Unfortunately, we no longer cover that topic (fashion in IB). We may write new/updated versions of the articles in the future.

Yes, that could work, but maybe frame it as “too much hesitation” or not being able to work quickly enough under pressure or something like that.

I think I said “give conclusions” rather than “give decisions” in the sentence. Just to clarify. Sorry.

Great advice, and the relevant content in the interview guide is even more insightful.

I used the “decision making” answer for this question, but I changed it a bit and said “sometimes cant make decision on time like I often spend too much time checking numbers and take longer than others to give decisions”. Is that legit?

And that’s actually my real weakness. I often spend time on single number and miss ddl.

That is not a good weakness because you can’t “fix” it at this stage. Better weaknesses:

“I’m not always good at delegating tasks, so sometimes the workload isn’t divided evenly among team members.”

“I sometimes take too much time to make decisions, or I second-guess myself, which makes it take longer to complete tasks.”

“Sometimes I don’t speak up even when I’m sure that someone else on the team or a superior has made a mistake or overlooked something.”

Your weakness has to be real, but not too real (i.e., don’t say you’re bad at math) and also something that you could conceivably fix. We need to rewrite this article, actually.

I’m an international student in Canada and applying to the big 5 Canadian banks.
Should I give a real weakness by mentioning that I’m a non-native English speaker? And then I will say that I have put in efforts to improve by studying slang terms, language shadowing, listening to Bloomberg radio, etc.

Thanks in advance!

#1 is better, but maybe frame it more like, “Sometimes I take too long to make decisions because I scrutinize the details too closely – so I’ve been working to improve my ability to make quick decisions when needed.”

1. Great attention to detail is both a blessing and a curse for me. It is a blessing because while working through financial models, one small mistake can cause the models to be out of balance. However, in a fast moving environment such as corporate banking, having a big picture view of priority is also important. These two things can be conflicting at times. That is why I believe I will benefit from working in a structured environment such as a big bank.

2. My biggest weakness is not having prior experience with a big bank. However, I’ve tried to partially overcome this weakness by reaching out to other corporate banking analysts, at your firm and competing firms, to learn as much as possible about the industry and the role.

My my thoughts are these, #1 is a truthful answer for me, and it does reinforce the idea of preferring big bank VS a boutique environment. Downside is will they think you gonna miss deadlines?

#2 seem the safer answer because they gave me an interview regardless. But obviously also a big non-answer, because they already know what my experience is.

Which one do you think is better?

Yes this can potentially be a good answer. I’d also include your “solution” to it – how would you go around your “weakness”?