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I’ll take a crack at India, and this will be the longest answer I’ve ever written and most effort I’ve ever put into an answer.The year is 1855. A visitor arrives at the port of Madras, with scant belongings but a large briefcase. Seemingly mediocre, no one particularly notices him as he makes his way along the streets of Madras, bustling with activity near the port. He holds on tight to his briefcase as he walks past hustling natives and columns of Redcoat soldiers. He continues walking at a brisk pace, with none of the British soldiers lounging around the area questioning or noticing him, too busy talking about the war raging on in Crimea with the Russians, and the successful landings in Kerch against the Russians. He makes his way to a poor man attending to his horse-cart, slips out a few coins to the cart-driver, and tells him to make way for Hyderabad, an independent princely state situated northwest of Madras.After a while, this visitor found himself in the territory of the Nizam, in Hyderabad. He found a small inn, where he paid to rent a small room for the next two weeks. Once granted permission, he quickly opened up his briefcase in his room, and took out the components. First, he took out a letter from a man named Johann Nicolaus von Dreyse, which seemingly had hundreds of instructions written across it. Then, he took out the gun.It was the Nadalgewehr, the needle gun invented by his friend Johann von Dreyse. It operated with a peculiar manner at the time. Instead of being loaded from the muzzle, it was loaded from the breech, like guns would be decades later. As such, it had an incredibly high fire rate as compared to muskets, and Johann himself hand-made this gun for his friend, the Visitor, to ensure reliability. Through his contacts throughout Prussia, the Visitor had a sizeable stock of ammunition for this weapon stocked with his contacts throughout Hindostan already.The Visitor grabbed his long overcoat, hid the Nadalgewehr under it, and set out, wearing his top cap. Today, after all, was the day that Mir Faqunda Ali Khan, the Nizam of Hyderabad, would be touring the streets of his grand capital, according to the Visitor’s contacts in the city.Accompanied by his soldiers, the Nizam walked through the streets of Hyderabad. As the Nizam galloped on his horse, the visitor pulled back the bolt of his gun. He loaded a bullet into the gun, and pushed the bolt into place. As the Nizam’s horse came in range, the Visitor took a breath. He watched the Nizam carefully from the rooftop he was perched upon, hidden from view, and as soon as the gun settled, he pulled the trigger.The Nizam was almost instantly killed by a shot to the head. His men panicked, and his son around him jumped off the horse to avoid the same fate. Too late. The Visitor had loaded the gun once again within 5 seconds, and pulled the trigger again, shooting Mir Tahniyath Ali Khan in the neck, killing him. The host that was meant to protect the Nizam and his son scattered, confused as to where the bullets were coming from, while officer upon officer was shot down by the Visitor. When the Visitor decided it was too dangerous to keep shooting, he tucked the gun back in his coat, and ran from rooftop to rooftop, hidden from the crowds gathered down, and jumped down from a narrow alley onto the ground. He walked towards the office of one of his acquaintances, but was stopped on the way by one of the Nizam’s soldiers.“What’s your name?” enquired the soldier, as his comrade interrogated another man walking down the street.“My name is Hyder Jafar, Janab,” answered the Visitor.The soldier, nodding in approval, kept walking down the street. Meanwhile, the other man being interrogated also answered, telling another soldier his name. The man was named Raja. The Visitor heard the soldier call Raja a “damn low caste Hindoo”, and from his peripheral vision saw the soldier drag Raja into a dark alleyway, where he was undoubtably stabbed. The Visitor kept walking, knowing now was not the time to think about this. He walked to his acquaintance’s home, and handed him a letter. Right away, his acquaintance ordered his workers to make 200 copies of the letter, which was to be plastered all around the city, and they were to shout the message of the letter to people passing by. Once the Visitor saw the copies made, he watched the messengers flock around, plastering them around the city, and he handed a pouch of coins to his acquaintance. After shouting the message they were ordered to shout, the 6 employees started to run away from the Nizam’s forces, who had caught onto the miscreants. As they ran, with full knowledge of the content of those letters, towards the office, the Visitor took aim, and shot all of them down to prevent their capture.Days later, British forces invaded Hyderabad, tipped off by an anonymous source months before that there would be an opportunity for expanding their domains into Hyderabad. As they walked into the city, shooting the Nizam’s forces and civilians by accident, they started to see innocent civilians get gunned down from somewhere they couldn’t see.Once the occupation was complete, at the cost of thousands of death civilians, the soldiers began to notice posters plastered around the city, blaming the British for assassinating the Nizam because they wished to invade Hyderabad, and warned of the murder of civilians if the British invaded.The visitor was now in the Punjab. It had been months since the Hyderabad War, and tensions were running high across India. Armed with multiple Dreyse Needle Guns, the Visitor, who now used the name Fauja Singh, stormed the sacred Sikh gurdwaras alongside his Akali contacts.One by one, the corrupt Udasi Mahants who were the stewards of the Gurudwaras were driven out and executed for the heinous crimes they had committed by abusing their power against women and the faith, and replaced with Akalis, with the support of bribed British officials. The entire power core of the Sikh faith had shifted from the non-Sikh Udasis to the orthodox Akali Order, who were now very close with Fauja Singh, whom they regarded almost as their leader, having led the battles from the front lines.Over the next year, the Visitor travelled across the country, making connections with many dissidents across the nation. Several prominent British officials began to go missing or were found dead.In March of 1857, the wave of dissent began to rage across India. Almost every week, a high-ranking official or native Prince was assassinated. Security had been ramped up in the cities of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, with more and more troops arriving. With more officers than soldiers dying, the East India Company troops were finding that their units were increasingly lacking leaders, and their officers began to cut down on patrols throughout cities due to fears of ambushes. The tight streets of Lucknow had become a death trap for British forces; many times, patrols of 10 troops marching through the alleys would be cut off on both ends by 2 or 3 men, and mercilessly gunned down, with at least half of the unit being killed in the fury of gunfire.In April of 1857, prominent leaders across India travelled, in secret, to Delhi, where they reportedly met in a small tavern near the heart of the town.In May of 1857, the War of Independence began, fuelled by hatred of the British occupiers. On May 10, 1857, the garrisons in Meerut, Cawnpore, Pune, Lucknow, Agra, and Lahore revolted, with the native Sepoys overpowering their officers. Expecting the Sepoys to kill them, the British soldiers and officers were surprised when they were simply tied up on the orders of the Sepoys who seemed to be the leaders, and transported secretly through the forests in the discreet cover of night to the headquarters of the Revolution.Within a week, all across India, the natives were rebelling. Sepoys seldom shot the British, and simply took them hostage. Traffic around the city of Delhi was increasing, which raised alarm bells for the British soldiers in the area. Their fears were confirmed when Bahadur Shah Zafar was proclaimed the Emperor of India by the rebels.The people of Hyderabad, having quelled their hatred against the marauding forces of the British who stormed their city just like the posters said they would, fought off the few soldiers in the area, mainly armed with farm equipment and a few carrying outdated muskets.The East India Company was flabbergasted by the planning of the entire rebellion. It seemed as if everything was coordinated, and the entire garrison system across India began to fall apart. The British appealed for help to the Gurkhas and Sikhs. The Gurkhas came to their aid, marching upon the cities of Awadh, where the idea of Indian nationalism first sprouted during the War. However, the British were shocked by the reaction of the Sikhs, who they expected to support them. All across Punjab, the Akalis were sending messages straight from the Durbar Sahib in Amritsar to all the cities of Punjab, which urged the Sikhs to fight against British. From Lahore, Akalis helped transport the Fatwas of the Muslim clergy all across Punjab, urging Muslims to take up arms against the British. The Hindus too followed suit, fighting for the independence of Hindostan.Within weeks of the outbreak of the rebellion, the garrisons in Bengal were completely overrun by rebels. Calcutta soon fell as well, with thousands of Sepoys rushing into the city through a secret attack, bolstered by the people of Calcutta. The few British soldiers who survived later reported that at the vanguard of the attacks was a very tall man, well over six feet, who mowed down the Redcoats with his seemingly Prussian gun. One British artist who was captured by the forces and was apparently interrogated by this mysterious leader himself before being released by the magnanimous leader drew his experience sitting in front of the leader as such:He was described as wearing armour while leading his men, apparently to instill a sense of power in them. He wielded a scimitar, and was taken by the British to be a Sikh. When questioned about his age, the artist said that this man seemed to be in his early 20s.By this time, most of Northern India was already under the control of the revolutionaries. Such was the rough situation in India by that time:While fragmented EIC controlled areas existed inside the Revolutionary States, the massive offensive into Calcutta cut off their reinforcements and supply, and they slowly either starved or surrendered, having heard stories of how prisoners were not killed by Sepoys usually. Thousands of these prisoners joined their compatriots in Delhi’s jails, who had been rotting there since the start of the conflict.By now, a lull had been reached in the fighting. Very few troops had been sent to India from Britain, since the coordination amongst the rebels was not expected. Pune, and thus a large swathe of land in Bombay Presidency had been recaptured, and troops were being offloaded out onto Madras Presidency in the South and the Sindh in West India.On March 19, 1858, one of the deathblows to the British hold over the subcontinent was dealt. Afghan forces invaded with all their might the North West Frontier, linking up with Punjab, where they were greeted by Punjabi revolutionaries, many of whom were the same Sikh Empire soldiers whom the Afghans had brutally fought a mere decade back. Oh well, decided the Punjabis and Afghans. Better to live in the present than the past, and make to most out of opportunities presented to them. With the few British troops in Balochistan rushing north to try to retake Peshawar, Iranian forces invaded Balochistan, leaving British forces stranded in the mountains between Iran and Hindostan. The now-starving forces decided to travel into the Multan region of Punjab, and all remaining 6000 forces surrendered, making their way to Delhi as prisoners. It was later reported to French diplomats by some Iranian servants to the Qajar Emperor that they had seen turbaned man clad in a lush navy blue tunic talking to the Emperor of Iran and with the Emir of Afghanistan.With a mass mobilization of forces, the revolution also reached the Dacca Area in East Bengal, and was soon overrun by mid-1858, with rebels in South Burma simultaneously declaring independence from the British. The mountain states, cut off from supplies, were also abandoned by the forces of the East India Company, who made their way through Burma, perishing in the jungles.However, the British hold in South India was still strong. With the war dragging on so long, Britain had started sending regular troops. Every week, a convoy carrying a thousand British soldiers arrived in Ceylon, Madras, Calicut, and Surat. Knowing that this fragmented rebellion cannot withstand a united push by the British, and knowing all about the Opium Wars, the Visitor decided that it was the perfect time to declare an independent state of India. Taking inspiration from the USA and France, the Visitor, in the city of Delhi in front of hundreds of the major revolutionary leaders and even regular soldiers and civilians, penned the Delhi Manifesto of independence in English, with multiple scribes copying down the Manifesto in their own languages.We the People of Hindostan hereby do declare the founding of the United Republic of India under the following maxims:All people are created equal at birth, and none shall be superior to another on the basis of caste, creed, gender, or occupation; slavery and bondage shall be abolished.All people must have the freedom to speak as they wish, to worship whomever they wish, and assemble peacefully shall they wish.There shall be no more aristocratic tyranny, and a Republic shall be formed for governing this nation, as elected by the electorate, and office shall be held by the electorate.No foreign nation shall have dominion over this sacred land.We shall consider all men and women innocent until proven guilty.With copies of the short Delhi Manifesto being sent all around the Revolutionary States in taverns by the few educated people that were alive at this time in front of the illiterate masses, a massive propaganda campaign was started to keep the fire of patriotism burning and prevent the factionisation of the movement. Translated copies of the works of Thomas Paine, John Locke, and the such were sent across both Revolutionary and British India, being read secretly in the latter at inns and in public places. People were being inspired by the French and American Revolutions. Support for the Manifesto was unabounding amongst the masses, but was reviled by the upper castes for its republican attitude. As a result, the Visitor caught on to a conspiracy to depose of him and restore aristocracy. It was then that the Visitor, whom all Indians admired for anonymously leading the rebellion, decided he needed to reveal himself to be able to get the masses to crush the coup attempt.Messages were sent in a flurry all around Revolutionary India, proclaiming Raisal Singh Ven as the new Commander of the Revolution, and the author of the Delhi Manifesto. With the support of the religious clergy around the nation, Commander Ven called upon the masses to rise up against the aristocrats who were bandwagoning upon the Revolutionary War. Within weeks, the aristocracy was nearly completely destroyed, with land reforms being initiated within its territory. More battles were fought in British-occupied land, with more rebellions inspired by the campaigns of Ven tipping the tide of the war. Now, by the summer of 1860, the situation in India was such:Peasant uprisings had given the revolutionaries the chances to sweep across British-held territory, and only Madras Presidency, Ceylon, Sindh, and part of Bombay presidency were left under British control. However, by now, European nations had grown increasingly concerned, and had started to take part in this conflict. The French had sent troops alongside the British to desperately hold onto the British Indian territory. There were around 18 000 Franco-British forces in Sindh-Bombay, around 40 000 Franco-British forces in Madras, and close to 20 000 Franco-British forces in Ceylon, for a grand total of 78 000 forces in the Indian Coalition, in addition to tens of thousands of native irregulars. Meanwhile, Raisal Ven had raised close to 220 000 forces, of whom half were patriotic militia and the rest were regulars. The Russian Empire and the Prussians had sent modern arms to India, and the elite forces of the Revolutionary Army were being outfitted with modern artillery and Dreyse Guns as well. He called upon his closest allies for a final offensive.The Maratha leader, Venu Darekar, was assigned 60 000 forces, raising the Sena-e-Bombay. The Bengali intellectual, Satendra Roy, was assigned 60 000 forces as well, raising the Sena-e-Bengal. Finally, Raisal Ven himself took control of 40 000 men from the Punjab, comprising one of the fiercest fighting units who still had experience from the Anglo-Sikh wars, forming the Fauj-e-Punjab.The Grand Coalition and the Sena-e-Hindostan squared off on the borders for a calm few months, until the beginning of the final offensive…On 12 December, 1860, the Fauj-e-Punjab invaded the Sindh-Bombay, utterly crashing through the forces of the Franco-British. 20 000 soldiers entered the Sindh first, driving on deep into the province towards Karachi. Thousands of soldiers from the Grand Coalition fought their hardest, but were overcome by the sheer strength and numbers of the Muslim soldiers of the Fauj-e-Punjab, who fought with intense religious and nationalist fervour. By 4 January, 1860, Raisal Ven was at the gates of Karachi with his remaining 8000 men, with 4000 enemy soldiers starving inside the city. Meanwhile, the other 10 000 predominantly Sikh soldiers, mainly veterans of the Anglo-Sikh Wars, invaded North Bombay a week later, once Raisal Ven arrived.The soldiers cut across the Rann of Kutch, towards Rajkot, whilst Venu Darekar sent a few thousand of his men towards Vadodara, surrounding the region of Surat. The Sikh soldiers had been trained according to French standards and had experiencing fighting against and with the British, and as such mercilessly advanced upon Junagadh, eventually reaching Somnath. The Kathiawar Peninsula, after an immense number of deaths, was finally taken, and revolutionaries in Surat overthrew the British garrison, and completed the takeover of Sindh-Bombay. Raisal Ven was said to have killed at least 200 men himself with his beloved Dreyse gun. Of the original 30 000 troops of the Fauj-e-Punjab, only 12 000 still remained alive, many of whom went south to join the other Armies.General Darekar of the Sena-e-Bombay invaded the western portion of Madras on 18 February.Not much resistence was encountered until Cochin/Kochi was reached. Over there, a predominately French force held out against the forces of Darekar, who was also being bombarded by French warships. At the opportune moment, Russian ships arrived, eager to avenge Crimea, and the French ships quickly picked up their comrade in Cochin and dashed away from the bellicose Russians. The Russian ships continued to support Darekar’s dash down Madras, and Travancore in the very south of the Presidency fell after a particularly bloody battle which saw the utter destruction of half of the Coalition forces. The other half fled for East Madras. Darekar and Raisal Ven prepared in the South, ready to invade the last remaining vestige of Europe on the subcontinent.With a newly raised host of reinforcements thanks to the efforts of religious leaders across India, who declared Holy Wars against the Coalition, Ven’s Grand Army swelled to number 150 000, compared to the 30 000 Coalition forces. They quickly all retreated into Madras to wait out for a month, anticipating the arrival of Franco-British forces numbering 50 000 very soon. Ven pounced at the opportunity. He ordered all his commanders to mass forces around Madras, and, to the shock of the Madras Defense, started bombarding the city with his secretly-acquired Prussian Artillery, which was gifted by Otto von Bismarck to the Revolutionaries. Over the next month, Franco-British forces decreased in number due to disease, starvation, and bombardment. Finally, on March 26, 1860, over a hundred thousand men, led by Ven himself, stormed Madras, fighting street to street. The large British fort still flew the Union Jack. He and his men walked across the street. He saw a Redcoat take aim at him, and quickly shot him with his revolver. Three French soldiers ran at him with their bayonets; Ven’s men shot two, and Ven clubbed the last one with his rifle and shot him too. Within an hour, the fort was captured, the last remaining Franco-British forces surrendered, and Ven, in front of countless artists and dignitaries, raised the new Indian flag upon the fortress:With close to 20 000 British men still rotting in the prisons of Delhi, many of whom were powerful men back in Britain, Raisal Ven met with British diplomats in Athens, where it was decided that the prisoners shall be swapped in return for Ceylon, 10 modern warships, and 50 000 modern Lee Enfield rifles. Within weeks, the Indian Republic was declared in Delhi in front of roaring masses, with elections being held across India. While flawed due to incomplete voter turnout, the result was near unanimous in favour of Raisal Ven as President, and Raisal Ven selected his former General, User-11207606550574183728, as his Vice-President. Soon enough, a fully American style political system was set up, except with a unicameral legislature. 4 Senators are selected per province, for a total of 40 Senators in the Grand Senate in Delhi, the new capital. Diplomats were sent to major European nations to establish relations, and an uneasy peace with Britain was reached, and a full alliance was made between France and India. Taking advantage of the patriotic fervour across India, Raisal Ven issued a corvee, starting multiple projects across the nation and encouraging free labour to improve the nation. Delhi, for the most part, was bulldozed, and wide streets were build with intricate and beautiful buildings built on the side, leading up to the centre of this new city, which was the Grand Senate, build to look like this:Telegraph lines were build all across the nation in addition to roads. Dozens of new railroads were build across the nation, with technical aid from Prussia. Thousands of schools were built in a nation with 2% literacy, with the biggest focus being on how to read. Equality was enforced by law, and it was a common sight to see soldiers bursting through doors armed with guns to prevent forced marriages. This was especially pronounced in the Punjab region, where Akalis, in the name of the Sikh faith, often enforced the Constitution of India, which was almost entirely based upon the US constitution. By 1870, India’s literacy had risen to 20% thanks to the forced education of nearly everyone. Railroads connected nearly every major city, and industrialization was taking place across the nation. Thanks to the good logistical network, the vast coal resources of Eastern India were transported to the Western parts, where steel was constantly being produced in massive factories. Land reforms had resulted in a more productive distribution of land, and a free-market oriented system had resulted in great prosperity. Raisal Ven made sure that the army was constantly modernized, and great relations were built with almost every European nation. Meanwhile, a very special relationship was cultivated with the USA, with the two becoming the closest of allies. Raisal Ven also cultivated a very good relationship with Meiji-era Japan, creating a relationship that would last for decades. By 1900, the Republic had matured, and was one of the largest economies in the world, held together by its Constitution, despite the still-present tribalism. The Iron Fist of the State had managed to stamp out most of the vestiges of the caste system, resulting in a united nation. Literacy was at 70% due to near universal education of the youth and the old dying out. The population seemingly stabilized at around 250 million due to the education of women, who were now even ahead of their counterparts in the West due to universal suffrage and the males of the generation being educated in a liberal fashion. Bombay and Calcutta were quickly catching up to cities such as New York in economic clout due to the sheer size of the nation. In 1905, after the Russian defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, Raisal Ven declared war on the Russian Empire, nearly annexing Central Asia, but letting the Russians keep it in return for governmental reform. In 1914, with the outbreak of war in Europe, India stayed neutral, selling immense amounts of arms and armament to both sides, earning enough to move up the production chain. Cities in the interior, like Lucknow, Lahore, Jullundur, and Patna, quickly became manufacturing hubs, pumping out airplanes and cars. With the declaration of the USSR, India helped the nation set up its industry, with Raisal Ven planning on becoming major creditor to the nation. By 1935, the skylines of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay were starting to look like New York. During World War One, Indian forces were sent en masse to China to defeat the Japanese, and a fortune was earned by selling war equipment. During the wars of decolonization, India helped fight British troops in East Africa and South East Asia under President Ven, setting up states very closely allied with India in the region, in addition to becoming very good allies of the US and China. By 1970, India was, thanks to its massive industry, practically a first world nation, and President Ven stepped down from power, letting the mature Republic continue to traditions.

I think if someone would have asked Ayn Rand, she would have said it was an anti-concept. She never used the word herself except to describe what she considered to be vices, such as "greed for the unearned" or in scare quotes."An anti-concept is an unnecessary and rationally unusable term designed to replace and obliterate some legitimate concept. The use of anti-concepts gives the listeners a sense of approximate understanding. But in the realm of cognition, nothing is as bad as the approximate . . . ."--Ayn Rand, “Credibility and Polarization,”The Ayn Rand Letter, I, 1, 1"In a free market, all prices, wages, and profits are determined—not by the arbitrary whim of the rich or of the poor, not by anyone’s “greed” or by anyone’s need—but by the law of supply and demand."--Ayn Rand, “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business,” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 47"If parasitism, favoritism, corruption, and greed for the unearned did not exist, a mixed economy would bring them into existence."--Ayn Rand, “The Pull Peddlers,”Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 170"Capitalism has been called a system of greed—yet it is the system that raised the standard of living of its poorest citizens to heights no collectivist system has ever begun to equal, and no tribal gang can conceive of."--Ayn Rand, “Global Balkanization,” The Voice of Reason, 129"The best aspect of Christmas is the aspect usually decried by the mystics: the fact that Christmas has been commercialized. The gift-buying . . . stimulates an enormous outpouring of ingenuity in the creation of products devoted to a single purpose: to give men pleasure. And the street decorations put up by department stores and other institutions—the Christmas trees, the winking lights, the glittering colors—provide the city with a spectacular display, which only “commercial greed” could afford to give us. One would have to be terribly depressed to resist the wonderful gaiety of that spectacle."--Ayn Rand, The Objectivist Calendar, Dec. 1976

Allow me to rephrase the question; ‘How can I possibly differentiate myself from tens of thousands of applicants with similar grades, work experience and ambition?’. It’s worth remembering that Finance is a glamour industry like tech, fine art or K-pop. Not everyone gets what they want.Case in point - London’s 2013-14 intake cycle to major investment banks saw approximately 125 applications for every graduate vacancy (source: TargetJobs/AGR), and that alarming ratio is sticking around. Candidates are and will continue to be like West Texan oil barrels in 1902; in massive oversupply. Forgive the crude analogy.However, your candidature is fairly malleable. You can subtly modify how you are perceived and get closer to what they want you to be (just like in high-school).What’s the goal here? To be conspicuously superior to your competition, within the exceptionally limited time that you are exposed to each of the binary decision-gates between you and that coveted offer letter.But what qualities constitute superiority in this context? A lack of specificity beyond tired catch-alls (‘intelligent’, ‘leadership qualities’ etc.) gives the entire process a certain randomness and opacity. Living up to high standards is a lot harder if you don’t know what they are.If you’re reading this, you’re lucky. You’ve discovered months of work dedicated to identifying the qualities most sought after by financial institutions in 2015*. Blood, sweat and a non-trivial number of flat whites went into this.The following is an anonymous compilation of desirable qualities as stated in 1-on-1 interviews with 45 loquacious senior employees from a broad range of financial institutions - including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Millennium Capital Partners, BAML, Schroders, PIMCO, CitiGroup, BNP Paribas and various smaller shops (both buy & sell sides). Their positions and divisions are equally diverse, with Fund Managers, Portfolio Managers, Desk Managers, Managing Directors, HR / HCM Managers all featuring - the only criterion being that each interviewee is involved in hiring grads.In order of importance - based on recurrence and emphasis - these are the virtues most likely to ruin your travel plans for Summer 2017.*Disclaimer - we did all this in order to develop Talent Rank - a web environment for candidates to prove and improve their financial/commercial acumen. Google it! Or you know, don’t.1) Communication / TactThis particular ability was mentioned so many times, it deserves it’s own vlog. No fewer than 30 of the interviewees brought up interpersonal skills, unprompted, in one form or another. Sure, the days when getting a trade in quickly required a warlike presence and operatic bark may be over - ‘people skills’ are a little subtler in 2015. And sure, if you're already writing alpha-generating algos, you may be able to get away with a charisma deficiency. But since you're reading this, we can safely assume you’re not a prodigious after-school quant.There are two main strands of interpersonal ability here, with plenty of overlap between them:General ability to convey an idea. Activities in this sector are rarely conducted at a leisurely pace, hence you need the capacity to rapidly understand something, break down its complexity, and then sell/explain it to a client/colleague. When stress levels rise - a regular occurrence - the value of cogency follows like a pegged currency. This doesn’t just apply to Sales, either. Inspiring confidence in those around you that you have a handle on what’s going is critical to any markets-related role.Tact. This trait is often substituted as ‘likeability’ or ‘cultural fit’ - the latter a phrasal weapon of choice for gentle downsizing. Tact is really about respecting the hierarchy, being cognisant of interpersonal dynamics and tension, and most importantly, not coming across as arrogant. The most succinct summary of tact in Finance? - “Get along with people you can’t stand, and you’ll do alright”.A face-to-face interview may seem like the perfect place to come across lucid and tactful. Yet a common complaint during this research was; “Anyone can be polite for 30 minutes”. In other words, it’s not enough to fawn and de-clam your palms.You need to demonstrate during a short conversation that explaining complicated concepts is like, super easy. If the interviewer is on their game you’ll get asked put something tricky into words - like selling them a pen without using the word pen. If they stick to small talk, then the onus is on you to demonstrate your communication skills. Try working into one of your answers an imaginary time when you had to teach someone (a lesser applicant, for example) something abstract and knotty, like bond convexity, and then use that footing to reenact your brilliant explanation.As for tact, try to hit the magical line between contempt and sycophancy. Practise with your friends and ask them to be brutally honest. Or as a straightforward litmus test, be brutally honest about their many failings with all the tact you can muster, then check if they’re still your friends. If so, you’re ready for the interview.2) Interested'If I wasn’t interested, why would I forfeit 30 hours of my life copying and pasting banal facts about myself into small white boxes on application portals?', I hear you ask, angrily. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the application process is not a preview of a trading floor. Working with the financial markets is not a typical career. Whether you’re in trading, sales, research or even M&A to some extent - your daily life will be dominated by the whims of the market. And those whims are often painful. You can’t shut them out. Or even want to shut them out. To quote once more; “If you’re not genuinely interested in the markets, then this is the worst job in the world”.Conversely, those who harbour a real, deep intrigue for the idiosyncrasies and nuances, the psychology and the geopolitics, the ebbs and flows - well, they’re in for a real treat. Because every day is something new.Market movements are just one example of something you should fundamentally be drawn to - you may be more interested in the structuring of products, the relationships with clients, the editing of spreadsheets - whatever. As long as it’s not solely the paycheck and bravado. Because if all you care about is models & bottles...Funky Buddha has some openings.It’s easy to feign passion for 30 minutes, right? Well actually, no. There are countless examples of candidates who spend their interview nodding so enthusiastically they’re in danger of getting whiplash, say ‘Absolutely!’ to everything the interviewer says, claim a profound and unshakeable attachment to everything finance related - but then are shocked to be asked about the day-before-yesterday’s FT front page.The obvious remedy is to absorb yourselves in the markets well before you expect to be sat in a room professing how absorbed you are. What you’ll find is that certain themes emerge and repeat themselves, standing you in good stead to discuss them with a sense of familiarity. Even better, set yourself challenges. Demo accounts on online brokerages may be overkill - very few institutions are looking for day traders. Rather, think about what’s going on in the markets, note your views at a certain time (e.g. I think the EUR/USD will recover over the next month), and why you arrived at that conclusion. Then see what actually pans out. Genuine engagement spawns genuine interest.3) GritThis may be the characteristic most associated with Finance - and yet is often incorrectly confused with greed or callousness. Those may help (or hinder), but true grit is better defined as an innate desire and ability to push difficult endeavours over the line, be it a trade, sale, analysis, algo script or delivering sashimi to your line manager at room temperature. Uncompromising doggedness is a broadly applicable skill - but Finance is particularly hands-on and has a tendency to quickly expose any lack of will power. Leave the theorising in the classroom - when you get to Wall Street (or the City, Raffles Place, Dalal Street etc.), it’s all about execution.One of the biggest challenges facing your interviewers is separating those that can simply talk about problem-solving / difficult task completion / outperformance and those who actually got their hands dirty and solved some problems / completed difficult tasks / outperformed.So how do you show you’re a doer? By doing, and then not accidentally being modest about it. Annoyingly for you and those making hiring decisions, standard ‘going the extra mile’ stuff is practically on everyone’s CV (especially launching a new Finance society with 3 members so you can be the President).To really speak to your interviewer, show your grit in attempting to understand his or her daily challenges. For example, develop methodologies* for assessing major market movements, be honest if they don’t work as well as you hoped, and try again. Show that you have the same stamina for the markets as you do for your lacrosse team.*E.g. running computational models, conducting fundamental analysis, discovering new indicators, finding a high quality source of news, etc.4) NumeracyPossibly the most obvious quality to feature on this list. Positions without some kind of calculator-button-mashing or Excel-number-crunching are few and far between. Besides the numerical tests, which are a veritable bundle of joy - be prepared for some nasty arithmetic questions during the interviews. Just on the odd chance you get asked to calculate 49^2 - here’s a concise method to wow your interviewer:‘49^2 you say? Why, that insultingly easy. It’s 50^2, minus 50, minus 49. A cool 2,401’.The upgrade from basic mental arithmetic is the “capacity to retain, process and regurgitate large amounts of complex, often quantitative information” - much like your laptop’s virtual memory and how it suffers at the hands of your tab-opening compulsion. You need strong non-verbal reasoning, bravery in the face of complexity, and to appear generally caffeinated at all times.5) ConditionedNo, not radiant and silky. Conditioned in the way Muay Thai fighters kick banana trees every morning to bolster the strength of their shins. Except here we’re talking about conditioning yourself for abnormal levels of pressure. High attrition rates in Investment Banks aren’t solely down to juniors jumping ship as soon as a pretty PE firm bats her/his eyelashes. A significant share quickly realise they can’t handle the stress. And while it’s annoying for you, dealing with all that sudden free time - it’s far more annoying for the firm that invested copious amounts of time and money training you and paying for the nibbles at networking events. Banks are generally good at picking their investments - and will strive to avoid those with delicate souls who are at risk of liquidating themselves before making a net positive contribution to the bottom line.So why is that interviewer asking those prickly, awkward questions? Are they really interested in the minutia of your pathetic attempt to estimate how many piano tuners there are in Burundi? Of course not. They’re putting you on the spot and actively seeking signals that you’re unable to deal with pressure.Why is the pressure so abnormal? Countless reasons, but here’s a fun statistical reason courtesy of my hero, Mr Benoit Mandlebrot. Extreme moves in the markets occur far more often than the word ‘extreme’ implies. Sounds fishy? Here’s some worryingly simple evidence. Following conventional financial risk models (i.e. based on normal distributions), we should expect a 7% daily swing in the DOW every 300,000 years. Instead, the 20th century experienced nearly 50 of these. And every single time an ‘unexpected’ move happens, the street tends to, for want of a better word, prang out. If you’re lucky, the next one might just be your first day!7) GiftedBeing ‘gifted’. Not the easiest thing to cram the night before your interview. Nevertheless the goal of this list is to provide a hierarchy of abilities which reflects hiring side priorities as closely as possible - and like it or not, a significant number mentioned their search for naturally gifted children.There is a more constructive way to interpret this - being a so-called ‘unpolished diamond’ entails a willingness to be polished. In other words, you’re communicative, tactful, passionate, gritty, numerate, conditioned and generally brilliant - but also malleable and planning to improve yourself (i.e. not a “stubborn know-it-all robot from *university name omitted*).An easy way to demonstrate a willingness to learn is by showing a willingness to listen. Indeed, there’s nothing more irksome than an interviewee answering a different question to the one you just asked. Listen extremely carefully to the questions posed in your interview, and even throw in an unnecessary reference to the most recent question during your answer, just to reassure the interviewer that they have your full attention.8) CollaborativeGranted, the incentive schemes in most financial institutions don’t seem particularly geared towards collaboration. Nor are traders classically represented as cooperative, huggable beings.However, a cross-industry trend encouraging collaborative endeavour, led (predictably) by Silicon Valley, is encroaching on Darwinian, commission-based arrangements. In short, the dog-eat-dog model is dying and you better start espousing that there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’.In the same way many programmers are hired based on their willingness to help others on forums like StackOverflow, there may be a day when your online social kudos will factor into your career prospects, regardless of vocation or sector.Honorable mentions (other qualities mentioned by our sample):9) Risk Appetite - Because when you lose money, you can’t also lose your shit.10) Honesty - Because Kweku Abdoboli.11) “Street smarts” - Because people, and the markets, are often irrational. Learn to deal with both as early as you can.Good luck! And seriously, Google Talent Rank. It took us ages to get to third spot.