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Asking for feedback is scary for students, but can be constructive if you’ve got the courage to do it. Most banks provide feedback. It might be volunteered, or you might have to ring and email for it.

Unearthing your mistakes?

Different banks treat requests for feedback in very different ways, but one thing’s for certain – if you don’t ask for it, you won’t get it.

NAB is among the most willing to divulge information. Graduate recruitment manager Caroline Harris says all interviewees are telephoned and coached – even if they’re interviewing for a different bank!

At Citigroup, Sally Kincaid, head of HR, says students should actively try and contact every member of the panel that interviewed them.

Kara Considine, human capital advisor at Goldman Sachs JBWere, says they are “more than happy” to provide feedback if candidates ask for it.

Feedback on your application

Getting feedback on your application form or CV and covering letter can be difficult: banks are deluged with applications and they are assessed mostly on academic performance, so there’s not a lot to say.

If you do go wrong for non-academic reasons, poor presentation will probably have something to do with it (and you should arguably have checked this yourself before submitting the application): “Don’t send through an application that has grammatical and spelling errors, or is addressed to another organisation,” says Anna Tassanyi, HR officer at Citigroup.

Feedback on interviews

Grant Chamberlain, Deutsche Bank’s deputy head of M&A, says 40-50% of people who’ve interviewed with the bank ask for feedback after an interview. Emilie Everett, campus recruitment manager at UBS, puts it much lower – at only 1%.

If you do ask at this stage, you will usually receive. “We tell them their strengths and what let them down: it could be technical, their examples, their interview techniques, and we would suggest what they could do to improve those things,” adds UBS's Everett.

JPMorgan’s head of corporate banking Mark Davison says feedback after an interview is a courtesy that it'ss incumbent on any organisation to provide: “I think it’s a valuable exercise to point people in the right direction, things they could work on or develop. It’s a courtesy to provide graduates with a bit of a steer so they can succeed.”

What should you ask?

UBS’s Everett urges you to have specific questions – covering letter, test results, interview techniques – and ask what you could have done differently, how you could have improved your CV, and ask “What did others have that I didn’t?”

Don’t ask, “Why didn’t I get it?” says Goldman’s Considine, ask “What can I improve on next time?”

JPMorgan’s Braga adds: “We want future leaders, so we’re looking for flexibility, adaptability and leadership qualities. These are matters hard to quantify and hard to practise, but asking for feedback about your failure in these matters will help you in subsequent applications.”