1. Introduction 

3rd-year Mechanical Engineering major with focuses in Mechatronics and Biomedical Engineering.  

In the past summer, I had a sales and trading internship at Scotiabank, within the collateral management and funding team, supporting repo trades and Canadian government STIRT and bond traders.

2. Application process

Started applying for different Sales and Trading positions back in August, but I didn’t get any feedback at that point. Scotiabank later recruited STEM students specifically in January, and I submitted my application in mid-December before Christmas. I completed the rest of the application process in January.

3. Behavioural portion

Most of the questions were pretty standard, like: tell me about yourself or can you tell me about the time… questions, and how do you manage working in stressful situations. One question stood out to me: they asked me to pitch myself, like pitching a stock. They also liked to ask questions about things that were not on my resume. Be prepared to talk about something that is not on your resume. You are much more than your resume. 

4. Technicals

In the first round of interviews, most things were about interest rates and FX. Final rounds of interviews tend to be open-ended as long as you can justify yourself. They also asked about investment ideas, what things do you think are good to sell/buy at this point and why. They were looking for your reasoning and how you think about it. You also need to be able to answer some follow-up questions that they might bring up. For example, they may ask you what if this happens, and you need to prepare to justify yourself.

5. Given your engineering background, how did you prepare yourself for the financial, technical interview?

I had pension fund experience before this as an intern, so I had gained some financial knowledge. After, I tried to pack as much info as possible through Investopedia YouTube channels; these self-study methods didn’t go very well. Don’t cram at the last minute. During the interview process, I didn’t necessarily get all questions right, but I was able to show my thinking. Therefore, when I made a mistake, the interviewer could help me arrive at the correct answer. 

6. What advice would you give to students with STEM backgrounds?

It’s really easy for STEM students to shy away from these types of roles because we usually don’t have a finance background. Don’t be afraid to go out and reach out to different people to learn about the concepts and the language. At the end of the day, it’s not that hard to understand these financial concepts, especially if you already have that analytical mindset from your STEM education. What really helped me during the interview process was that I was able to network with some people who used to work at Scotiabank and knew a bit about the culture.This helped me get the role because I knew what I was signing up for and had knowledge of the firm. This is the biggest thing that recruiters look for.