I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Bloomberg (London, England) in Mar 2015
Interview
The interview process started with the usual HR phone call. This lasted around 40 minutes, she asked me about the main products offered by Bloomberg, how revenues were generated and who are their main competitors. Then she moved to test my motivation and asked me the reasons why i would have liked to join Bloomberg and that role in particular. After those questions she described me what the following steps would have involved and how to better prepare for them.
I passed the HR phone call and moved to the second video conference interview with two London analyst. This was taken directly in the Milan Bloomberg L.P. headquarter. This became slightly more technical, they asked me more about my passion for finance and a couple of recent news i found interesting (asking me to avoid talking about commonly discussed topics such as QE...). They also asked me what kind of team i would have liked more to join and why. Overall the interviewers tone was quite inquisitive and sometimes i felt it slightly aggressive.
After this interview i moved to another video conference one in this there were two analyst with more seniority than the previous ones. This interview became very technical, they asked me questions regarding their data collection process. I expressed my interest for the commodity team, so they asked me questions such as, where do you think we collect data, how do you think the data cleaning process work, how do we assess the quality of the data obtained ? Not having a Finance background i were not ready to answer those questions and i performed badly. The tone of the analyst with more seniority was quite aggressive and it looked like he was disturbed by my lack of knowledge about Bloomberg data collection and processing standards.
If you really want to nail the interview it is needed a strong research effort to prepare them. Having the chance to get in touch with someone who is working or has worked there would be highly beneficial.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
what are Bloomberg L.P. products ? competitors ? customers ?
where do you think we collect data ?
how do you think we control for their quality ?
common competency based questions
Video call with 2-3 rounds interview with different people. Case was given in a group setting that you have to work with other candidates. After that you will get into breakout rooms for 1-2-1 interviews where they will ask about your motivation to join the company and why this role.
Did one interview I thought it went well but I was rejected at the first stage. Asked for feedback they said they choosed somebody already in the department.
Waste of time.
Day0: HR reached out me on Linkedin,
Day1: I submitted my application in the private link provided by HR.
Day15: Received an HR phone interview invitation.
Day22: HR phone interview.