Behavioural Story

What fit interviews test

Behavioural questions check three things: can you communicate clearly, do you really want this job, and will people want to work with you at 2 a.m. Technical answers get you to the next round; fit answers often decide the offer.

"Walk me through your resume"

Aim for 60–90 seconds with a clear arc:

1. Beginning — where you grew up or studied, and one detail that explains your interests.
2. Middle — two or three experiences, each with a turning point: what you did, what you learned, and why it pulled you towards finance.
3. End — why this role, why now, and why you are ready.

Do not recite every bullet. The interviewer has the CV; they want the story that connects it.

Example skeleton

"I studied economics at State, where I joined the investment club and pitched a consumer stock that taught me how much I enjoy digging into a business. That led to a summer at a mid-market advisory firm, where I built a comps set for a sell-side deal and saw how the analysis shaped the client's decision. This year I've focused on deepening my modelling skills, which is why I'm excited about your M&A group — the deal flow in industrials matches what I've enjoyed most."

"Why banking?" / "Why private equity?"

Give two or three concrete reasons tied to your experience: steep learning curve, exposure to transactions and senior decision makers, the analytical work you already enjoyed. For PE: thinking like an owner, long-term value creation, and evaluating businesses as investments. Avoid "money" and avoid generic "fast-paced environment" lines without evidence.

"Why our firm?"

Show research you could only have done by engaging: a recent deal and why it interested you, the group's sector focus, conversations with people there (name them if appropriate), culture or training. Tie at least one point back to your own story.

Strengths, weaknesses and "why should we hire you?"

• Strength: one clear strength plus a short piece of evidence.
• Weakness: a real but manageable weakness, what you did about it, and the result. Not "I work too hard".
• Why hire you: three sentences — skills, evidence, motivation.

Delivery

• Answer the question first, then support it.
• Keep answers to one or two minutes; pause and let the interviewer follow up.
• Be consistent: your "why banking" must match your resume story.
• Prepare questions for the interviewer that show genuine interest.

Practise like a technical

Write bullet outlines, not scripts, and rehearse out loud. Record yourself once and cut filler. Then build the story bank in the next checkpoint so you can answer any "tell me about a time" question.

Why a story bank

"Tell me about a time when…" questions are unpredictable in wording but predictable in theme. Instead of memorising answers, prepare five or six stories that each cover several themes, and use a consistent structure so you never ramble.

The STAR (+R) structure

1. Situation — one or two sentences of context. Who, where, what was at stake.
2. Task — your specific responsibility or the problem you owned.
3. Action — what you did, step by step. This should be the longest part and use "I", not "we".
4. Result — the outcome, quantified where possible.
5. Reflection — what you learned or would do differently. This is what separates good answers from great ones.

Aim for about 90 seconds: roughly 15% situation and task, 60% action, 25% result and reflection.

Themes to cover

Map each of your stories to two or three themes so a small bank covers the whole list.

Worked example: a mistake in your work

• Situation: "During my internship I was building a comps table for a client presentation due the next morning."
• Task: "I owned the multiples and the summary page."
• Action: "Late that evening I noticed one peer's EBITDA was on a different fiscal year end, which inflated its multiple. I told my associate straight away, recalendarised the peer, re-ran the medians, and added a check column to flag fiscal year mismatches."
• Result: "The median moved from 9.4x to 8.9x, the deck went out on time with the corrected range, and the team adopted the check column on the next two deals."
• Reflection: "I learned to build checks in from the start and to raise problems early rather than try to hide them."

Notice what it shows: ownership, attention to detail, honesty under pressure and a lasting fix — exactly what a banker wants from an analyst.

Common mistakes

1. Too much situation, too little action.
2. "We" throughout, so the interviewer cannot tell what you did.
3. No result, or a result with no numbers.
4. A "failure" that is not really a failure, or one that blames others.
5. Stories that contradict your resume walk-through.

How to practise

Write each story as five bullets (S, T, A, R, R). Say it aloud against a 90-second timer. Then answer three random questions from the table using only your bank — if a question does not fit any story, add one.