Every interview question you’re likely to be asked by Bank of America
By investment banking standards, Bank of America is sort of easy to get into.
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Of course, investment banking standards are very high. The last year we had consistent figures available (2023), we found that JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs accepted around 0.9% of applicants to their internships, while Bank of America accepted a rather lax 2.1% of them.
2.1%, of course, is still very competitive – it means that just one in 50 student applicants to the firm are accepted. And, in our experience, applications to non-internship roles are even more competitive. Goldman, for example, had an intern acceptance rate of 1.27% back in 2022, and a firm-wide acceptance rate of 0.33%.
As such, if you’re applying for a job there, you’ll want to be prepared. And a big part of preparation is for your interview – if you’ve gotten so far as that, the odds are in your favour, but you don’t want to fall at the very last hurdle. And the only way to really prepare for an interview is by preparing for the questions that might come your way.
The questions below come from a variety of sources, including (but not limited to) Glassdoor, WallStreetOasis, and Reddit. They’re mostly, but not exclusively, questions asked of interns, mostly in America and the UK. And they’re all, as far as we can tell, questions that have been asked in the last six months.
Bank of America General Interview Questions
Tell me about yourself.
Tell me about a recent experience you had.
Why do you want to work at Bank of America?
Why should Bank of America hire you?
Why do you want to work in [chosen department]?
Why do you think you would be a good fit for this role?
What do you consider your greatest personal achievement?
Share an example of when you led a team to achieve a goal.
Describe a time you faced an unexpected obstacle that led to a learning experience.
Tell us about a time when you experienced a failure at work and how you handled it.
Describe a situation in which you faced a conflict with a coworker.
How do you deal with failure?
What are your plans for the next five years?
Describe how our culture of diversity and inclusion aligns with your values.
Have you ever had to make an ethical decision at any point in your career or education?
What strategies do you use to remain focused when working on repetitive tasks?
How do you handle stress?
Walk me through your resume.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
Tell me about a time when you had to make a quick pivot from a plan.
Bank of America Sales & Trading Interview Questions
What are the Greeks?
What is the relationship between first- and second-order Greeks?
What do you know about options?
How do you calculate the price of an option?
Pitch a stock to me.
Tell me about a current market trend that affects our business.
What’s some recent news that could affect your role?
What is the S&P trading at today?
What effect on the market would a rate cut have?
How would you handle rapid changes to market data?
Bank of America Investment Banking Interview Questions
How do you see the next 12 months in capital markets?
What is a significant event in the world that is impacting Bank of America right now?
Walk me through a DCF.
Walk me through an LBO.
Walk me through a $10 decrease in depreciation.
Would a financial sponsor and a strategic buyer pay the same price for a target, if we eliminate synergies and assume the same cash flow projections for both buyers?
How does investment banking differ from corporate banking?
If a client wants to make an IPO but you don't feel it's currently not the right time for it, what would you do?
What metrics would you look at to determine whether a company can repay a new loan?
What is the formula to calculate WACC?
Bank of America Technology Interview Questions
Write some code to count the frequency of a letter in a string.
What is a technical project you’ve worked on recently?
Define multi-level inheritance.
What is the difference between a Tuple and a List?
A number is given in strong format. Convert it into a number.
What’s your favourite coding language? What is its main drawback?
How do you efficiently load a large dataset?
What is a GATCH model?
How do you tell if a time series is stationary or not?
Tell me about a time you worked with large datasets.
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