What is life? Is this all there is to life, 9-5pm and then live for the weekend?
Tuesday, 14 May 2013
Wednesday, 13 June 2012
Is this all life is?
Poignant reminder of life!
A boat docked in a tiny Greek island.A tourist complimented the local fishermen on the quality of their fish and asked how long it took them to catch. "Not very long." they answered in unison."Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" The fishermen explained that their small catches were sufficient to meet their needs and those of their families. "But what do you do with the rest of your time?" "We sleep late, fish a little, play with our children, and take siestas with our wives. In the afternoons we have a snack at the beachOr go into the village to see our friends at the Kafenio, have a few drinks and play tavli.In the evenings we go to a taverna play the bouzouki andsing a few songs, maybe break a plate or two. We have a full life."The tourist interrupted, "I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat." " And after that?" "With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third oneand so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Athens or even London! âFrom there you can direct your huge new enterprise." "How long would that take?" "Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years." replied the tourist. " And after that?" " Afterwards? Well my friend, that's when it gets really interesting, " answered the tourist, laughing. "When your business gets really big, you can start buying and selling stocks and make millions!" "Millions? Really? And after that?" asked the fishermen. "After that you'll be able to retire,live in a tiny village near the coast.Sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta withyour wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends."
A boat docked in a tiny Greek island.A tourist complimented the local fishermen on the quality of their fish and asked how long it took them to catch. "Not very long." they answered in unison."Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" The fishermen explained that their small catches were sufficient to meet their needs and those of their families. "But what do you do with the rest of your time?" "We sleep late, fish a little, play with our children, and take siestas with our wives. In the afternoons we have a snack at the beachOr go into the village to see our friends at the Kafenio, have a few drinks and play tavli.In the evenings we go to a taverna play the bouzouki andsing a few songs, maybe break a plate or two. We have a full life."The tourist interrupted, "I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat." " And after that?" "With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third oneand so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Athens or even London! âFrom there you can direct your huge new enterprise." "How long would that take?" "Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years." replied the tourist. " And after that?" " Afterwards? Well my friend, that's when it gets really interesting, " answered the tourist, laughing. "When your business gets really big, you can start buying and selling stocks and make millions!" "Millions? Really? And after that?" asked the fishermen. "After that you'll be able to retire,live in a tiny village near the coast.Sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta withyour wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends."
Sunday, 12 February 2012
Lek Interview
Lek interview
So for the L.E.K. Interview it consisted of two interviews of lengths 45 mins and a numerical test of 30 minutes.
The application process was relatively simple - cover letter, and cv. I received an interview invite on late November for their January recruitment.
Yesterday I was invited to a closed presentation whereby candidates involved in this round of interviews attended. At the presentation it was attended by roughly 30 or so candidates who had the first round interviews the next day. The candidates varied from art students & engineering / science finalists to phd's who were applying directly for a specialist health life sciences.
The presentation was just lek sucking up to themselves telling us about the company and 3 people from different ranks talked about their experiences.
Then we had a networking time drinks with buffet snacks and wine being served, I talked with my interviewers for tomorrow potentially.
So the first round consisted of 2 interviews and a numerical GMAT style questions with half the Questions being sufficiency type.
The first interview started with motivational questions:
1) so looking at your cv what is your best achievement
2) why lek
3) why management consultancy
Then the question was Market sizing.
Estimate the Market siZe for baby powdered milk. So I did the standard analysis assume population is uniformly distributed etc
Also then if 1 percent of the babies was allergic to the standard baby milk --> I
Was asked to explore this
The second interview
Why management consultancy?
Then the case was to estimate the number of new rubbish collector trucks that would need to manufactured in a year ( assuming - the life Cycle of one is 8 years) - he gave me some numbers with respect to how much waste is produced, how much each person produces in year (500 tonnes) and assuming 12 tonnes of waste carried with 80 percent capacity used.
After he asked about the effects of changing from wholly waste to splitting this into two streams ie recycled and non recycled and the effects on the capacity.
Then he asked if one should invest in technology to manage the downstreaming and automate waste management ie fixed cost vs variable cost argument
Then got me to draw a graph of unit price vs volume of waste.
Sunday, 1 January 2012
Games Maker Olympics Interview - Spectator Team Entry
So I went for the spectator entry games maker role. I applied in October 2010. Just standard applications process, no cv.
I had not heard anything for several months and in November 2011, I was an offered an interview for the spectator entry games role.
When I turned up for the interview in early December. They were approximately twelve other candidates waiting also to be interviewed for the role.
Firstly we registered and they took a picture of us and checked our id. After we were asked to look at an exhibition of the vision of 2012 Olympics along with the history of the Olympics containing various facts.
At the briefing after the exhibition. We were informed we were fortunate to be here and 250k has applied and 100k would be narrowed down on the basis of the interview.
The position itself had its name changed from spectator entry to venue entry.
The interview itself was one on one and it was very much competency based.
Questions:
Time when I have worked in a team
Greatest achievement
Time when I have helped someone
Time when I have shown leadership
I have subsequently been offered role for the Paralympics approximately 3 weeks after i applied. It was an exploding offer and I had two weeks to accept. Initially I was not as happy as I have not yet been offered a role on the main Olympics but the good thing is that I was enjoy the Olympics from the comfort of my home on tv and not worry too much about working / volunteering.
I look forward to the training given to us. Hopefully this would be good.
Thursday, 29 December 2011
Barcap phone interview
Barclays capital telephone strength based interview questions :
The questions that I can remember are:
1. You organise an event and more people than expected turn up what do you do?
2. What motivates you?
3. How do you motivate others?
4. If you were in a good performing team but thought something could be done better what would you do?
5. Do you like proof reading and paying attention to detail?
6. How to you build friendships or rapport with people?
Actual trading interview questions:
Brain teasers:
Calculate the equivalent interest rate of the following :
Hsbc have an offer whereby they will give you £1,000 up front if you give them £11,000 and after one year you can withdraw your original deposit.
Another brain teaser:
The interviewer asked what is the probability that he could guess my phone number given he couldn't just look at my cv.
Another teaser was just to express the reciprocal of 2x2x2x2x2 as a decimal.
Wednesday, 28 December 2011
Hitting the winter sales post xmas
I am meant to be doing some shopping today. I woke up and its 9.45am ideally I want to hit the sales early and drive to the local town centre.
Considering the plan is to leave and be there by 9.30am it is looking more unlikely. I am favouring the whole get up quickly and get act together. I do not really like shopping but it should be still interesting to check out the sales and see what goods are on offer - for future reference.
There is not much I want to buy but I guess I can be tempted to part with some of my cash, I could do with new trainers but if I really wanted something these days I tend to buy if online - the only disadvantage might be the postage cost。
So it's 10.55 and we are leaving now heading to town. My mum has instructed us to buy something for her and her petrol is low in her car so looks like we will have to buy petrol。
Off to my brothers friend house, played lots of tekken and FIFA. Off to sainsburys and then home！
Tuesday, 27 December 2011
Barclays Capital Trading and Structuring Assessment Centre / Interview
I had an interview with Barclays Capital aka ( Barcap).
The application process is fairly straightforward. Initial application --> automatic invite for numerical & verbal tests. Then phone interview and the final full day assessment centre whereby offers will be Made.
Last year I applied but I failed the initial numerical test, I was not happy as this was the first application I attempted. I spent hours making sure all my competency questions were "on point" etc BUT I failed the numerical test unfortunately ( they put some next level questions in which I have never seen in any future shl tests - I felt cheated but thats life I suppose, live and you learn).
This year I made a dummy application to make sure there were no trick questions and to ensure that I was fully prepared for the Barcap Numerical Test, I passed the dummy application so I applied mid October with the competency questions saved from last year in this application ( mainly just to see how good it actually was) & of course for the experience of doing a summer internship.
Luckily for me three days after I did the tests I got an invite to a phone interview. I booked it to take place on my birthday since this day was most convenient in terms of lectures and workload.
I prepared for the interview by doing mock tests and having the answered prepared and written down to the standard competencies using the STAR technique.
I was quite nervous in the 5 minutes before the interview was scheduled to begin as this was my first phone interview.
The interviewer emphasised the fact this is a strength based interview and they are not able to interpret the questions for me.
The questions asked were as follows :
The questions that I can remember are:
1. You organise an event and more people than expected turn up what do you do?
2. What motivates you?
3. How do you motivate others?
4. If you were in a good performing team but thought something could be done better what would you do?
5. Do you like proof reading and paying attention to detail?
6. How to you build friendships or rapport with people?
The phone interview was pretty tough going and I felt like I was stuttering / stammering & basically had no chance due to how obscure the questions were. Luckily there was no technical questions which I suspect was due to it being conducted by the HR of the bank.
Exactly a month after the phone interview after I had forgotten about this torturous experience, I received an email saying I was invited to the assessment centre ( AC). Which would compromise of a trading game and strength based interviews.
At the AC, there were 32 candidates and 21 desks recruiting as barcap internships are non rotational. We were given timetables and people had between 3 - 7 interviews with the chance to network more interviews which I was able to do surprisingly easy.
The trading game was like poker but cards of 1-15 where we traded in teams against everyone giving prices and being assessed. I suspect the game was there to measure primarily how people work in a team and more secondary if there were any trading wizkids amongst us.
After this I was told one of my interviews was cancelled so although I had 5 interviews scheduled it was only 4 interviews left.
My first interview was almost identical to the phone interview I had as the interviewer read all of the questions from the HR book, this put me into a false sense of security as I thought all interviews would be like this, but I was wrong,
I now waited 2-3 hours for my next interview. At lunch time I sat next to some traders who invited me for an interview since most candidates sat with each other and I happen to sit beside the traders, looks like I got lucky interview invite over lunch time.
This interview was chaotic as one of the interviewer was getting phone calls & I was getting grilled for every little thing on my cv whilst another was walking inside and out of the room.
The interview ended early as I had another scheduled interview to go to, this one was an even worse grilling followed by brain teasers which were quite difficult and I messed up on.
Actual Brain Teaser Questions
Calculate the equivalent interest rate of the following :
Hsbc have an offer whereby they will give you £1,000 up front if you give them £11,000 and after one year you can withdraw your original deposit.
Another brain teaser:
The interviewer asked what is the probability that he could guess my phone number given he couldn't just look at my cv.
Another teaser was just to express the reciprocal of 2x2x2x2x2 as a decimal.
Back to the lunch time interview they gave me more questions about options and other stuff, they pretty much were teaching me the parity of options.
Then finally another interview was cancelled lol! By now I was exhausted I had another interview where the guy started to trade with me and asked me to give him prices, I was good yet bad.
Still I learned a lot , most importantly don't go to an interview if your ill! Especially these intense ones.
The application process is fairly straightforward. Initial application --> automatic invite for numerical & verbal tests. Then phone interview and the final full day assessment centre whereby offers will be Made.
Last year I applied but I failed the initial numerical test, I was not happy as this was the first application I attempted. I spent hours making sure all my competency questions were "on point" etc BUT I failed the numerical test unfortunately ( they put some next level questions in which I have never seen in any future shl tests - I felt cheated but thats life I suppose, live and you learn).
This year I made a dummy application to make sure there were no trick questions and to ensure that I was fully prepared for the Barcap Numerical Test, I passed the dummy application so I applied mid October with the competency questions saved from last year in this application ( mainly just to see how good it actually was) & of course for the experience of doing a summer internship.
Luckily for me three days after I did the tests I got an invite to a phone interview. I booked it to take place on my birthday since this day was most convenient in terms of lectures and workload.
I prepared for the interview by doing mock tests and having the answered prepared and written down to the standard competencies using the STAR technique.
I was quite nervous in the 5 minutes before the interview was scheduled to begin as this was my first phone interview.
The interviewer emphasised the fact this is a strength based interview and they are not able to interpret the questions for me.
The questions asked were as follows :
The questions that I can remember are:
1. You organise an event and more people than expected turn up what do you do?
2. What motivates you?
3. How do you motivate others?
4. If you were in a good performing team but thought something could be done better what would you do?
5. Do you like proof reading and paying attention to detail?
6. How to you build friendships or rapport with people?
The phone interview was pretty tough going and I felt like I was stuttering / stammering & basically had no chance due to how obscure the questions were. Luckily there was no technical questions which I suspect was due to it being conducted by the HR of the bank.
Exactly a month after the phone interview after I had forgotten about this torturous experience, I received an email saying I was invited to the assessment centre ( AC). Which would compromise of a trading game and strength based interviews.
At the AC, there were 32 candidates and 21 desks recruiting as barcap internships are non rotational. We were given timetables and people had between 3 - 7 interviews with the chance to network more interviews which I was able to do surprisingly easy.
The trading game was like poker but cards of 1-15 where we traded in teams against everyone giving prices and being assessed. I suspect the game was there to measure primarily how people work in a team and more secondary if there were any trading wizkids amongst us.
After this I was told one of my interviews was cancelled so although I had 5 interviews scheduled it was only 4 interviews left.
My first interview was almost identical to the phone interview I had as the interviewer read all of the questions from the HR book, this put me into a false sense of security as I thought all interviews would be like this, but I was wrong,
I now waited 2-3 hours for my next interview. At lunch time I sat next to some traders who invited me for an interview since most candidates sat with each other and I happen to sit beside the traders, looks like I got lucky interview invite over lunch time.
This interview was chaotic as one of the interviewer was getting phone calls & I was getting grilled for every little thing on my cv whilst another was walking inside and out of the room.
The interview ended early as I had another scheduled interview to go to, this one was an even worse grilling followed by brain teasers which were quite difficult and I messed up on.
Actual Brain Teaser Questions
Calculate the equivalent interest rate of the following :
Hsbc have an offer whereby they will give you £1,000 up front if you give them £11,000 and after one year you can withdraw your original deposit.
Another brain teaser:
The interviewer asked what is the probability that he could guess my phone number given he couldn't just look at my cv.
Another teaser was just to express the reciprocal of 2x2x2x2x2 as a decimal.
Back to the lunch time interview they gave me more questions about options and other stuff, they pretty much were teaching me the parity of options.
Then finally another interview was cancelled lol! By now I was exhausted I had another interview where the guy started to trade with me and asked me to give him prices, I was good yet bad.
Still I learned a lot , most importantly don't go to an interview if your ill! Especially these intense ones.
So Much Work Set the Christmas Vacation
It's looking like I will have to be back to studying now after the festive christmas season.
Things to do:
Job Applications for Graduate/ Internships:
I meed to apply for a few more investment banking internships as these would take place over the summer. ( I love the numerical/logical and verbal tests lol) I can do questions roughly 40 seconds per question now so the it is very easy. Although deadlines are coming up and I need to apply to more companies ( My one applicaton, one phone interview & one assessment centre plan didn't quite work out due to illness).
Need to Apply to a few more managamenet consultancy graduate roles:
http://www.consultingcase101.com/forum/Thread-List-of-Global-Management-Consulting-Firms
I will work my way through this list just adjusting cover letter "ctrl-f" and replace with generic company "x" here. I know this lowers my application to interview rate but I just go on application blitz and do 10 applications in 45 minutes which could result in 1 interview, tough but I just can't be arsed with the whole quality applications things when some recruiters do not even read CV's properly these days and just, "put 'em through the tests".
I have an LEK first round interview coming up comprising of 2 interviews and a numerical test, to be honest I am not scared of interviews anymore since my barclays capital trading assessment centre which I had. I will make a post about. It was pretty intense and considering I had tonsilitis the week before I kind of felt this was my "excuse" for not securing that internship position.
In addition to this I have to apply for Civil Engineering jobs, I think I will look to apply to no more than 30 of these. I have a separare cover letter/cv for the industry but since my degree is in this hopefully I'll get a job. I am leaning towards contracting Civil Engineering now because I like the fact that I won't be in an office 24/7 etc. I also like the long term career prospects of being able to become a project manager which feels pretty good tbh. This will be my back up if I do not get that MC or IB job since I will hopefully have more time on my hands I hope I have more time for entrepeurneurial activities outside of my 9-5 job!
Things to do:
Job Applications for Graduate/ Internships:
I meed to apply for a few more investment banking internships as these would take place over the summer. ( I love the numerical/logical and verbal tests lol) I can do questions roughly 40 seconds per question now so the it is very easy. Although deadlines are coming up and I need to apply to more companies ( My one applicaton, one phone interview & one assessment centre plan didn't quite work out due to illness).
Need to Apply to a few more managamenet consultancy graduate roles:
http://www.consultingcase101.com/forum/Thread-List-of-Global-Management-Consulting-Firms
I will work my way through this list just adjusting cover letter "ctrl-f" and replace with generic company "x" here. I know this lowers my application to interview rate but I just go on application blitz and do 10 applications in 45 minutes which could result in 1 interview, tough but I just can't be arsed with the whole quality applications things when some recruiters do not even read CV's properly these days and just, "put 'em through the tests".
I have an LEK first round interview coming up comprising of 2 interviews and a numerical test, to be honest I am not scared of interviews anymore since my barclays capital trading assessment centre which I had. I will make a post about. It was pretty intense and considering I had tonsilitis the week before I kind of felt this was my "excuse" for not securing that internship position.
In addition to this I have to apply for Civil Engineering jobs, I think I will look to apply to no more than 30 of these. I have a separare cover letter/cv for the industry but since my degree is in this hopefully I'll get a job. I am leaning towards contracting Civil Engineering now because I like the fact that I won't be in an office 24/7 etc. I also like the long term career prospects of being able to become a project manager which feels pretty good tbh. This will be my back up if I do not get that MC or IB job since I will hopefully have more time on my hands I hope I have more time for entrepeurneurial activities outside of my 9-5 job!
- Project Work - Engineering Need to split half my time to work on this.
- Coursework on Accounting and Finance roughly 50% complete
- Coursework on Sustainable Development roughly 10% complete
- Coursework on Contaminanted Land ~ Completed
Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Goldman Sachs Rules the world
I was watching this video on BBC on the economy going down:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15059135
Things are going to change quite rapidly and I reckon people are looking to profit from it.
But its further evidence of Goldman Sachs Culture of success.
Clearly they rule the world!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15059135
Things are going to change quite rapidly and I reckon people are looking to profit from it.
But its further evidence of Goldman Sachs Culture of success.
Clearly they rule the world!
Sunday, 18 September 2011
Another day in the Hood
Had to tidy my room today and clean the house!
Lol, my sister can't keep her room tidy - Dad getting angry.
Man U destroyed Chelsea 3-1 lol
Went to church.
Two weeks off til perhaps uni!
Lol, my sister can't keep her room tidy - Dad getting angry.
Man U destroyed Chelsea 3-1 lol
Went to church.
Two weeks off til perhaps uni!
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