You have a job interview with J.P. Morgan. Congratulations – or not. Needless to say, having a job interview is not the same as having a job, and J.P. Morgan’s interviews are far from easy.
Before you venture into an interview with the bank you therefore need to familiarize yourself with what you might be asked. To facilitate this, we have listed every single publicly recorded J.P. Morgan interview question from recent history below. If you don’t know exactly why you’re applying for that job, can’t value a company with your eyes shut (if you’re applying to IBD) and don’t know what happened in the market yesterday (if you’re applying in S&T), don’t bother. Similarly, if you’re applying for a junior tech job, questions about OOO programming languages always seem to come up and you’d be foolish not to be prepared.
Brainteaser questions from J.P. Morgan interviews
How many windows are in this building?
If you had a Rubik’s cube with 10 little squares on each side, and peeled off the outer layer, how many little cubes would you end up with?
How many trees are there in Central Park?
How many planes land at Gatwick every day?
How many people enter London every day for work?
How many houses higher than 20m are there in NYC?
How many people set foot in the Roman Colosseum on an average day in August?
How many times does a ball get hit in the average game of tennis?
What’s the probability that a pregnant woman has a baby boy?
How many matches take place during the Wimbledon tennis championship?
How many people set foot in the Vatican during an average day in July?
You’re about to give a PowerPoint presentation in a meeting and you notice it has a mistake in it. What do you do?
What’s the square root of two?
If one mile is 1.6km, how many kilometres are in eight miles?
How many skis are sold in Sweden each year?
Demand for skis declines sharply. What should the company selling skis do?
How much money would a buffet car on a train travelling from Edinburgh to London make, on average?
What’s 16 multiplied by 243?
You look at the clock. It’s 3.15pm. What’s the angle between the clock hands?
What is the sum of the numbers from one to 100?
What’s the square root of 0.1?
What’s one divided by 16?
What is the expected value of a roll of a dice?
I flip a coin. If it’s heads you pay me £100. What should I pay you to play this game? What about if I only have to get 1 heads in two tosses, what is the new price?
Add up all the numbers between 0-100.
Can you make a market based upon the expected value of a roll of a dice?
You have a 3 liter and a 5 liter bottle. How do you measure 4 liters of water exactly?
Fit questions from J.P. Morgan interviews
Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?
What’s the story behind your resume?
Tell me about yourself without mentioning your resume.
Describe a time you took a risk.
Someone didn’t take your idea into account. How did you react?
Tell me about a class you did poorly in.
Give an example of a time you encountered a difficult question whilst working in a group.
Give me an example of a time you motivated others to achieve a particular result?
Have you ever had to compromise to make an achievement? How?
What’s your greatest achievement?
What is the biggest risk you have ever taken in your life?
Sell me something that you think I would need.
What do you see yourself contributing to this organization, in both the short and long term?
Describe a time you led a team and dealt with a difficult individual in that team.
Have you ever had to change your working style to deal with a difficult team member?
How would colleagues describe you?
What are your three main strengths and weaknesses?
What would you do if you knew your boss to completely wrong about a work issue?
Which books do you like reading?
What’s been your biggest failure at work?
Your boss assigns you a project and then goes on holiday. What do you do?
You’re in the middle of an urgent task and someone more senior demands some instant information. What do you do?
Questions about J.P. Morgan and the job
Why banking?
Why J.P. Morgan?
Why do you want this job in this division?
What do you think this job will entail exactly?
Bankers can work hard. How would you handle that?
Why has J.P. Morgan been in the news recently?
What’s J.P. Morgan’s share price today?
What are the biggest regulatory threats faced by J.P. Morgan?
What was J.P. Morgan’s price/earnings ratio in the past quarter?
What’s our stock price?
Where do you see the banking industry in 50 years time?
Describe a recent news article that interested you.
Markets questions from J.P. Morgan interviews
What’s the connection between interest rates and equity prices?
What are the three top stocks to buy now? Why?
Which bonds would you buy if Greece defaulted?
How would you persuade a German pensioner to save Greece?
Can you describe how swaps work?
Where do you see the interest rate on US 10 year treasury bonds going?
A natural disaster occurs in Manhattan. What impact does this have on markets?
What’s wrong with the UK economy?
Where did the oil price close yesterday?
How would you invest $1m?
What can you tell me about quantitative easing in Europe?
What impact do interest rates have on a country’s exchange rate?
Which are the most important/interesting subjects within FX markets at the moment?
What would be the impact on markets if the US went to war with Iran?
Where’s the S&P trading?
What is the current yield on a 10 yr Treasury bond?
Draw me a call option.
Investment banking division (IBD) and accounting questions from J.P. Morgan interviews
What’s more expensive – debt, or equity?
A company’s depreciation expense goes up by $100. How does this affect its three financial statements?
What happens to enterprise value when you issue or repurchase shares?
Would you use EBIT or EBITDA to value a capital-intensive company?
How can you use EBITDA to calculate the cash-flow from operations?
How would you value the pizza shop on the corner?
Pick an industry, tell me how it’s been doing for the past 5 years and how you think it will do for the next 10.
Walk me through a DCF.
How do you work out the best discount rate to use in a DCF?
How do you calculate the future projected cashflows for a DCF?
Walk me through some of the ways you value a company.
What are the three most common methods of valuing companies? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
What’s the terminal growth rate? How do you calculate it?
You’re the CEO of a company. Would you rather raise debt, or equity? Why?
Can you describe the difference between the balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows?
A pharma company is awaiting FDA approval for a new drug. It is their first and their only product. They have nothing else in the pipeline. Can you provide an approximate for the beta of the company during the FDA approval process.
How would you go about valuing Apple?
How would a DCF change for a company in the biotech space?
Within WACC, what is Cost of Equity and how do you calculate it?
What does PIK interest mean? How does it work?
There are two firms. One has 100% equity and the other has 50% equity and 50% debt. Which one will have the lowest WACC? Why?
What are assets on the balance sheet of a financial institution?
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