I was approached by a talent acquisition specialist of BlackRock who found my profile in internet. After a short phone conversation focused on my professional background and technical skills (VBA/SQL/German language skills), I was invited to a first-stage interview at the office of the company in Frankfurt. The interview consisted of 3 rounds with 4 people for a total of 1.5 hours. The first two rounds were conducted via video call with the London office, while the third round was a f2f meeting with an employee from the office in FaM. The first round was rather unpleasant for me - I was cross-interviewed by two people although I didn’t expect that as only one of them was mentioned in the e-mail from the HR. They didn't take the time to tell me more about the position and the team, and to give me a moment to calm down. After a short introduction, they came straight to the point and started asking questions related to my general understanding of the business, the role and their Aladdin platform, as well as my knowledge about capital markets (mostly fixed income), risk managements tools and models, financial analytics, etc. I did feel exhausted after that fast-paced conversation. The second round was much more relaxed and friendly. I was given the chance to get to know more about the job and to ask questions. The third round, with the guy from the German office, also went quite easy, except for the fact that it was in German which was quite challenging for me. I was not given a feedback after the interview until I wrote to the HR department to ask for one. They should be given a credit for providing a feedback with a summary of the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses. Well, maybe I was just unlucky enough to have my first ever interview in Germany with such a big name like BlackRock. I was very tense during the interview and I definitely underperformed. The strange feeling to talk to someone in the screen, as well as the quick start and the cross-examination in the first round, did not contribute to make things easier. It was my worst ever interview but yet a valuable experience. Advice to the candidates - be sure that you can distinguish between the businesses of BR and BRSolutions.

1st round was online with 2 interviewers and 2nd round was in person with 2 other interviewers. Interview was to find out fit with the team. I was asked on financial knowledge as well as technical knowledge.