I applied online and a few weeks later received an email inviting me to interview. I participated in a phone interview a few days later. Interview itself was about 45 minutes long and consisted mostly of behavioral and competency questions that probed my basic knowledge of finance as well as my understanding of what exactly HSBC stood for.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
What do you think the financial world will look like in 2050? Be specific.
The recruiters at HSBC don't know what they're doing. I received multiple calls from multiple different people on the same job. Once I interviewed, I was moved over to another recruiter, who never gave me a status. Then a few months later, received a call from a new recruiter who thought she had talked to me, but never did. Then told me she'd set something up, but I never heard back. When I followed up, another recruiter said the job has been filled. Umm ok. Worst recruiting program ever.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at HSBC (New York, NY) in Mar 2009
Interview
Initial communications through the recruiter & set up at midday. Interviewer asked about my experience; recent regulatory decisions and my perceived impacts to HSBC business; and my approaches to meeting certain goals. Overall about 90-120 min which gave time for me to state my goals and reasons for working at HSBC and for them to dig into specific areas of domain expertise, leadership style and interpersonal skills.