How to Apply to Nomura Holdings

9 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 3 open positions
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • Nomura is Japan's largest securities firm and one of Asia's most important investment banks, with roughly 26,000 to 27,000 employees, operations in more than 30 countries, and Tokyo, New York, London, Hong Kong, and Singapore as its principal hubs.
  • The 2008 Lehman Brothers Asia, Europe, and Middle East acquisition transformed Nomura into a genuine global investment bank, and the firm's culture and career paths still reflect that blended Japanese-and-global DNA.
  • Hiring is organized by region (Japan, Americas, EMEA, Asia ex-Japan) and by division (Retail, Wholesale, Investment Management, Corporate Infrastructure), and each pipeline has different timelines, interview formats, and cultural expectations.
  • The graduate and internship funnel is highly structured: online application, psychometric and HireVue-style assessments, first-round interviews, and a Super Day or Assessment Centre, typically wrapping up faster in London and New York than in Tokyo.
  • Technical preparation should be tailored by division, but strong accounting and valuation fundamentals, product intuition for markets roles, and solid mental math are considered non-negotiable baselines across Wholesale.
  • Cultural fit matters as much as technical ability: Nomura prefers humble, team-first, long-horizon candidates and tends to reject overtly aggressive or self-promotional interviewees even when their answers are technically sharp.
  • Genuine interest in Japan and Asia, language study, and awareness of Nomura's strategic positioning are meaningful differentiators that help candidates stand out versus applicants who treat Nomura as a backup to the bulge brackets.
  • Compensation is competitive with global peers in front-office seats, especially in London and New York, but career progression and mobility can involve Tokyo approval and longer decision cycles than at US-headquartered banks.
  • Preparing a polished, error-free, division-tailored resume, practicing technical and behavioral answers with Japanese-context examples, and writing a specific, individually addressed thank-you note to each interviewer materially improve conversion at every stage.

About Nomura Holdings

Nomura Holdings, Inc. (野村ホールディングス株式会社) is Japan's largest investment bank and brokerage group, and one of the most influential financial services firms in Asia. Founded in Osaka in 1925 by Tokushichi Nomura II as the securities division of Osaka Nomura Bank, the firm has grown into a global financial powerhouse with roughly 26,000 to 27,000 employees operating across more than 30 countries. Its global headquarters sits at Nihonbashi 1-13-1, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, in the Nomura Building, and the company is listed on both the Tokyo Stock Exchange (ticker 8604) and the New York Stock Exchange (NMR). Nomura's business is organized around three core divisions. The Retail division serves Japanese individual investors, high-net-worth clients, and corporate clients through a dense domestic branch network of more than 100 offices, offering brokerage, wealth management, and financial consulting. The Wholesale division houses Global Markets (fixed income, equities, currencies, and derivatives trading) and Investment Banking (M&A advisory, equity capital markets, debt capital markets, and leveraged finance), and is the primary destination for graduates targeting front-office finance careers outside Japan. The Investment Management division operates Nomura Asset Management, one of Asia's largest asset managers, along with private equity, merchant banking, and alternative investment platforms. The firm's most consequential strategic moment in the modern era was its October 2008 acquisition of Lehman Brothers' Asia-Pacific franchise, plus the European and Middle Eastern equities and investment banking businesses, days after Lehman's US bankruptcy. That deal instantly globalized Nomura, bringing in roughly 8,000 Lehman employees and transforming it from a Japan-centric securities house into a genuine international investment bank. The integration was difficult, expensive, and culturally turbulent, and the firm spent the next decade rationalizing the combined platform, exiting unprofitable geographies, and re-anchoring identity around a blended Japanese-and-global model. Nomura's corporate culture blends traditional Japanese values, long-term client relationships, seniority-aware consensus decision-making, and formal etiquette, with the more aggressive, meritocratic, and performance-driven pulse of a global investment bank. The company is widely known for rigorous training, a demanding but collegial early-career environment, and a strong emphasis on integrity, teamwork, and what it calls its 'Founding Principles' of client-first service. For candidates, Nomura represents a distinctive opportunity to join a firm with genuine Asian market depth, direct access to Japanese corporate and institutional clients, and a global platform that competes with the American and European bulge brackets.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Identify the right track early: Nomura hires through distinct pipelines for Japa

    Identify the right track early: Nomura hires through distinct pipelines for Japan (Sogoshoku generalist, Professional, Area), the Americas, EMEA, and Asia ex-Japan, each with its own timeline, eligibility rules, and interview style, so read the regional careers site carefully before applying.

  2. 2
    Apply online at nomura

    Apply online at nomura.com/careers (or jobs.nomura.com for graduate programs) by creating a candidate profile, uploading a tailored resume and cover letter, completing the required online application form, and selecting a specific division (Wholesale, Retail, Investment Management, Corporate Infrastructure) and location.

  3. 3
    Complete online assessments promptly: expect a combination of numerical reasonin

    Complete online assessments promptly: expect a combination of numerical reasoning, verbal reasoning, logical/situational judgment tests, and in many regions a HireVue-style recorded video interview with behavioral and motivation questions, typically within one to two weeks of submitting your application.

  4. 4
    Pass first-round interviews, which are usually 30 to 45 minutes with junior-to-m

    Pass first-round interviews, which are usually 30 to 45 minutes with junior-to-mid-level bankers or traders and cover resume walk-through, motivation for Nomura specifically, division fit, and foundational technical questions calibrated to the role (accounting, valuation, markets, or product depending on desk).

  5. 5
    Attend a Super Day or Assessment Centre, typically four to six back-to-back inte

    Attend a Super Day or Assessment Centre, typically four to six back-to-back interviews in a single day at a Nomura office, mixing senior technical interviews, behavioral interviews, case studies, group exercises (EMEA and Asia), and for trading roles, a markets/mental-math component.

  6. 6
    Respond quickly to offers: Nomura generally gives one to two weeks to decide on

    Respond quickly to offers: Nomura generally gives one to two weeks to decide on graduate and internship offers, and in Japan in particular offers are tied to naitei timing with the expectation that you will decline competing offers once you accept.

  7. 7
    Plan for background checks and pre-employment screening covering education, empl

    Plan for background checks and pre-employment screening covering education, employment history, regulatory licensing (Series 7/63/79 in the US, JSDA in Japan, FCA/SMCR in the UK), credit, and criminal record, which can take several weeks to complete before your start date.

Resume Tips for Nomura Holdings

recommended

Lead with quantified impact in investment banking and markets formats: deal size

Lead with quantified impact in investment banking and markets formats: deal sizes in USD/JPY, percentage returns, P&L attribution, models built, and client interactions, because Nomura recruiters screen exactly the same signals as the bulge brackets.

recommended

Use a single page for analyst and associate roles and a clean, conservative temp

Use a single page for analyst and associate roles and a clean, conservative template (no graphics, no color blocks, no headshot outside Japan) with clear sections for Education, Experience, Leadership, and Skills, and mirror the format standard on Wall Street and in the City of London.

recommended

In Japan specifically, prepare a proper Japanese rirekisho and shokumu-keirekish

In Japan specifically, prepare a proper Japanese rirekisho and shokumu-keirekisho alongside your English CV if you are targeting Sogoshoku or Japan-based roles, and ensure dates, seal/signature fields, and photo meet Japanese formatting conventions.

recommended

Demonstrate genuine interest in Asia and Japan: language study, exchange program

Demonstrate genuine interest in Asia and Japan: language study, exchange programs, coursework on Japanese or Asian markets, cross-border transactions, and any direct experience with Japanese clients or Nomura products are strong differentiators versus generic bulge-bracket applicants.

recommended

Tailor technical keywords to the division: DCF, LBO, M&A, ECM/DCF, comps, and pr

Tailor technical keywords to the division: DCF, LBO, M&A, ECM/DCF, comps, and precedents for investment banking; P&L, VaR, Greeks, RV, curve, vol, and product-specific language for Global Markets; and attribution, IPS, asset allocation, and benchmarks for Investment Management.

recommended

Highlight team-sport and collaborative achievements because Nomura's culture emp

Highlight team-sport and collaborative achievements because Nomura's culture emphasizes teamwork and long-term relationships, so club leadership, varsity sports, student investment funds, case competitions, and cross-functional project outcomes all translate well.

recommended

Show evidence of technical fluency through CFA progress, FRM, Series or JSDA exa

Show evidence of technical fluency through CFA progress, FRM, Series or JSDA exam preparation, strong programming (Python, SQL, VBA, R) where relevant, and Bloomberg/Refinitiv/Capital IQ experience, especially for trading, research, and quantitative roles.

recommended

Proofread ruthlessly: Nomura interviewers openly reject resumes with typos, inco

Proofread ruthlessly: Nomura interviewers openly reject resumes with typos, inconsistent tense, misaligned bullets, or wrong ticker/deal facts, and a clean, error-free resume is treated as baseline evidence of professional craft rather than a differentiator.

ATS System: Workday

Nomura Holdings uses Workday as its primary applicant tracking and recruitment platform across its global offices, including Japan, EMEA, the Americas, and Asia ex-Japan. Candidates apply through the Nomura careers portal, which is backed by a Workday recruiting tenant that handles profile creation, resume parsing, application routing, interview scheduling integration, and offer management. Workday's parser prioritizes clean, structured, text-based resumes with standard section headings, so candidates should avoid tables, graphics, headers/footers, and non-standard fonts that can disrupt field extraction.

  • Use a clean, single-column, text-based resume (PDF preferred) with standard section headings like Experience, Education, and Skills so the Workday parser extracts your data correctly
  • Create a Workday candidate profile carefully, filling in employment and education fields directly rather than relying solely on resume auto-parse, because downstream filters read the profile fields, not just the attached resume
  • Set up job alerts in the Nomura Workday portal for your target division and region so you are notified when new graduate, internship, or lateral roles open, since early applications tend to reach human reviewers before quotas fill
  • Apply to one primary role per cycle rather than spraying applications across divisions, because recruiters can see your full application history in Workday and multi-division spray applications are a visible red flag
  • Keep your Workday profile updated with the latest resume, transcript, and work-authorization status, since recruiters frequently search the internal talent pool for lateral and off-cycle openings

Complete Workday Resume Guide →

Interview Culture

Nomura's interview process is a deliberate blend of Japanese formality and global investment-banking rigor, and understanding both halves is essential.

Candidates should expect a polite, measured tone, careful attention to etiquette, and thoughtful pacing, alongside the technical intensity, case work, and behavioral probing standard at any major investment bank. First impressions matter: conservative business attire, punctual arrival (ideally 10 to 15 minutes early), a firm but not overbearing handshake outside Japan, a slight bow and two-handed business card exchange (meishi koukan) in Japan, and consistent eye contact calibrated to cultural norms are all observed by interviewers. Interviews generally fall into three categories. Behavioral and 'fit' interviews explore your motivation for finance, why Nomura specifically versus competitors, your knowledge of the firm's strategy and recent deals, your resume walk-through, and classic competency stories around teamwork, leadership, failure, and conflict resolution. Interviewers want to see genuine, specific reasons for choosing Nomura, not recycled 'global platform and strong culture' platitudes. Technical interviews vary by division: investment banking roles drill accounting (three statements linkage, working capital, deferred tax), valuation (DCF, comps, precedents, LBO mechanics), and deal mechanics; Global Markets roles test product knowledge, mental math, curve and volatility intuition, and live market color; research roles expect a stock or sector pitch with a defensible thesis. Case and group exercises, especially in EMEA and Asia graduate programs, evaluate how you reason under uncertainty and, critically, how you cooperate with peers rather than dominate them. Cultural fit is weighted heavily. Nomura values humility, thoughtful listening, intellectual honesty about what you do not know, and clear evidence that you can work within a hierarchy while still contributing ideas. Aggressive, self-promotional, or dismissive behavior tends to be disqualifying, even when technical answers are strong. Interviewers also look for long-term commitment: candidates who can articulate a credible multi-year career path at Nomura and who show awareness of the firm's Japanese heritage alongside its global ambitions consistently outperform generalist bulge-bracket applicants. Send a concise, individually addressed thank-you email within 24 hours to every interviewer, referencing a specific moment from your conversation, and be prepared for process timelines that can stretch longer than at US-headquartered peers, particularly for roles routed through Tokyo approval.

What Nomura Holdings Looks For

  • Strong academic credentials from a target university with solid grades in quantitative coursework (finance, economics, accounting, mathematics, engineering, computer science), reflecting the firm's continued emphasis on pedigree alongside ability.
  • Genuine, articulate interest in Nomura specifically and in Japan or Asia more broadly, demonstrated through coursework, internships, language study, research projects, or clear commentary on the firm's strategy post-Lehman integration.
  • Technical fluency appropriate to the division, including accounting and valuation mechanics for banking, product and market intuition for Global Markets, portfolio construction and asset allocation for Investment Management, and quantitative or coding skills for technology and quant roles.
  • Evidence of teamwork, humility, and cultural adaptability, because Nomura explicitly prefers collaborative 'team-first' hires over lone-wolf performers, and its East-meets-West culture requires comfort operating across Japanese and global norms.
  • Resilience and commitment demonstrated through multi-year pursuits such as varsity sports, long-running extracurriculars, language acquisition, or substantive internships, signaling that you will endure the demanding early-career path without burning out or job-hopping.
  • Client-orientation and commercial instinct, especially for Retail and Investment Banking roles, where the ability to articulate how your decisions create value for specific client types is more compelling than abstract financial knowledge.
  • Integrity and regulatory fitness, including a clean background and an understanding of why conduct, suitability, and compliance matter in a post-crisis regulatory environment governed by the JFSA, FCA, SEC/FINRA, and SMCR-equivalent regimes.
  • Global mindset paired with Japanese-market depth: bilingual or multilingual candidates, those with cross-border transaction exposure, and those who can bridge US/European client expectations with Tokyo decision-making are especially valued for front-office seats.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Nomura a good place to start a career in investment banking?
Yes, particularly if you are interested in Asian markets, cross-border deals involving Japanese corporates, or building a long-horizon career at a firm that competes with but is structurally different from the American and European bulge brackets. Nomura offers strong training, real deal flow in ECM, M&A, and leveraged finance, and early exposure to clients, with the trade-off that process and decision speeds can feel more measured than at peers.
How competitive is Nomura's graduate program?
Very competitive, with acceptance rates typically in the low single digits at major campuses in the UK, US, Hong Kong, and Japan. Nomura focuses recruiting on target universities in each region, expects strong GPAs and psychometric scores, and uses Super Days and Assessment Centres to stress-test both technical ability and cultural fit before extending offers.
Do I need to speak Japanese to work at Nomura?
Not for most non-Japan roles. English is the working language in London, New York, Hong Kong, and Singapore offices, and the majority of wholesale and research seats outside Japan do not require Japanese. For Japan-based roles, especially in Retail and domestic Investment Banking, business-level Japanese is generally required, and bilingual candidates are strongly preferred for cross-border coverage roles regardless of location.
What is the culture at Nomura really like?
The culture blends traditional Japanese values with global investment-banking intensity. Expect strong emphasis on teamwork, relationships, hierarchy awareness, and long-term thinking alongside demanding hours and performance expectations. Colleagues are generally described as collegial and loyal, with lower internal turnover than peers, but the pace of change, promotion, and decision-making can feel slower than at US-headquartered banks.
How should I prepare for a Nomura technical interview?
Prepare the standard banking technical set (three-statement accounting linkage, DCF, comparable companies, precedent transactions, LBO mechanics) or markets set (product knowledge, yield and curve math, volatility, Greeks, live market color) to bulge-bracket depth. Layer on at least one Japan- or Asia-specific example such as a recent cross-border Japanese M&A deal, BOJ policy shift, or Nikkei move, and be ready to articulate why Nomura's platform is the right place to execute that type of work.
Does Nomura sponsor work visas?
Yes, in practice, for roles in its major global offices including New York (H-1B where available and L-1 for intra-company transfers), London (Skilled Worker visa under the sponsored route), Hong Kong, Singapore, and Tokyo. Sponsorship is typically offered for full-time graduate, lateral, and senior hires where the business case supports it, but availability can vary year to year based on headcount and immigration policy.
What is Nomura's relationship to the former Lehman Brothers businesses?
In October 2008, Nomura acquired Lehman Brothers' Asia-Pacific franchise plus the European and Middle Eastern equities and investment banking businesses following Lehman's US bankruptcy. That acquisition brought in roughly 8,000 Lehman employees, instantly expanded Nomura's global footprint, and reshaped its investment banking and equities capabilities. Today the businesses are fully integrated under the Nomura brand, though many senior leaders and cultural practices in EMEA still trace back to the Lehman heritage.
What is the interview process timeline for graduates?
For off-cycle and summer internship applications, expect roughly four to eight weeks from application to final decision. The typical sequence is online application, online assessments and HireVue within one to two weeks, first-round interviews within two to four weeks, and a Super Day or Assessment Centre with an offer decision within one to two weeks after that. Tokyo-based roles can take longer because final approvals often route through Japan headquarters.
How does compensation at Nomura compare to the bulge brackets?
In front-office seats in London and New York, base salaries for analysts and associates are broadly in line with bulge-bracket peers, and bonuses are competitive in strong years, particularly in Global Markets and Investment Banking. Compensation in Tokyo follows Japanese market norms and is generally lower in nominal terms than in London or New York, though total rewards including housing, bonus, and benefits can be substantial at mid-career levels.
What mistakes most often get candidates rejected at Nomura?
The most common rejection patterns are generic motivation answers that could apply to any bank, weak technical fundamentals, overtly aggressive or self-promotional interview behavior, poor knowledge of Nomura's strategy or recent deals, and sloppy application materials with typos or mismatched cover letters. Treating Nomura as a backup option is usually visible to interviewers and tends to produce quick rejections even from otherwise strong candidates.

Open Positions

Nomura Holdings currently has 3 open positions.

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View 3 open positions at Nomura Holdings

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