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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Serie: Wiley Finance Editions
- Sprache: Englisch
Win the recruiting race with the ultimate analyst's guide to the interview The Complete, Technical Interview Guide to Investment Banking is the aspiring investment banker's guide to acing the interview and beginning your journey to the top. By merging a 'study guide' to the field with a forecast of the interview, this book helps you prepare for both content and structure; you'll brush up on important topics while getting a preview of the questions your interviewers are likely to ask. Covering financial statements, valuation, mergers and acquisitions, and leveraged buyouts, the discussion provides the answers to common technical questions while refreshing your understanding of the core technical analyses behind core models and analyses. Each chapter includes a list of the questions you will almost certainly be asked--along with the answers that interviewers want to hear--from the basic Q&A to the advanced technical analyses and case studies. This guide will reinforce your knowledge and give you the confidence to handle anything they can throw at you. You will receive an expert synopsis of the major points you need to know, to ensure your understanding and ability to handle the multitude of questions in each area. * Double-check your conceptual grasp of core finance topics * Plan your responses to common technical and analysis questions * Understand how to analyze and solve technical analyses and cases * Gain insight into what interviewers want to hear from potential hires * Become the candidate they can't turn away You've positioned yourself as a competitive candidate, and the right job right now can chart your entire career's trajectory. Now you just have to win the recruiting race. The Complete, Technical Interview Guide to Investment Banking is the ultimate preparation guide to getting the job you want.
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Table of Contents
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Preface
How This Book Is Structured
Introduction
Overview of Major Divisions
Standard Hierarchy
About the Author
Part One: Introduction to Investment Banking
Chapter 1: Investment Banking Recruiting
Networking and Interviewing
Part Two: Financial Statements
Chapter 2: Financial Statements Overview
The Income Statement
Revenue
Cost of Goods Sold
Operating Expenses
Other Income
Depreciation and Amortization
Interest
Taxes
Nonrecurring and Extraordinary Items
Distributions
Shares
The Cash Flow Statement
Cash Flow from Operating Activities
Cash Flow from Investing Activities
Cash Flow from Financing Activities
The Balance Sheet
Assets
Liabilities
Depreciation
Straight-Line Depreciation
Accelerated Depreciation
Deferred Taxes
Working Capital
Debt Schedule
Chapter 3: Financial Statements Questions
Practice Questions
Answers
Part Three: Valuation
Chapter 4: Valuation Overview
Book Value
Market Value
Enterprise Value
Multiples
Three Core Methods of Valuation
Chapter 5: Valuation Questions
Practice Cases
Answers
Part Four: Mergers and Acquisitions
Chapter 6: Mergers and Acquisitions Overview
The M&A Process
Accretion/Dilution Analysis
Step 1: Obtaining a Purchase Price
Step 2: Estimating Sources and Uses of Funds
Step 3: Creating a Pro-Forma Analysis
Summary
Drivers
Chapter 7: Mergers and Acquisitions Questions
Practice Questions
Practice Cases
Answers
Part Five: Leveraged Buyouts
Chapter 8: Leveraged Buyouts Overview
Cash Availability, Interest, and Debt Pay-Down
Operations Improvements
Multiple Expansion
What Makes A Good Leveraged Buyout?
Exit Opportunities
Leveraged Buyout Technical Analysis
Purchase Price
Sources and Uses of Funds
IRR Analysis
Chapter 9: Leveraged Buyouts Questions
Practice Questions
Practice Cases
Answers
Conclusion
About the Companion Website
Index
End User License Agreement
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Guide
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
List of Illustrations
Chapter 6: Mergers and Acquisitions Overview
Figure 6.1: GroceryCo Sources and Uses of Funds
Figure 6.2: Pro-Forma Analysis (Combining Two Entities Before Additional Transaction Adjustments)
Figure 6.3: Pro-Forma GroceryCo
Figure 6.4: Accretion/Dilution Analysis Complete with Transaction Adjustments
Figure 6.5: Pro-forma GroceryCo Accretion/Dilution Analysis with Transaction Adjustments
List of Tables
Chapter 2: Financial Statements Overview
Table 2.1 Most Common Income Statement Line Items
Table 2.2 Declining Balance Example
Table 2.3 Sum of the Year's Digits Example
Table 2.4 3-, 5-, 7-, 10-, 15-, and 20-Year Property Half-Year Convention
Table 2.5 3-, 5-, 7-, 10-, 15-, and 20-Year Property Mid-Quarter Convention Placed in Service in First Quarter
Table 2.6 Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System
Table 2.7 Income Statements for GAAP and Tax Purposes
Chapter 4: Valuation Overview
Table 4.1 Business Comparison
Table 4.2 Multiples
Chapter 6: Mergers and Acquisitions Overview
Table 6.1 Types of Acquisitions
Table 6.2 Transaction Fee Table Example
Table 6.3 Sample Balance Sheet Before and After LBO
Chapter 8: Leveraged Buyouts Overview
Table 8.1 Example of Leveraged Buyout Capital Structure
Table 8.2 ShipCo Sources and Uses
Table 8.3 Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows (in US$ millions)
Table 8.4 Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows—Unlevered and Free
Table 8.5 ShipCo Unlevered Free Cash Flow
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The Technical Interview Guide to Investment Banking
PAUL PIGNATARO
Copyright © 2017 by Paul Pignataro. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available:
ISBN 978-1-119-16139-4 (Hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-119-16141-7 (ePDF)
ISBN 978-1-119-16140-0 (ePub)
Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Image: © Mikhail Zahranichny/Shutterstock
This book is dedicated to every investor in the pursuit of enhancing wealth—those who have gained, and those who have lost—this continuous struggle has confounded the minds of many. This book should be one small tool to help further this endeavor; and if successful, the seed planted will contribute to a future of more informed investors and smarter markets.
Preface
Investment banks perform two major functions. First, they act as intermediaries between investors, or suppliers of capital, and entities that request capital such as corporations. Second, investment banks advise corporations on mergers, acquisitions, restructurings, and other major corporate actions.
Jobs within the investment banking industry vary widely; some roles can be very lucrative and as a result be highly sought after and competitive.
This book seeks to give any student or professional interested in the investment banking industry the technical tools to ace an investment banking interview. Having worked in the investment banking industry, I will give my personal perspective on what the investment banking interview process is like. I will provide advice and strategy on how to best navigate such an interview process. The book will contain a series of standard investment banking and interview preparation questions that increase in difficulty. We will also go through a series of case studies important for later-stage investment banking and private equity interviews. This book is the ideal go-to guide for anyone who is looking to break into the industry.
HOW THIS BOOK IS STRUCTURED
This book is divided into five parts:
Introduction to Investment Banking
Core Financial Statements
Valuation
Mergers and Acquisitions
Leveraged Buyouts
Each part will aim to give a brief overview of the core concepts: enough to better your knowledge for investment banking interviews or just a refresher. After each overview, chapters will contain interview questions and answers in increasing difficulty. These questions and answers do not capture every single possible topic, but will cover the most common. The most important thing to remember is you will never know exactly what will be asked in an interview, or how a particular question or scenario will be posed; but if you have the proper conceptual understanding of the core topics, you will be able to handle a multitude of questions asked on each topic.
If you need a stronger technical understanding or an actual modeling overview of each topic, I would recommend reading my other books, which dive deeper into each topic and provide steps for building a model from scratch:
Financial Modeling—
Financial Modeling and Valuation: A Practical Guide to Investment Banking and Private Equity
Valuation—
Financial Modeling and Valuation: A Practical Guide to Investment Banking and Private Equity
Mergers and Acquisitions—
Mergers, Acquisitions, Divestitures, and Restructurings: A Practical Guide to Investment Banking and Private Equity
Leveraged Buyouts—
Leveraged Buyouts: A Practical Guide to Investment Banking and Private Equity
Introduction
An investment bank is large, complex, and has many facets. In order to best understand the investment banking interview process, it is important to first give an overview of the major investment banking departments operating within an investment bank and the major roles within each department. This will help a job seeker identify and better understand the roles sought after in an investment bank and the most popular areas of interest for job applicants. Note this is just a high-level overview; you will always find more departments as you dig deeper, and each bank may slightly vary.
It is first important to highlight the difference between an investment bank and a commercial bank. An investment bank underwrites securities and performs advisory services while a commercial bank accepts and manages deposits for businesses and individuals.
In 1933 the United States issued the Glass-Steagall Act that prohibited banks from performing both “investment banking” and “commercial banking.” This act was set up in response to the Stock Market Crash of 1929 in order to prevent banks from betting on the market at the expense of depositors. This act was repealed, however, in 1999.
OVERVIEW OF MAJOR DIVISIONS
The following chart highlights the major banking divisions I will explore. Again this is not meant to be a complete overview, but just the key areas. These descriptions are meant to be a very brief overview just to give you enough of an idea to differentiate between divisions for interview purposes. Going into complete detail of these roles and what they entail is grounds for another book. Please refer to the chart on the next page for reference.
Senior Management
At the top of the pyramid we have senior management. Senior management includes the CEO, CFO, and others who run the entire firm.
Investment Banking
Investment Banking is a group within the investment bank itself. The investment banking group is typically broken up into Coverage, Mergers and Acquisitions, and Capital Markets.
Coverage
This core investment banking department is divided into industry groups: Energy, Technology, Media, and Healthcare are good examples. The role of these groups is to go to clients within the particular industry and sell investment banking products—products aimed to drive growth in the client's business. These products are most likely Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) and Underwriting. So if you were a managing director within one of these groups, you would be responsible for “covering” several companies within the industry group. The role would be to sell some M&A or Underwriting business to said client. Most often presentations (pitchbooks) are created as a tool to help “pitch” or sell business. An analyst would be responsible for researching the data for slides that would populate the presentations. These slides may require some analyses such as financial modeling, valuation, in addition to market research. The pitchbook would at its core provide an overview of the market environment, maybe a valuation of the client, and would hope to sell an M&A or Underwriting product. An analyst would also be responsible for drafting memoranda, setting up conference calls, and other process-oriented tasks. If the client expresses further interest in one of the products mentioned, then the coverage team would coordinate with the respective product team. For example, if the client expressed interest in raising equity (a subset of underwriting), then the coverage team would coordinate with the equity capital markets team to further the potential transaction.
Mergers and Acquisitions
Mergers and Acquisitions is probably the most sought after group (from a junior perspective) within the Investment Banking department primarily because it's the most model intensive. The goal of the Mergers and Acquisitions group is to aid in advising clients on the potential merger or acquisition of another asset or corporate entity. Mergers and acquisitions is a general definition that often also applies to divestitures and other types of restructurings, although some banks separate restructurings as another group. If a client is interested in acquiring or divesting all of or some part of their business, the M&A team is assigned to work on the transactions. The analyst will be responsible for modeling the financial impacts of the transaction in addition to drafting memoranda, setting up conference calls, and other process-oriented tasks. But it is the M&A modeling exposure that is typically most desirable for a junior analyst. This technical knowhow opens doors to other career paths such as private equity and hedge funds. My book, Mergers, Acquisitions, Divestitures, and Other Restructurings, walks step-by-step through the technical analyses.
Note: Some industries have unique enough account nuances that when more complex M&A modeling is needed, that industry coverage group performs their own “in-house” M&A as opposed to pairing with the more generalist M&A group. I'm mentioning this because often during the recruiting process the M&A group is in the most demand. It's wise to express interest in a less popular group (maybe Energy, for example) to alleviate competition. However, people often think that only in the M&A group will one get serious consideration for the larger private equity firms or hedge funds as the more sophisticated modeling often happens in the M&A group. So a strategic angle is to express interest in a less popular group that also happens to do its own M&A. This not only gives you that highly sought-after M&A exposure, but will give you exposure to the coverage process, which is important. It also gives you uniquely nuanced accounting skills of a specific industry, which may come in handy later in one's career. This is a good networking and positioning strategy I recommend utilizing.
Capital Markets
Capital Markets is typically subdivided into Equity, Debt, and Convertible. Each of these groups aids in the process of raising capital or trading securities for a client, be it equity, debt, convertible securities, or other types of securities respectively. So if the preceding client, for example, had expressed interest in raising equity, the coverage team would pair up with the equity capital markets team. The equity capital markets team would advise the client on the types of equity securities that could be raised based on various market conditions. They would advise on how much equity could be raised given the nature of the markets and a recommended type of security to get most value for their equity. Obviously it's the expertise of the managing directors in this equity capital markets group that would be able to provide this guidance. This takes years of experience and a strong understanding of the markets. Investment banks depend on these managing directors to give good guidance based on market conditions and further be able to follow up with their recommendation when it comes time to actually issue said securities. The results of their guidance would most likely also go into a section of the pitchbook presentation. This section would contain an overview of the equity markets, maybe the last few equity transactions and pricing information, and of course the managing directors' recommendation. The same idea would apply to debts, convertible securities, or other securities, if the client had been interested in those respective securities. In these groups the analyst would be responsible for populating the presentation slides (among other duties), which entails data mining, market research, and some modeling and analysis. But again the modeling would not be as intensive as in the M&A group. Actually it's sometimes known that the capital markets groups are the least intensive. This can be a benefit for those who want to get into the investment banking industry but are not interested in working 100 hours or more. On the other hand, the less intensive groups don't always get the attention of the premium private equity and hedge funds.
Sales and Trading
The Sales and Trading department is outside of the Investment Banking department. Salespeople and traders are responsible for the selling and trading of investment securities. So, for example, if the preceding client was in fact interested in raising equity as per the advice of the equity capital markets managing director, the sales and trading team would be responsible for the execution of said security. The sales process begins with calling potentially interested investors and other institutions about securities such as hedge funds and mutual funds. A list of interested buyers would be maintained in a process called “bookrunning.” A firm would want their books to be oversold, meaning they have more potential buyers than needed, which better guarantees a complete execution of the security when it becomes time. When the time comes to sell the equity, trading begins. Nowadays this is done via computers as opposed to the yelling and screaming you may see in the news. An analyst in the sales and trading group would likely maintain records of trades and the portfolio positions. They could also be responsible for calling potential investors and over time executing the trades. Hours are generally limited to market open and close in addition to some early morning meetings and possibly some after-market analysis, but certainly not the 100 hours or more demanded in the investment banking groups.
Equity Research
The Equity Research department is responsible for providing written reports demonstrating the expected valuation of a stock based on the opinion of the Wall Street “analyst.” These reports are sold to clients and funds among others who are interested in the analyst's stock expectations. Here's another confusing note of convention: An equity research analyst is often referred to as the managing director responsible for the entire report and its opinions. This differs from the idea of an analyst being the junior person on a team. This is confusing, but the norm. The Equity Research department is also divided into sectors, just as the coverage group is (i.e., Energy, Technology, Healthcare). As a junior analyst, one would be responsible for constructing and updating models resulting in stock valuations. Working in the Equity Research department is strong as it entails modeling and valuation. However, it is important to note that often the type of modeling performed is not as robust as the investment banking type of modeling. On the other hand, another positive in the Equity Research department is that one would get specific knowledge of an industry, which can come in handy later in one's career. The hours in the Equity Research department are significantly less than in investment banking. Weekends are generally free, and a junior analyst is often out by 7 at the latest (except for the quarterly and annual earning seasons when all models need to be updated based on company performance results).
Asset Management
Asset management helps manage the client's assets and investments in certain securities. Clients typically include high-net-worth individuals in addition to other institutions. Asset managers diversify a client's portfolio by investing across different asset classes, including equity, fixed income, and derivatives.
STANDARD HIERARCHY
It is important to understand the general hierarchy within an investment banking group. The roles and duties in investment banks can vary from firm to firm, but the general hierarchy follows.
Analyst
The analyst is the most junior level in the investment banking industry. Note the difference between “analyst” in terms of hierarchy and an equity research analyst as defined within the equity research overview discussed earlier. Most often, an investment bank would hire an analyst for two years. Often an analyst is allowed to stay for a third year before exploring other options. If an analyst does stay for a third year, it is recommended to do so in a different group to expand network and gain more skills. After two or three years, an analyst may be able to get promoted to the associate level, or be required to go to business school and get an MBA before getting a promotion. Sometimes, however, an analyst moves on to venture capital or private equity or leaves the industry altogether.
The key roles of an analyst entail financial modeling, updating presentations, drafting memoranda, facilitating research, performing due diligence, and setting up meetings.
Associate
An associate is one step above the analyst. Associates are responsible for the technicals and memoranda in a transaction. They are responsible for the quality of output of presentations, the data and flow of key memoranda, and the execution of deal process. Associates manage the analysts and aid in quality control of their work. An associate role will typically last three to four years before getting promoted to vice president. There is a major distinction here between the role of an associate and the role of a vice president, which often becomes a big hurdle for budding vice presidents. Analysts and associates have largely technical roles, responsible for the underlying data, materials, and process of transactions. Once transitioned to VP, one is more responsible for structuring and selling the deal—a more client-focused role. Often very technical candidates are great analysts and associates but are not personable or articulate enough to be good vice presidents. This causes a roadblock for many junior bankers.
Vice President
Typically, the vice president, although still responsible for technicals and execution, starts to gain exposure to the management process, including more direct interaction with the client. The duration of service varies vastly from firm to firm. I've seen vice presidents stay in their role for many years or get promoted after three to five years. It completely depends on the firm, their staffing needs, and the state of the markets.
Director
The director is also another vague role. Some firms refer to this role as executive director or president, and the specifics vary. Directors typically shadow managing directors and are being groomed to be the next key contact to a client. The move from director to managing director is typically not as structured a time as from analyst to associate. It depends on the state of the particular investment banking group.
Managing Director
The managing director is the key client relationship holder. The managing director is responsible for advising the client on particular M&A or underwriting products. The success of the managing director's role is often determined by how many products can be sold to the clients covered by the managing director.
This brief overview of the major divisions and roles within an investment bank is solely to provide a very high-level overview. More specifics on the investment banking recruiting process and interview preparation follow.
About the Author
Paul Pignataro is an entrepreneur specializing in finance education. He has built and successfully run several startups in the education and technology industries. He also has over 14 years of experience in investment banking and private equity in business mergers and acquisitions (M&A), restructurings, asset divestitures, asset acquisitions, and debt and equity transactions in the oil, gas, power and utilities, Internet and technology, real estate, defense, travel, banking, and service industries.
Mr. Pignataro most recently founded New York School of Finance, which evolved from AnEx Training, a multimillion-dollar finance education business, providing finance education to banks, firms, and universities throughout the world.
The New York School of Finance is a semester-long program, based in New York and geared toward helping business students from top-tier and lower-tier business schools to prepare for jobs at the top firms on Wall Street.
At AnEx Training, Mr. Pignataro continues to participate on the training team, actively providing training at bulge bracket banks and for M&A teams at corporations, and has personally trained personnel at funds catering to high-net-worth individuals worth billions of dollars. AnEx continues to train at over 50 locations worldwide, and Mr. Pignataro travels extensively on a monthly basis to do trainings at sovereign funds and investment banks overseas.
Prior to his entrepreneurial endeavors, Mr. Pignataro worked at TH Lee Putnam Ventures, a $1 billion private equity firm affiliated with buyout giant Thomas H. Lee Partners. Before that, he was at Morgan Stanley, where he worked on various transactions in the technology, energy, transportation, and business services industries. Some of the transactions included the $33.3 billion merger of BP Amoco and ARCO, the $7.6 billion sale of American Water Works to RWE (a German water company), the sale of two subsidiaries of Citizens Communications (a $3.0 billion communications company), and the sale of a $100 million propane distribution subsidiary of a $3 billion electric utility.
Mr. Pignataro is the author of Financial Modeling and Valuation: A Practical Guide to Investment Banking and Private Equity (John Wiley & Sons, 2013). He graduated from New York University with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science.
Part OneIntroduction to Investment Banking
As someone who was not a business student, breaking into the investment banking industry was a challenging and competitive task. Lucky enough to get an offer in the investment banking industry at Morgan Stanley, I was at one time part of their recruiting team. Seeing the recruiting process from the recruiter's side was helpful and interesting, and I had always thought if I understood what the process was truly like before going through the interview process, I would have been much more competitive. This is the very perspective that I will provide in this part.
CHAPTER 1Investment Banking Recruiting
As a first-year analyst at Morgan Stanley, I had volunteered to be part of the NYU recruiting team. The recruiting team consisted of bankers from various levels including the most junior analyst through the senior managing director. In our NYU group, there were several of us first-year analysts (mostly junior) on the team, maybe one or two associates, and a vice president who was in charge of the recruiting process on behalf of the school. The interviewing process for senior undergraduate students for full-time jobs upon graduation would begin in late August or early September. Everyone on the NYU recruiting team at Morgan Stanley would coordinate a day in our schedules to meet and go through all resumes submitted. Every submitted resume was, in fact, sent to us and reviewed. We would have a binder of all submitted resumes and would sift through them one by one as a group. It was during this meeting where we would select candidates we felt were appropriate for a first-round interview. We would hope to get 40 to 50 candidates to interview. In my experience, we narrowed down candidates based on three different categories:
Students who had prior bulge bracket internships
Students who had M&A and other relevant experience
Students who we felt may be good analysts
So let me explain these categories. For category 1, we would automatically select anyone who had previously interned in the investment banking group at a bulge bracket bank. But this candidate needed to have received a job offer after that particular internship. If not, there needs to be a good explanation. Some firms actually choose not to give follow-on offers to any intern. That's an acceptable explanation. But if a firm has given out offers to select interns but not the particular candidate in question, then that would give us pause for concern. For category 2, knowing we wouldn't find 40 to 50 candidates just by filtering down to those with bulge bracket internships/offers, we would also select candidates who had relevant experience either at a smaller bank or investment firm or in other types of firms where the candidate may have had investment banking related exposure (i.e., financial modeling and valuation). Again we are looking for students who will interview well and will be good analysts. So students who interned at mid-market or boutique banks in the M&A division would be selected, for example, or even candidates who interned in the equity research division of a bank. Even though equity research is not a key investment banking department, the role does require some financial modeling and valuation skills that can be transferrable. Finally, for category 3, we would select anyone else who we felt could interview well and be a good analyst. This is vague—on purpose. As we sat in our group flipping through resumes, if we came across someone we had recognized, we could identify that candidate and include their resume in the “to be interviewed” pile. This is a very important category, which relates to the need for everyone looking to get into the investment banking industry to make themselves known. My strong advice here is to find out who is on the recruiting team from your school and begin an initiative to get in front of them and let them know that you would be a good candidate. If you were not lucky enough to get a bulge bracket or relevant internship, this is your chance to have someone on the recruiting team call your name when the time comes. This is where networking is key.
NETWORKING AND INTERVIEWING
Networking comes in many forms, so in this part I will just focus on a few major helpful tips for getting into the investment banking industry. Now that you have a general view of how the process can go internally, you see the importance of getting in front of the right person and making yourself known. If you are a senior at a university looking for first-year analyst roles, the best person to get in front of are college alums who just got hired. As the bulge bracket hiring season begins early in the fall, recently graduated students who got hired into these banks typically go through a training program in the summer. So by early fall they are just beginning their full-time role and are still eager and excited about their position. Get in front of those analysts before the job duties become so overwhelming that they no longer have time to reciprocate.
Getting in Front of Key People
I'm often asked who the best person in HR is to reach out to. It's important to note that most investment banking groups actually appoint an analyst, associate, or vice president to manage the groups' daily operations—including hiring. This particular person is a banker who liaises with HR to determine staffing needs. A candidate needs to find out who that person is. So, for example, if a candidate applies for an investment banking position online, that resume typically gets sent to the HR department and is sorted among potentially thousands of others. To enhance your chances of getting selected, find an actual analyst or associate working in the group you are applying for and reach out to them. LinkedIn is an excellent resource for this. So if you submit your resume for a position in Mergers and Acquisitions at Credit Suisse, for example, use the LinkedIn search bar to find who is actually working in that group and send them an InMail. InMails are more powerful that just connecting with that person, as an InMail typically goes directly into their inbox.
When I was a first-year analyst, I would get a flood of emails from students who wanted to break into the investment banking industry. In the beginning, I was eager and excited to respond to everyone. Over time, as work took over, and conversations with students became repetitive, I started to filter whom I responded to. I was still very interested in recruiting good analysts, but I wanted to be sure I was speaking to someone who was really serious and would interview well if I brought them into the firm for an interview. So it is very important that candidates prove in some way that they know what they are getting themselves into either through experience or extensive knowledge about the industry. “Breaking into the industry” could mean the candidate read about banking in a blog and knows they can make a lot of money but doesn't really understand the function and roles of a banker. Or it could mean someone is seriously qualified but just hasn't gotten the right opportunity to interview. We look for the latter, and it's very important that you demonstrate right away that you are someone who truly knows what you are getting yourself into and understands what an investment banking job entails. So having a prior internship and the relevant skills matters. In addition, how candidates present themselves is most important and will be discussed.
The Two Most Important Investment Banking Interview Questions
Whether it's an initial phone call or a first-round interview, I would easily determine a candidate's qualifications by asking the candidate to introduce himself (“Tell me about yourself”) and then asking another simple, yet key question: “Why do you want to get into investment banking?” I will explain what the recruiter is typically looking for next.
You will never know exactly what someone will ask in an interview, but there are certain topics that almost always get covered. No matter how the call or interview is introduced, you will most likely be expected to explain why you want to work in this type of field and explain who you are. The answers to these questions are simple, yet they demonstrate intent. Believe it or not, I have easily narrowed down 50 candidates to 15 by asking these two simple questions. Often, even students at the top business schools just haven't prepared themselves in a concise way to answer these questions effectively. “Tell me about yourself” is your “elevator pitch” of yourself. It's what you are about. The perspective is very important. I will explain.
Tell Me About Yourself
Candidates often confuse the questions “Tell me about yourself” and “Walk me through your resume” as one and the same. In fact, they are the opposite from a timeline perspective. “Tell me about yourself” is a story of who you are—what you are about. It should be an overview of pivotal moments in your life beginning with when and where you are from through to why you are speaking to the recruiter today, and they all need to connect in some way. “Tell me about yourself” is a 60- to 90-second elevator pitch of you explaining why you should be chosen for the job. The answer to this question not only demonstrates intent, but preparedness and presentation.
You should always begin by introducing yourself by simply stating your name and where you are from. Keep it simple. Then focus on where you attended college or university and why your specific major was chosen. This should lay out some groundwork toward the career of choice. If the major is not related to career of choice, then you must be prepared to explain what situation occurred that led you to change course. It would be ideal if there were some transferable skills from major to career that can be highlighted to help explain the transition. Briefly give an overview of past internships by simply stating the nature of the role and why it applies to overall goals. Remember the important component here is why. Many people rattle off their history but do not explain why they've chosen their specific major or internship. Finally, you should conclude with why you want to work in the current field. This very general framework is summarized as:
Where you are from?
Why did you choose your university and major?
Tie together your past experiences in a way that explains why you want to work in the field.
Conclude with the answer to why you want to work in investment banking, which we will explain further.
Thinking about this general framework will help keep focus. All too often candidates start discussing aspects of their life that are not relevant and will lose the recruiter. Other aspects of a candidate's life that are possibly relevant and interesting can be thrown in during the discussion but do it after the initial pitch. The answer to this question makes an important first impression and will set the tone of the rest of the interview. If it is not concise, it may reflect poorly. Also, I do not recommend going into the actual day-to-day duties in each internship or experience described; just provide an overall description and how the experience fits into the overall story. Details can be saved for later questions, like “Walk me through your resume.” Again, “Tell me about yourself” should be an overarching story of who you are and how you fit into this role. I will explain more in the next section.
