Financial Conduct Authority Interview Questions
& Process

The whole recruitment process was quite long, starting from my application at the end of summer and ending with the offer right before Christmas. They kept missing the deadlines they told me about by a few weeks at every stage, which felt a bit off given the FCA's values of integrity and transparency that they expect from candidates. This could be tough for people from industry, especially in tech, where things move much faster. It seems like they're not living up to their own focus on efficiency. Everyone I spoke to was nice and really knew their stuff about policy, but most seemed to come from regulatory or civil service backgrounds and didn't know much about other areas of regulatory work. This made it hard to really connect on industry terms and discuss new ideas. As they want to work more closely with industry, their hiring process might be accidentally sticking to old ways of thinking instead of embracing that goal.

I applied for an editor role at the FCA back in May, and it's now September and I still haven't heard anything. I figured I didn't get it after a couple of weeks of silence, but I wanted official confirmation or feedback. I emailed HR twice, and just got generic replies about them still processing applications. After a month, I got tired of waiting and looked up the hiring manager on LinkedIn to ask him directly. It's pretty messed up that I had to do that. He did apologize and said there were unexpected issues, and that the job was being offered to someone else. While unexpected delays happen, the complete lack of communication was awful. The FCA is supposed to be about being open and fair, but they couldn't even keep candidates informed. Recruiters need to remember how stressful job hunting is and how anxious we all were waiting for news. The whole thing has taken almost 4 months. Not giving any updates for that long is a really bad way to treat people. It's a shame because the interview itself was nice – a 45-minute Zoom call where they shared the main questions beforehand, which I really appreciated and think should be standard. But apart from that, the interview experience was the worst ever.

So the interview was like, three parts. First, there was like this initial screening, you know, just checking out my background, my experience and if I'm a good fit overall. Then I talked to the hiring manager, and that's where we dug into my skills and technical stuff more, and how I'd handle problems in the job. The last bit was a panel interview with some senior folks and other people involved. That was pretty thorough, covering tech questions, how I'd handle situations, and also like, if I'd fit in with the team and how I work with others.

I applied for the Change summer internship late last year. The whole process took a few months, but it wasn't too drawn out. First, there was an initial application, then a first online test. It was untimed and included situational judgment tests, numerical reasoning, and logical reasoning questions, which is pretty standard. After that, I did a second online test, which I think was a job simulation. It was similar to the first test but felt more like a real job and was more engaging. This one was also untimed. In late January, there was a virtual assessment center. I had a good amount of time to get ready for it, although the initial information provided was a bit vague compared to other assessment centers I've done. The assessment center itself was quite short, only lasting half a day. I was a bit disappointed because it wasn't very relevant to the actual role, and the assessments (apart from the interview) weren't related to Change's work at all. They tested similar skills, but I would have preferred tasks that were specifically about Change, which surprisingly weren't included. The platform used for the assessment center was okay, though I've used better ones. The employees were nice and friendly, which made me feel comfortable. I ended up passing the assessment center, but I was put on a waiting list because other candidates scored higher. Overall, it was a great experience up until the disappointing assessment center, which I think really needs to be redesigned to be more tailored to the specific role.