UBS Interview Questions & Reviews in Switzerland

Interview Details – It was a nice interview without any unexpected questions or challenges. Questions asked were matter and work related and can be answered easily if you are prepared as you should be when entering a job interview. There was only one interview with the direct line management and after some days I got their offer.

Interview Details – 1. Analytical test (math + logics) for GTP positions, you've got to get at leats 50% right. Look out for time. It will be very difficult to complete the entire test, so, be fast and pay lots of attention not to make any mistakes
2. Business interview: very similar to case interviews. You actually get an 8 page case. You've got limited time to prepare it and then present your case. Case arevery numerical and might involve basic concepts of finance (buy, hold or sell equity of company XYZ)

Interview Details – I met the country team head through a friend, we had coffee, he liked me and sent me straight to HR for a maths test. I passed and got hired, we negotiated over salary and rank.

Negotiation Details – Difficult! They made no room for manoeuvre on the rank, everyone starts at the bottom if no previous experience, then expect you to pass between 6 and 8 internal exams before promotion is even considered. Salary was more flexible and I got towards the higher end of my rank of 'non-officer'. This Phase was all conducted via email through the HR recruiting dept, who seemed incompetent at the time.

Interview Details – - First interview with direct manager and HR
- Questions were general on background and motivation to join

Negotiation Details – Negotiation was open and flexible, but I didn't get what I wanted

Interview Details – Took about 4 weeks. First rounf with HR, second round on the phone with hiring manager, 3rd round with 8 people at the offices. Last round was with the whole team, plus HR.

Interview Details – Applied through the website and was contacted for two phone interview, one with the line manager and one with HR.

Interview Details – First step with UBS was the online test, which consists of a Numerical Reasoning and a Logical Reasoning (Diagramatical, the one you have to select the right picture) all from SHL. If you are successful, your application is sent to the department head of your choice, in my case Foreign Exchange / Money Market. If they are interested, they will give positive feedback to HR which in turn will arrange an interview date and time with you (of course you'll be contacted this time by a trainee or something).

First interview lasts for 30 minutes and is with HR. They'll ask you questions about you, why you've chosen this programme, why you want to work in Switzerland and so on. German is a plus for positions in Switzerland, so if you stated on your CV that you speak German, the HR will ask you a couple of questions in German.

The second interview lasts 1 hour and a half and is with the department head and maybe with its superior, but anyone one is the head of the other. After a very very long description of their role, which you will not undestand as you'll be nervous and would need some time to get acquainted instead (as opposite to Credit Suisse, where the first questions were to make me comfortable), they'll ask you questions about your experience but also questions related more to the Finance market, although you applied for an IT role. My questions were:
 - Tell me a problem that arises with payments, on an IT perspective
 - What is an option (I didn't know what it was)
 - What does Investment Banking do (I definitely missed this one as I said only issuance of securities while the name itself of the department I was applying for was one of the other products the IB was issueing)

I would say the interview was hard not just because of the focus on Finance although it was an IT role, but also because the interviewers kinda seemed like behaving like "We're UBS and we're the best" and in their questions the general tole was "OK let's see if you're capable of answering this one..." rather than showing interest in your answers. The good thing is that it's the only company, as far as I've seen, which really treats well rejected candidates: they call you personally also to give you a negative feedback, supposedly you can also ask questions to the HR which I did not make as I was expecting this outcome and I kinda knew what was wrong.

Interview Details – I have a master's degree in computer science and will do another degree in quantitative economics and finance. To gain some experience in banking, I wanted to an internship at an investment bank, but it was difficult for me to be heard at almost all of the big banks I applied to (mostly in the UK). Apparantly an ETH master's degree does not qualify for a job in finance.

So one Monday, I thought to give it a try with UBS Switzerland. I initially looked at the career website but found no suitable position, and to avoid more disappointments, I decided to call the HR department. The person I reached was not really happy about that, but still offered me to send my CV directly to her. She almost immediately got back to me with two job offerings, one of which was on the website, the other was not published. I told her that I was interested in either position.

To go forward with my application, I still had to use their official application process, that is, going through the online application forms and do the numerical test. Shortly after I did that, the HR person called me saying everything looks fine and that I should come in for an interview on Wednesday of the same week.

I had to do three interviews. The first one was with HR in Zurich city, where I first had to re-do the numerical test to verify the results from the online test. After that, the HR person asked some standard questions such as where I would see myself in 5 years, what my strengths and weaknesses are and so on. The interviewer was extremely friendly and it was good fun.

After that, I went to Opfikon, a bit outside of Zurich city, where I met with the line managers of either position. They were both extremely friendly. The first line manager brought an IT guy with him to help him assessing my IT skills, which I though was funny. They asked me really tough questions about databases and how I would respond to conflicts if given two tasks from different persons. I actually had fun and after the interview they told me that it was the same for them. They were extremely happy with my answers and said that this was by no means required for an internship position, they even apologized for the tough questions :) The second line manager for the other position brought his youngest team member and asked almost no questions, only explained about the position and was really enthusiastic about it. He then introduced me to the team showed me the trading floor. I really liked that experience.

The next day the HR person called back with offers for either job. I went with the second one, the position seemed more interesting to me and I really liked the line manager and the team.

Negotiation Details – no negotiation

Interview Details – It takes a long time to get an interview. There were some problems between HR and the line management. The interview was at two different places. Not the best situation. The interview was very interesting. Nobody ask some details about your special education. The line manager was more interested about your work experince.