I applied online. I interviewed at Bank of England in Feb 2021
Interview
Very long application process. If successful, you get to an automated video interview. If successful after that, an in person interview follows. The in person interview consists of multiple stages interview - essay, 1 to 1 interview and group exercise.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Bank of England (London, England) in Nov 2019
Interview
Initially had to fill out the application form and submit 2 answers (250 word limit for each question) which were: "Why do you want to join us here at the Bank of England?" and "Different areas of the Bank require different skills. Which business area/s match your skill set and why?"
Immediately after submitting the form I was invited to take the psychometric test and a mixture of numerical and verbal reasoning. The psychometric test was one of the easier ones I have done, with the format being a situation with 3 responses and you had to click the best and worst answer. The maths and numerical reasoning were quite difficult as I remember but I passed both of them.
Next was the video interview, you get 2 practice questions to get you used to the format and then 5 actual questions. You are given one minute to prepare an answer and two minutes to answer. The questions were:
What's the Bank 2020 objective?
What are the two biggest risks that the UK economy may face?
What is the main difference between BoE and commercial banks?
Do you think cash will ever become redundant in the UK economy?
What are two challenges facing the UK economy and how will they affect the Bank of England?
I passed the video interview and was invited to the assessment centre at the bank in England. The assessment centre included 2 group exercise where you as a team of 6 have to do some problem solving skills, in the first group task we had a codebreaking exercise which was then followed by a presentation. You were given a task and a stack of paper with data about a company. The task was to create a line graph of the company's profit and this information was to be found in the paper given to you. You have 15 minutes as a team to prepare an answer and give a presentation to the people examining you in the room.
Then I had the actual interview which was an hour long and split into 3 parts, soft skills, technical skills (questions about economics) and some problem solving questions.
The final group project involved being given information about a struggling bank and we had to devise an 8 point plan of action to deal with the problems at the bank and give another presentation to a different group of examiners. After each group exercise you have to fill out a form saying 3 things you did well and 2 things you could improve. After the second group exercise we also had to answer what we did better this time round.
Still waiting to hear back, I was in the first day of assessment centres and they said we would hear back 2/3 weeks later.
Interview questions [8]
Question 1
Describe a time where you something has occurred that required you to change a plan right before you were meant to execute the plan?