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