Barclays Capital Technology Interview Questions

Barclays Capital Interview Questions - Technology (BarCap)

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Following the online application, the interview process for graduate positions in Technology at Barclays Capital consist of the following:

• Telephone interview
• Assessment centre

Telephone interview

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BarCap Telephone interviews are compentancy based and last roughly 15 - 35 minutes. Your interviewer will ask a lot of questions about you, your application and CV.

You will be asked about your motivations for joining BarCap and why you want to work in the particular division you have applied to, for example:

• What moves have you made to secure a career in Investment Banking?
• What is your understanding of Investment Banking?
• What does BarCap do?
• What will you be doing in your first year at BarCap if your application is successful?
• What do you think are the most difficult issues facing BarCap in the field you have applied to?
• Imagine this scenario: Some data you urgently require is three hours late, what do you do?
• Tell me about a major issue right now concerning Investment Banking that interests you.
  • How could this affect investment banks such as BarCap?

You will also be asked general competency questions, concerning issues like teamwork and communication, for example:

• Tell me about a time when you were a member of a team.
  • What went wrong?
  • How did you overcome these challenges?

You will be emailed soon after your telephone interview with either a letter of rejection, or an invitation to an assessment centre.

Assessment Centre

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Day one

• Check-in
• Drinks reception
• Evening meal

Barclays Capital's graduate assessment centres are held over two days and take place in London. This is the final round of interviews for BarCap graduate schemes which start in September each year.

Candidates are invited to stay in a London hotel (usually somewhere near to Canary Wharf) entirely paid for by BarCap. You will be requried to check-in to this hotel in the afternoon on day one of the assessment centre. At 6:30pm there will be a drinks reception for candidates, supervised by several BarCap employees, including current graduate trainees from the specialism you have applied to and members of the HR team - your assessors. There will be about 25 - 35 other candidates at the assessment centre.

After the drinks reception you will enjoy a meal at the hotel. Candidates will sit with employees with approximately three Barcap employees and about six candidates per table. Ask sensible questions and try to find out what current employees think about the firm, their jobs and the general working culture at BarCap.

Day two

• Breakfast
• Individual interviews
• Case study
• Presentation
• Group exercise
• Lunch
• Individual interview
• Presentation
• Office tour

The second day of the BarCap assessment centre starts with breakfast at 7:30am. The interview proper starts at 8:30am, when the main candidate group will be divided into three small groups.

Interviews

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During the assessment day you will have two consecutive 30 minute interviews, followed later in the day by one further, slightly longer more technical interview.

Each of the first two interviews will be with one interviewer and will be a discussion about you, your application and your motivations for working at BarCap and in investment banking.

The final, third interview will be more technical. You should prepare for questions such as:

• How data is stored? How does the garbage collector work? When does it get used? Can I call it?
• What's the difference between an abstract class and a class.
• How do you use reflection, what are the advantages of reflection? What are the disadvantages of reflection?
• What does hashCode() do?
• If I implement cloneable, what methods should I override? Why would I want to implement cloneable?
• What's the difference between an Array and an ArrayList?
• Can I call Java from C++? Can I call C++ from Java?
• How do you use threads in Java?
• How can you implement a semaphore?
• How is inheritance different in C++ and Java?

Some BarCap candidates however, are not asked any technical questions such as those above at all during their interviews.

Case Study

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You will each be given a one-page case study and have one hour to construct a 15-minute individual presentation from this. You will also be asked to write notes and create flipchart slides for your presentation. The information given to you will describe a company and the work they do. You will be asked to give some recommendations about how they could improve their business and the associated risks involved.

After the hour allowed for preparation you may be asked to give your presentation, or you may be involved in another activity and requried to give your presentation later in the day.

Presentation

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You will be asked to give your presentation of the case study to several BarCap assessors and other candidates, all of whom will be able to ask questions after you have finished speaking. Be prepared to stand up for yourself and decisions you made, even if they turn out to be wrong. It is more important that you can explain your thought processes and show that you can form well structured arguements, than necessarily coming to the correct conclusion.

Group Exercise

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You will be separated in to groups of about four people and be given a list of 20 urgent tasks to take care of. First of all you will be asked to individually decide which five tasks to deal with immediately. You will then be asked to select the most important five tasks to contend with as a group. You will then present this and justify your decisions to your BarCap assessors.

The list of urgent tasks includes:

• You have received an urgent voicemail from New York (Tip: consider the time difference between the USA and England).
• You have to give a talk to a group of new graduates at 8:15am but you haven't prepared your presentation yet.

It is important to stand up for your decisions and explain why you decided on your choices, even if it turns out that they are the wrong choices.

Lunch

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Tour

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Candidates will be given a tour of Barclays Capital at the very end of the assessment day. You will be shown the trading floors and the department you have applied for (if this is anything other than trading).