to detail numeracy the fact that you're good at
excel whatever that may be those are the really two good two parts
of those answers by the way guys if you're struggling to
answer why this company why this role you can either check out our sheets on
gumroad or if you just want something for free
click down in the description below for our free cover letter course
on skillshare now question three to six or some
more different questions that are really specific to hsbc
so pay attention 100 full-on attention what would you do if a client was left
unsatisfied from hsbc service and claim to stop
cooperate with the bank this is a cool question i like picking
out questions that i think are sort of new
and novel and i don't normally see this is a situational judgment question
so first of all a good thing to think about whenever you get asked the
question that you're not sure is why am i being
asked this question why are they asking me this
well really this is about customer service and resolving conflict
so how am i going to break this down well first of all if a client is
unsatisfied with the service i would want to call them and say hey
dave i understand from your email that you're
really unhappy about the service that we provided
can i just ask why can i ask what is it that we've done
has left you so unhappy i just want to listen to you to make sure that we can
approve our service if not for you then for other customers that gives the
client the customer the opportunity to essentially vent their frustration
you know when you get really upset and you just want to go
and rent down the phone that's exactly what we're doing here
so we give them the opportunity to vent we listen to them
we're studious in what we're doing we're not trying to correct the customer
we're not trying to say well actually you know you need to stay with us
because of xyz we just need to listen to them right the
next thing that we're going to say okay listen dave i completely
understand that the way that we process those payments was slow
and it's something that we need to rectify so what i'm going to do is i'm
going to go away and speak to my manager and see if there's anything that we can
do to make sure that that doesn't happen
again for you because i know how crucial it is
to process payments quickly for your business
for example right it could be many many different things but the point is
you're trying to say to the customer i hear you i want to offer you a solution
and i want to show you that i care about you and i want to do something about
that now the customer can still leave but the
customer's not less likely to leave if you say
please don't leave please don't believe me right
that's not going to be effective the customer wants what they want and you
want what you want so in order to bring those two things
together you're going to need to be able to listen to what they're saying
then you can come back send them an email whether that be something else
another service that you can provide but basically
dealing with their problem because change well think about it right think
about who you have your bills with your phone with
even if they're not great most people don't want to change
because it's a pain in the b it's a pain in the b to change your telephone
provider and all that kind of stuff exactly the same thing here question
number four describe why it is important to build
relationships between colleagues from different departments i love this
question i've seen this question before pwc used
to ask this question quite a lot it was
about relationship building why is it important and is this a
strength question or is this a competency question well to be honest it
could be both it could be like well it's important to
build relationships with colleagues from different departments because
hsbc is really big so each of us has our own individual piece of the puzzle
or information that we have on a client but only by communicating holistically
making sure that the channels are open and really understanding the needs of
our customers and what they're going through
can we deliver really great service from the bank as a whole
cool that's how we'd answer as a strength-based question what about
competitors-based question well we'd provide an example
maybe when we had to deal with different people from different
departments and this can be in any job it could be in a fast-food job i used to
remember when i used to make burgers at kfc it was my very first job
because i wanted to buy a nokia 3310 my mum said
i'm not paying 100 pounds for a mobile phone go and get a job
and i went and got a job at kfc my job was making the burgers i was too
shy to work on the tills i didn't like it
i said you know what i'll make the burgers so you would have to communicate
because someone would come and say oh they want this burger with no lettuce or
this burger of extra mayonnaise or a chicken burger with extra chicken
whatever it is so that was a bit of communication
whatever you're doing if your weight are if you're working behind a bar you're
communicating there's stuff that's going on there right
and you can use that in your example question number five what is your most
important strength and how do you think it will support you
in hsbc cool another great question i know that
lots of people struggle with this question
it's the whole like greatest strength biggest weakness question
but something to think about is number one what are they looking for in the job
description right so someone will sit there and go
well my greatest strength is that i'm very confident
i think dude no one cares that's not what we're asking for i didn't ask if
you're really good at juggling but if you want to be a circus clown
juggling is good and it's exactly the same when talking
about this so when you're thinking about the great strength
my first port of call i would look at the job description i think
what are they really looking for what's the first thing that they mention like
we would really like candidates who have great attention to detail
smart so the money is is that i need to say that i have good attention to detail
if you genuinely don't have that or you feel like it's not honest for you to say
that then just move down and how do you think
it will support you in hsbc what's going to help me get the job done
why is attention for example why is attention to detail important
well at hsbc when preparing reports and doing
research for clients we deal with a lot of data
from a lot of different sources having good attention to detail means that we
can make sure that our clients get the best
information that is reliable that is valuable and helps them to make
the correct investment decisions or decisions for their business
as a short answer right so that's something
to think about when you're kind of thinking well what strength will i say
don't think just look at the job description and finally question six
how would you feel about working with new colleagues and how would you
approach building a successful relationship with them
again great question because that's exactly what you're going to be doing
right everybody's been the new guy at work i
can remember my very first job when i graduated from university was at
a construction company and i was breaking it breaking it is basically
um slang for like pooping i was gonna poop my pants
right because i came in and everyone was much older than me and i looked more
experienced and people were picking up phones and
talking like business in language and i was like i was there my suit sweating
right and basically what i did was i just
started to get to know people and just sort of say like hi my name's mike
i'm just joined like who are you what do you do
if there's anything like that i can do to help you just let me know so i just
went around and i was just generally friendly to people
but everybody had the time for me because they were busy right
and that was the thing that i kind of learned it wasn't about me it was just
about the fact that like uh i've got three quotes to get out
before 11 a.m go away or they might go oh actually now that
you're here i really need help with x y or z
so how would you feel about working with new colleagues but i feel great it's a
really exciting opportunity i met some wonderful people at that company
and every company that i've worked at since i have met really great people
not everybody was my cup of tea some people are douchebags
that's just the way that it is but i feel good because i
kind of like meeting people not loads of people but like one-on-one or a small
group i quite like that and then how would you
approach building a successful relationship with them well
you know be honest be helpful be open-minded and be willing to learn
i find that both as a coach as an entrepreneur and as an employer
these are things that i really look for in people if they're really just kind of
honest open-minded and willing to learn that's pretty much the how of being a
good employee from my books now of course there are
people who might ask you to do more things that you want to do and all that
kind of stuff and office politics but in the beginning i think that's a
really good way to live it's like how honest open-minded willing cool so a
couple of technical questions to think about because these might come up in
your interview and these are related to the role that
you're going to be doing and i give you these technical questions not because
necessarily i know the answer to them but it gives you an idea of the
level of difficulty a lot of times when speaking to
candidates they don't know how difficult the technical questions are
going to be so they kind of struggle with that they're like
uh should i read their financial times do i need to read the economist
should i basically revise everything i've ever learned about finance ever i'm
like dude no it's fine relax so the technical questions have come up
which was like what do you know about profitability at hsbc
you know nothing read that annual report what is why is it important to focus on
financial goals and your report name three current
trading risks bloomberg right so this is not that difficult but
it is quite good to read a little bit into that and report
what are the divisions of the bank that are doing well what's more profitable
what's less profitable it's a little bit more in-depth and
you'd expect this for front office rolls but it's definitely
worth doing guys i hope that you enjoyed this video
all about passing hsbc's interview please hit a like comment about what
video you'd like us to make next make sure you subscribe to the channel so you
get new videos every week to help you get hired
bye