Online application was fine. CV + usual questions: make sure you have a good answer for why equities and why jefferies.
Telephone interview caught me off guard. I thought it would be the typical interview but it was very technical and about commercial awareness more than anything else. Jefferies in general is quite keen on taking in people who are commercially aware. So prep things like 1) threats facing global economy in the next year 2) health of gobal economy currently 3) current events 4) MUST BE TRADING: what do you trade and why? 5) how has your portfolio been looking
Thought I wouldn't get through but God bless I did.
Assessment centre consisted of 2 30 min interviews and 1 group assessment. Honestly I was very fortunate as I got good interviewers for both my interviews which just wanted a discussion about equities, my motivation and my technical skills and MOST IMPORTANTLY MY COMMERCIAL AWARENESS. I heard from a lot of other people how their interviewers were very technical and asked fairly on-the-spot tricky questions like current prices of the most relevant market products or how the FED bank was doing/ interest rates predictions. I don't think I could've answered those so I was very fortunate to have got the interviewers I did. My advice to anyone is to read up on the current hot topics (for me that was tech sell off, trade war impacts, northern ireland in Brexit - be specific) as well as know the current prices for common commodities and stocks and FX pairs as well as interest rates. Keep up to date on the BoE, ECB and Fed bank. HAVE A STOCK PITCH TO LONG AND SHORT. Might come naturally for some but for others might not be the case.
Group assessment was quite simple - just to see if you can work in a team, I feel the interview determines whether they seriously consider you or not. You're stranded on the moon, what is most important to take to help you survive a trip back to the moon base or something like that. I've done a lot of teamwork stuff so wasn't difficult. Don't try to steer the conversation too much otherwise you're unpleasant to talk to; at the same time you MUST NOT be quiet.
Got the offer a week later. They can sometimes be a little disorganised I've heard so delays are common - my assessment centre was delayed actually.
Salary is fine...ish - around 45k. They give you less than a week to decide which I think is a little unfair but whatever. Hope this helps :)
NOTE I'LL ONLY LIST THE TRICKIER QUESTIONS...most likely anyways