FactSet Interview Questions & Reviews in San Mateo, CA

Interviewed Nov 2010 in San Mateo, CA (took 3 weeks)

The big thing with interviewing with FactSet is being a personality match for what they are looking for. I was flown out for a day of interviews which consisted of 1:1 interviews, a presentation and a group problem solving question with the other interviewees. None of the interviewers at any level of the process asked any technical questions and I feel that this is because the company is not an I-Bank looking to hire the top financial savvy candidates. Instead they are trying to hire people who they feel simply fit into their culture, which makes the whole process unfortunately very subjective. Assuming you prepare yourself with typical interview question knowledge such as what are your strengths/weaknesses, explain a time when you dealt with a problem etc etc, you will be set to answer every question as well as possible. Taking the step from answering the questions to getting an offer is an unknown since there are no technical questions/exams given that separate one candidate from another on a quantitative level. The presentation was odd, you are asked to create a ten minute presentation on the company's acquisition history without a computer for a presentation aid (IE powerpoint). The environment is very relaxed and you present to one person who follows up the presentation with questions about how you found your information, which acquisition was the most interesting etc. One common item between most of the interviewers is that they seem interested in having you ask questions as opposed to them drilling you for the 30 minute interview. Be prepared to ask questions of the interviewers themselves during the process, as a couple of them had a 15 minute of I ask you 15 min of you ask me format. Remember the entire interview process is essentially a personality matching process, so you want to be prepared to present yourself as someone they want to hang out with more than someone who knowns finance and accounting inside and out and can perform the job very well, which I feel is what I did poorly on. The majority of the people interviewing with me had no finance background and none of them had any accounting background, which demonstrates what the company is looking for even though the position entails meeting with and working along side financiers.

I felt the interviews went well, but received no response from thank you emails or cards and received a generic thanks but no thanks email two weeks after my interview, which was unfortunate. The interview process ended on a semi unprofessional note where there was no kind of summary given to the candidates such as a simple, "Thank you for your time, was nice meeting with you, we will contact everyone within the next 1-2 weeks." This was odd considering there was a handful of people interviewing and while one manager gave us the group problem, the others disappeared and were never seen again and never offered a thank you.

The culture seems great and the job seems really good for any college grad. The company offers a CFA program where you can take their in house exam and then have the company pay for your actual exam as well as offer a bonus for passing. Contrary to what a lot of people have said about growth potential, the company trains employees throughly on their systems then quickly moves the employees into customer facing positions where they are allowed to schedule travel itinerary to visit clients around the United States. Employees also gain experience working with analytical software as per job description as well as practice with financial modeling. So with a CFA, travel and customer relation experience and strong experience with financial modeling if you cannot use the experience to lever a better position with the company you would need to be brain dead if you could not find better work elsewhere with that 1-2 year out of school resume. The office also provides lunch for the employees and the company has a good benefit package.