1.how would you describe yourself?

sample excellent response:

my background to date has been centered around preparing myself to become the very best financial consultant i can become. let me tell you specifically how i've prepared myself. i am an undergraduate student in finance and accounting at _________ university. my past experiences has been in retail and higher education. both aspects have prepared me well for this career.

2.what specific goals, including those related to your occupation, have you established for your life?

sample excellent response:

i want to be working for an excellent company like yours in a job in which i am managing information. i plan to contribute my leadership, interpersonal, and technical skills. my long-range career goal is to be the best information systems technician i can for the company i work for.

3. how has your college experience prepared you for a business career?

sample excellent response:

i have prepared myself to transition into the work force through real-world experience involving travel abroad, internship, and entrepreneurial opportunities. while interning with a private organization in ecuador, i developed a 15-page marketing plan composed in spanish that recommended more effective ways the company could promote its services. i also traveled abroad on two other occasions in which i researched the indigenous culture of the mayan indians in todos santos, guatemala, and participate din a total language immersion program in costa rica. as you can see from my academic, extracurricular, and experiential background, i have unconditionally committed myself to success as a marketing professional.

4. please describe the ideal job for you following graduation.

sample excellent response (equates ideal job with job he's interviewing for):

my ideal job is one that incorporates both my education and practical work skills to be the best i can be. namely combining my education in finance with my working knowledge of customer service operations, entrepreneurial abilities, computer skills, and administrative skills. i want to utilize my analytical expertise to help people meet their financial goals. this is exactly why i am convinced that i would be a very valuable member of the merrill lynch team.

5. what influenced you to choose this career?

sample excellent response:

my past experiences have shown me that i enjoy facing and overcoming the challenge of making a sale. without a doubt, once i have practiced my presentation and prepared myself for objections, i feel very confident approaching people i don't know and convincing them that they need my product. lastly, i like sales because my potential for success is limited only by how much of myself i dedicate toward my goal. if any profession is founded on self-determinism, it surely must be sales.

6. at what point did you choose this career?

sample excellent response:

i knew that i wanted to pursue information systems technology about my sophomore year in college. it was then that i realized that my that my hobby (computers) was taking up most of my time. my favorite courses were it courses. i also realized that i was doing computer-oriented work-study that i enjoyed so much i would have done it for free.

7. what specific goals have you established for your career?

sample excellent response:

my goals include becoming a certified financial advisor so i can obtain a better working knowledge of financial research analysis, which would allow me contribute to my client base as a better financial consultant since i would have that extra insight into the companies they are seeking to invest in. also this is the foundation block to advancing my career to portfolio manager or even branch office manager.

8. what will it take to attain your goals, and what steps have you taken toward attaining them?

sample excellent response:

i've already done some research on other workers at merrill lynch to see how they achieved similar goals. i know that merrill lynch encourages the pursuit and will reimburse for tuition of a graduate degree. i plan on pursuing a mba to give me an even more extensive knowledge of business and financial analysis.

9. what do you think it takes to be successful in this career?

sample excellent response:

i believe successful salespeople put forth that extra effort that turns potential clients into first-time customers. salespeople who attend to the details by doing whatever it takes to win over a prospective customer distinguish themselves from the countless others who don't go to any extra effort. second, i think that if you label success as an attainable goal, you will never consistently remain successful. you can only succeed if you learn all there is to learn about your product, your competitors, and personal selling. since this learning process is continuous, it's an unattainable goal. with good reason, salespeople should not consider success an attainable ending point but an objective that will always linger slightly beyond their reach.

10. how do you determine or evaluate success? give me an example of one of your successful accomplishments.

sample excellent response:

last semester i was hired by by university's council for student activities. the group negotiates contracts of entertainers, sets up sound equipment, markets the entertainers to students, and generally decides what kind of programming should be done. when i got hired, i didn't know the first thing about how fill any of those responsibilities. i decided, however, that i wasn't going to fail. four months later, i have become the webmaster for the group. i also write our campus newsletter and created game night, a student competition of table games. that event yielded the biggest audience ever for a non-concert event.