After several weeks of waiting, with each day reporting ever increasing numbers of redundencies, Dave had all but given up on his applications to various investment banks. It was clearly just not the right time to try.
One by one the replies came in. "We're sorry, but due to the high number of...", "No." "Nah dah." "Good Luck." Unfortunately, no surprises.
Until, on Thursday 27th Nov 2008, a ray of hope! Credit Suisse had offered him an interview for an internship starting June '09. "Would you be interested?" Dave almost snapped their hand off.
Tuesday 2nd Dec 2008, Dave headed down to London on the 8:15am train from Liverpool. He had hardly slept at all and the butterflies in his stomach refused to let him eat. He just about managed an apple and a few biscuits on the journey down south.
The interview process would start at 1pm. Dave arrived around 20 min early and was shown to a small room to axiously wait.
It was a nice enough room. Mostly green. Just big enough to fit the round table in it's center surrounded by 5 chairs and a small desk top in the corner on which rested tea and coffee facilities. One wall was taken up almost entirely by windows and Dave stared down from the 16th floor room on the city that may soon be his home.
Dave was not good at interviews. He had not eaten. He had not slept. He was a bag of nerves. The wait was killing him.
Finally, a little after 1pm, a man entered the room. Dave stood, shook his hand and the two knights of the round table sat down together to decide the fate of Camelot. The man started by introducing himself and his work, Dave asked some small questions but basically sat there like a nodding dog. Dave was then asked to briefly describe his PhD topic, which he did.
And then the fun started.
"Why do you want to work for Credit Suisse?"
"Give me an example you have worked well in a team?"
"What is your biggest weakness?"
etc, etc, etc, were all questions that Dave was NOT asked. In fact, other than the initial introduction, the entire interview was just a bunch of fun little mathematical puzzles.
"Simplify i^i"
"If I have two children and one of them is a girl, whats the probability the other one is a girl?"
etc etc etc
'Cool,' thought Dave. (For those that didn't know, people who do PhD's in mathematical topics tend to have a different view on the meaning of "cool".)
At two 2pm the first guy left. Dave poured himself a glass of water and waited for the second. Nerves? What nerves? He owned this room. At 3pm, he poured himself another glass and waited for the 3rd.
At 6pm he finally left the room with his 5th and final interviewer. All five interviews had been almost identical to the first. They had nearly all started with a brief introduction and the requirement of Dave to explain his PhD and then poured straight into mathematical games. Some had even asked him the same maths questions, though Dave had been honest/foolish enough to admit when this had happened instead of using it to obvious advantage.
He left Credit Suisse a little after 6pm. He caught two tubes back to Eusten with severe delays, arriving there around 7:30pm. With 45 minutes to wait for his train back home and his butterflies well and truely dead, it finally occured to Dave that breakfast might be a good idea.
When you haven't really eaten for nearly 24 hours, breakfast is glourious. The finest chicken salad subway known to man. Yummy.
With 30 minutes until his train back to Liverpool, Dave then went looking for dinner.
He arrived home a little after 11pm. Now all he could do was wait. If successful, he would soon be invited to another 5 hours of interviews down in London. Successful completion of that would get him an offer for a 10 week internship come June. Successful completion of that would get him a job offer starting in January 2010, just in time for the start of the next big financial bubble.
Fingers crossed.
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