Fidelity International Interview Questions
& Process

The interview experience was chaotic and lasted for two months, involving four interview rounds. The HR coordinator, despite being based in China for a UK-based position, offered minimal assistance. There was a significant lack of transparency regarding feedback, with only brief positive remarks before proceeding to the next interview, and no specific reasons provided when not selected, just a generic 'we went with another candidate'. It took over two weeks after the final interview to receive a rejection, again without any constructive feedback. Although I'm in London, no interviews were conducted in person. Some interviews were scheduled very early, at 8 am and 7 am.

So after submitting my online application with my CV and cover letter, there were two initial questions. One was about a recent book I read and its impact on me, and the other was about a recent idea or product I thought had potential and why. Following that, I had an online interview via Zoom. This mainly involved discussing my answers to those initial questions, followed by some problem-solving questions to gauge my thinking process, and finally, questions about why I'm interested in Fidelity and equity research. The next stage was an assessment centre, which included two interviews and a stock pitch test. The first interview was personal, focusing heavily on 'tell me about a time when...' questions and my past experiences. The second interview was more commercially focused, asking things like how I'd decide on a bid price for a project if I were in a specific industry. This felt like a mix of commercial awareness, general logic, and problem-solving. The stock pitch test involved a company that all candidates were familiar with. We had two hours to prepare a purely verbal stock pitch without any presentation materials. After the two hours, we discussed our findings with two employees. It was more of a technical back-and-forth discussion than a typical pitch. The people were all really friendly and helpful, even when I messed up the stock pitch. An interviewer corrected me and explained what I misunderstood, then let me re-answer the questions with the new information, which was great and not at all demeaning. It was tough but a really valuable experience overall.

So I had this super long interview process, like 10 hours total, for a Modern Data Engineering job. I can't really recommend it though. First, the HackerRank test was messed up – the code, inputs, and commands were all wrong. Then, what I applied for was Modern Data Engineering with a Cloud/Spark/Python stack, but in the manager round they tried to push a Traditional/Legacy Data Engineering role, which was totally not what the job description said. The managers seemed lost, couldn't explain the company mission or projects clearly. After doing well, I got the standard rejection. I know people are still interviewing for the same role. My advice: match the job description to the actual work, fix your coding tests, and make sure hiring managers know what they're hiring for. Please respect candidates' time.

The interview process started with a first stage interview that included the hiring manager and team. This was followed by a second stage interview with the investments teams that the role would collaborate closely with. Both of these stages mainly consisted of standard competency questions. Unfortunately, I was rejected after the second stage via a generic email, and the external recruiter stopped all communication, which was not a positive experience.