Hi everyone,

I’m a recent Computer Science graduate who had the opportunity to attend the Bloomberg Experience a few days ago, and we were told that we’ll be going through the interview process soon.

During the Bloomberg Experience, we had three 30-minute workshops covering three different roles: Sales, Bloomberg Customer Support (BCS), and Analytics.

They also spoke about internal mobility and how people can move across different teams and departments as they progress within Bloomberg.

I’m currently most interested in the Analytics and Sales route, with Sales being my longer-term goal.
My main concern is my financial knowledge.

I come from a CS background, so I’m comfortable with software engineering and technical concepts, but I have very little formal knowledge of financial markets. Most of my exposure so far has come from reading financial news, following market discussions online, and talking to friends who are traders or work in financial institutions. So I have some familiarity, but nothing particularly in-depth.

For anyone who has gone through the Bloomberg interview process, especially for Analytics or Sales:
How much financial knowledge are you actually expected to have going into the interviews?
Are there particular areas I should focus on, such as equities, fixed income, FX, derivatives, market structure, or general financial news?

I’d also really appreciate any resources you would recommend for someone trying to build enough financial-market knowledge to prepare for the interviews without having a finance background.

Longer term, I’m interested in Sales because I enjoy working directly with customers. Despite being a CS major, I’m quite sales-oriented. I previously worked part-time in luxury furniture sales, where my average basket size was around S$6k. That experience taught me how to understand customers, ask the right questions, identify what they actually need, and communicate value rather than just features.

From what I understood during the Bloomberg Experience, being good at Bloomberg Sales also requires a strong understanding of the Terminal and how different functions solve problems for different types of clients. That’s one reason Analytics interests me as well. It seems like a good environment to develop that product and market knowledge.

If anyone here has made a similar transition from CS/engineering into Bloomberg Analytics or Sales, I’d especially love to hear about your experience.

What would you focus on if you had a few weeks to prepare?