1. Tell me about yourself…………..
A: I have more than 11 years’ work experience in leading global companies and I’m
specialize in new business development, sales and customer service. During the past
work, I enjoyed communicating with different people, building trust of my clients and
providing the best products and service to my clients, both outside and within the
company.
I had an MBA degree majoring in Finance, and after I arrived at Canada, I am trying to
learn more about the Canadian financial market by completing my IFIC certification
and pursuing the CSC. I attended Accesemployment’s financial services connection
program, so I have a full picture of Canada’s financial service industry
Today, I’m glad to have the chance to talk with you about the FSR position
2. What is your strength and weakness? What is one aspect you can improve?
Strength:
A:-I have abundant sales experience. Know how to maintain key customers and
develop new customers. Skillful in build trust and long-term relationship with clients
and partners.
-I’m rich in financial knowledge which makes me understanding the products of our
bank very well
Weakness/Aspect to improve:
-As a newcomer here, I need to try my best to familiar with Canada financial market
and understand local work culture. On the second week I arrived at Canada, I attended
the Accesemployment’s language for workplace connection and financial service
connection, improved both my language ability and my knowledge on local financial
industry. Volunteer in many activities and utilize every chance to talk with local working
people.
3. Why want to work for CIBC? Why did you choose CIBC? Why work for CIBC? Why
CIBC? Why do you want to work at CIBC?
A:-CIBC is a leading Canadian-based global financial institution. I have conducted
some research and found that CIBC provide full range products and services to so
many clients in Canada and around the world. I fully agree with the bank’s value-trust,
teamwork and accountability. In the financial industry, it is crucial to win customer’s
trust and take accountability by working in a team. I was also impressed by the long
history of innovation and consistently being first to market, the first telephone banking
and online banking, first mobile banking app, first offer of eDeposit, first apple watch
app. So impressive. I also had several classmates now working in CIBC, they told me
that CIBC had very supportive work environment and very helpful colleagues. They
invited to join CIBC. I will be proud to work in CIBC where my background and skills
can be utilized and developed.
4. Your understanding of FSR? Why you want to be FSR?
A:-FSR is the bridge between clients and the bank. Clients get the first impression and
evaluation of the bank through FSR. It is a very important position in the bank and it
needs excellent communication skills and knowledge of the financial products.
I enjoy talking with people, winning people’s trust and helping them achieve their goals.
I think FSR is the perfect position that I can contribute both my communication skills
and my in-depth knowledge of financial market and products to help my clients achieve
their financial goals. It’s a very good starting point of my career in Canada.
5. Top 3 skills for this position
A:-excellent communication and interpersonal skills: building long-term relationship
and win trust
-in-depth knowledge of the products and service
-determination to achieve sales target
6. How would you meet sales goals? How did you set up sales targets, and how did you
achieve? How would you achieve your sales target? What were the upselling strategies?
A:-When I worked as sales manager at LG Chem, we set up sales targets at the
beginning of the year, based on last year’s performance and the market forecast. We
called the target as a CbA target, challenge but achievable.
-To achieve the sales goals, I broke up the sales plan into different products, different
channels and different customers. I followed up the sales performance monthly, even
weekly to focus on the achieve ratio. To increase sales and achieve the target, I both
maintained good relationship with current key customers and tried every method to
develop new customers, such as industry seminar, exhibition, sometime even cold
calling.
7. How would you handle a customer objection?
A:-accept rejection as an integral part of the sales process, nothing personal. if
everyone say yes to a product, there would be no need for the sales function.
-see rejection as bringing me closer to the customer who say yes.
-always try to leave the potential customer with good feeling, as no sale today can well
become a sale next month.
8. What are your short term and long term goals? Where will you like to be in 5years?
Where do you see yourself in five years? What are my goals for the next five years?
A:-In short term, 1-2 years, I want to be an expert in the FSR position, I will build longterm relationship with many clients, become fully integrated into the work culture of the
bank, achieve the sales target and have the best performance at this position.
-In long term, 3-5 years, I plan to develop my career in the financial service industry,
on one side, I plan to obtain some higher level certification, such as CFP, PFP, on the
other side, I hope to move forward to higher level position such as financial advisor or
financial planner to help more of my clients and support the growth of CIBC.
9. How much do you know about sales and targets?
A:-The sales is a process, the process of building long-term relationship and win trust
of the clients. You make this by using your communication skill, the most suitable
products and excellent customer service.
10. What could you bring to this role? What can you bring to CIBC? Why should we hire
you? What makes you the right candidate for this position? Why do you think you
are right for this position (give three reasons)?
A:-As I said, I enjoyed talking and communicating with different people. I can easily
identify people’s real needs by effective communication and provide the best and most
suitable products and service to satisfy their needs base on my in-depth knowledge of
financial market and our products. Thus, I can win the trust of the clients and build
lasting and enduring relationship with them who are the most valuable assets for the
bank.
So, I think this job is tailored to my experience, knowledge base and abilities and I
believe I can maximize my skills for the benefit of CIBC.
11. What challenges do you think you will face in this position?
A:-I had no experience in selling bank products, this may be the challenges I will face
at the beginning, but I know that CIBC will provide excellent training on the products
and services, combining my common knowledge of financial markets and products,
I’m confident in overcoming this difficult in a short time.
12. How do you build trust with your customers?
A: - best way to build trust is to know their real needs and satisfy these needs with best
products and service. You need to listen to them and ask the right question to in-depth
understand the clients and identify their needs and goals. Provide the most suitable
products to them, if they satisfy with the products and service, they will come to you again
and again and they will trust you.
13. What would you do if you didn't meet the quota for the day?
A: -First analyzing the reason of the failure to meet the quota. It’s a special day? I did not
work hard enough? Or it was just an occasional phenomenon. You should take action
according to different situations. But the most import thing is I should work hard next day
to catch up the quota.
14. Do you think this is more a servicing job or a sales job?
A: -More servicing job. Selling products is important, and more important thing is that
keeping communication with clients, knowing their latest updates and provide more
suitable products to new circumstances.
15. What challenges do you think you will face in this interview?
-No bank sales experience.
16. Describe a situation where you went above and beyond to help your client? Have you ever
gone out of your way to solve a problem, if yes , describe the situation? Give an example
of when you were succeeding in sales or customer service experiences.
A: -I don’t really think of my work as going ‘above and beyond.’ Sure, there are times that
have required more effort, but it’s all a part of making sure the work is quality and the
customer is happy. That’s doing my job. One example I can give you is when one of my
key customers complained about the quality of our products and required compensation
for the loss.
I asked for technique support from headquarter and went to the client’s factory immediately.
I spent the whole week with the technician in client’s factory. It’s summer and very hot, we
made test on our products and analyzed the data, we talked with the purchasing manager
and technician of the client. We finally found the problem and worked out a compensation
plan with the customers, they were satisfied with our work and we kept good relationship.
17. Tell me a situation where you handled a difficult customer.
A: -When I worked in Hunt’s Chalkis as marketing supervisor, part of my job was customer
service. Once a time, there is something with the package of our products. We noticed all
of our customers about it and replaced the products with good one and made some
compensation. But one customer was unsatisfied with the compensation and wanted more,
He threatened to notice the public media and government. We visited this customer on site
and had a in-depth communication with the customer. We explained that we noticed the
customers the first time we found the problem, so no big effect on market. We offered a
little more compensation but not this customer required. Finally, the customer accepted
the offer and we solve the problem successfully.
18. When was the last time you influenced a coworker/ colleague/ friend? How did you do it?
Be specific.
A: -Generally, being a good listener, I am able to discern what the other person is thinking.
I then bring about agreement by using logic and persuasion and uncovering a win-win
solution for everyone. I have found this to be very effective.
-During my previous job, I had different opinion with my colleague on how to present an
industry research report. We discussed about it a long time, I listened to his thought very
carefully and compared it with mine. I found something need to improve in his presentation
and pointed out to him in a logical way. I also made some minor changes base on his
suggestion. Finally, he accepted most of my suggestion and I presented the report
successfully to senior management.
19. Tell me a time you had to deal with an ethical issue & describe a situation when a client
did not trust you and what you did to win trust.
A: -At LG Chem, in one period, one kind of our products was in very short supply and
so many clients want to buy it. One client approached to me privately and wanted to
give me unethical offer to get the products. I denied his offer politely and told him that
I would sell the products according to market rules.
-When I worked for LG Chem., I sometime made cold calling to some dealer in the industry.
One time, I contacted with one dealer who had never heard of our products and he didn’t
trust me. But I made an appointment with him to visit his office. I took a lot of materials
about our company and our products, also some material about my important customers
in this industry. I introduced our company and products to him face-to-face in a
professional way, and gave him some sample of our products to test. After about one
month, he called me and said that the test was very successful and wanted to have deep
talk with me. Finally, he became a new customer of me and we kept good relationship for
a long time.
20. What is your greatest accomplishment
A: In May 2015, my company decided to sell one of our invested projects whose value
was about 56 million CAD. We planned to finish the deal before the end of 2015 and
we had only five people to work on this project. It was a great challenge for us to
complete such a big deal within half a year.
On that team, I took charge of coordinating with potential buyers and people from the
project to conduct legal and financial due diligence. I had to liaise between all of the
involved parties to collect the correct data and information. After we completed the
agreement, I was responsible for preparing all the necessary documents to close the
deal which required strong organizational skills with ability of logical thinking and
attention to detail.
After about five months’ hard working, we successfully sold the project in October at
the price about 120 million CAD. It means that our investment return was about 100%
and it was a great achievement for our company last year.
21. How would you rate your communication skills?
A: -I work very hard on my eye contact, facial expressions, and body language. I am
aware of the quality of my voice and attempt to sound enthusiastic and energetic. I am
also very careful in choosing my words and feel I communicate well. I am a good
listener and have excellent public speaking and writing skills. To a large extent, good
communication skills have to do with caring about what the other person is saying—
good listening skills. Often good listeners are good communicators, and that’s what I
strive to be.
22. Do you have any question?
-I know the general career path in financial service industry, so I want to know the career
path of FSRs in CIBC and how you support the career development of these people?
-What do you like working in CIBC and what keeps you work here?
-I know that CIBC provides a very supportive 15 week training for the new FSRs, and I’m
very interested in some details about the program.
-For the branch manager: I know that sales target is very important for a branch and FSR,
so how we make the target and what methods we use to motivate the FSRs achieve the
goal.
23. Why want to work for CIBC? Why did you choose CIBC? Why work for CIBC? Why
CIBC? Why do you want to work at CIBC?
A:-CIBC is one of the best bank in Canada. I have conducted some research and
found that CIBC provide full range products and services to so many clients in Canada
and around the world. I fully agree with the bank’s value-trust, teamwork and
accountability. In the financial industry, it is crucial to win customer’s trust and take
accountability by working in a team. I was also impressed by the long history of
innovation and consistently being first to market, the first telephone banking and online
banking, first mobile banking app, first offer of eDeposit, first apple watch app. So
impressive. I also had several classmates now working in CIBC, they told me that
CIBC had very supportive work environment and very helpful colleagues. They invited
to join CIBC. I will be proud to work in CIBC where my background and skills can be
utilized and developed.