Nomura – Rejection & Feedback

Last week Friday 2 days after the actual assessment centre I received a call from on of the recruiters responsible for the placements. Since

it was a call I got my hopes up and thought I might have passed the assessment centre but this was not the case. I got rejected and ironically the

person that called me to inform me about the rejection was the one that introduced me to Nomura and made me want to work there.

Even though at that moment I wished she had just e-mailed me about the news in the end I was really happy about the fact that even though I was rejected

they still took the time to call me. They also provided me with extensive feedback.

Basically the way it works in Nomura is you only get the position if you managed to score a ‘distinctive’ in all or most of their areas. I don’t actually know what all of the

areas are but some of them are Initiative, Leadership and Teamwork.

Nomura – Final Interview Preperation

Tomorrow is the day! This is how much I know about Nomura’s final stage for now:

There is going to be a group exercise and 2 interviews with competency based questions. Each of the interviews is going to take 45 minutes and I think the group exercise shouldn’t take more than that either. So in total, it will take about 2 1/4 hours.

In an attempt to combine my tendency to procrastinate and the need to revise facts and details about Nomura and myself I’ll just post it here while I’m researching. This will probably be very boring to you so I placed a cut here. Only read further if you’re interested in how I researched about Nomura and what I’m preparing myself for.

Nomura First Stage Interview – Technical Analyst Placement

Contrary to other companies Nomura only requires you to fill an online application form and send them your CV + Cover letter. They will read your application and if they like it invite you to the first stage interview. Which means the process is as follows:

1. Application form, CV and Cover Letter
2. First stage Interview
3. Assessment centre

I honestly think that I completely screwed up the interview but at least you can get an idea about what kind of questions they ask.

The interview was held in their headquarters in London. When I arrived in the building I registered at the reception, received a visitors pass and was told to wait for the recruiter which will bring me to the interview. In the waiting area there were two other applicants already waiting. Thinking back  I should have probably started a conversation to ease my mind a bit but I was too occupied with my interview preparation and shy.

About 5 minutes later me and the other applicants were lead to the interview rooms and on our way there we were told about the building.

Honestly it is a pretty nice building with about 6 floors in each of them a different department. It is even quite well known because of its environmentally friendly built. The only thing I do not like that much was the fact that is has a open office layout.