Banking and Finance: Industry-Specific Interview Questions and Career Outlook

We spoke to Bryan Thien, Manager of Banking & Financial Services at Adecco Singapore, about current hiring trends and industry-specific interview questions. He shares his wisdom here.

Can you share on the current hiring trends from your industry of expertise? What are employers looking for, what’s the industry outlook, and what are the skills they are prizing?

Bryan: Hiring trends and market outlook in the Banking & Financial Services space have been even slower/softer this year (2024) compared to the previous year (2023).

The front office space is still hiring consistently but no significant peak or spike at any given time. Reason-being these are direct revenue generating roles and are known as evergreen roles (i.e. Relationship Managers in Retail, Corporate, Private).

The middle/back-office space is the area that has shown significant slowdown. When banks/companies restructure, people in these areas are more likely to be affected rather than front office – especially folks holding a high position (i.e. Directors and above) as cost is also the highest here.

Hiring demands in this space mainly stems from replacement roles of people that has left the business.

Businesses are still valuing candidates who have a good track record in their previous roles (i.e. ability to achieve high sales revenue, undertaken multiple projects, worked on multiple deal sizes). Lastly, presentation during the selection process has also been critical given the market’s sentiment towards leaner teams.

Despite market sentiments in 2024, market outlook in 2025 seems more promising with talks of banks and financial institutions looking to allocate more budget towards hiring in 2025.

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What are some of the industry-specific questions that tend to be asked during interviews in your industry, and how are they best answered?

Bryan: Questions around track record, sales numbers, project dealings and ability to use certain technical tools are very common questions across the board.

In my opinion, the best way to answer these is to:

• Ask a few questions if needed to clarify the situation (this shows good control of understanding the problem at hand before facing it head on).
• Formulate a structured answer covering different factors and aspects of the question at hand (this shows thought process which is vital in problem solving).
• Elaborate and explain further on said solution and provide real life references from previous experiences (this shows the employer prior experience in facing such issues).
• Overall, your delivery of solution/answer should always align back to initial question posed.

Are there any particular jobs in your industry that also have very specific questions? How are they best answered?

Certain roles that require a more in-depth technical analysis of the situation (i.e. questions around risk analysis, quantitative analysis, etc.).

There’s no particular way of answering such questions but be sure to go into more details of factors and aspects to consider when trying to give a solution to the problem.

For example, technical answers can be given depending on the interviewer.

If your interview is with the hiring team, go ahead and use typical jargons and keywords that specialists/experts would know about.

If you’re interviewing with the HR, breaking it down into layman’s terms would be more efficient in tackling these questions as it shows good understanding from the candidate’s side to be able to communicate it across.

Are there any situational questions that tend to be asked for your industry? How are they best answered?

Situational questions would be more common amongst junior to mid-level roles as they want to see how the candidates are able to handle themselves in situations that has not happened to them before.

For example: dealing with senior stakeholders, time management, tasks prioritization, problem solving, etc.

Even though it’s not as common, situational questions are still present in some slightly senior interviews – usually around different areas such as strategic thinking, tactful execution methods, timeline management.

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Are there any technical or skill tests (written, hands-on or project) that could be accompanied with an interview has part of the hiring process for any roles in your industry? What are they usually like, and what is the best way to approach them?

Case studies and/or assignments are not uncommon in more technical roles in the industry.

This is usually done to assess the candidate’s technical experience/knowledge needed for a particular role.

My advice on the best way to approach these is to:

• Ask any questions prior to completing the given task as it will show importance of good understanding of the problem before facing it head on.
• Allocating undivided time and attention to completing the task at hand and putting it down as detailed and structured as possible in writing.
• Double and triple checking the work before sending it back to the employer to show good attention to details.

Last but not least, make sure you send back assignments within the stipulated timeframe!

This article was done in collaboration with Adecco.