Blackstone PE 1st round

First round at BX PE (phone interview) tomorrow. What questions should I expect? Interned at a BB in IBD.

How long does the 1st round phone interview usually last?
When do they inform us about the result of the 1st round?
Any other tips on how to prepare? Websites? Guides?

 

30 minutes, usually very technical with some fit along the way. You should know your stuff, and if you don't know something be prepared to reason through everything.

Is this for the London Office?

I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 

In addition to knowing your technicals, you should know how to evaluate a business or investment proposal. Having some sort of framework would be smart, but understanding how to qualitatively look at a business (competitive threats, growth opportunities, upside/downside cases, formulating an equity story, "porter's five", etc.) is more than just knowing your corporate finance technicals.

 

You should also think about coming up with an investment proposal. When I interviewed with them, one of the interviews consisted solely of walking the interviewer through my idea of where to invest at the moment and why. Explain the pros/cons, etc. This is something that you should really prepare. Just look at where the current M&A activity is the highest and then come up with a thesis that you can defend on the basis of industry or even company specific numbers and trends. I would stay away from anything that is too specialized, ie FIG or any real NatRes assets. High Technology is usually a good choice, for example.

I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 
NYKnicks92:

jefferies --> bx m&a is a big jump to say the least and quite unlikely given that they interviewed a ton of kids from top BBs and EBs

This has happens in LDN.
"After you work on Wall Street it’s a choice, would you rather work at McDonalds or on the sell-side? I would choose McDonalds over the sell-side.” - David Tepper
 

Sounds like London. I remember my first phone interview ever for a summer program abroad. horrible hate that! but i think its normal that they really have technical questions sometimes I would say very specific, they want to check your skills for the rest there are round 2&3.

and now : how was the interview and when did you think you will recieve an answer, i guess if they are interested in you within less a week.

 
Best Response

Not true. Interviews can be very technical, but of course you have to nail the behaviorals as well. Some technicals will be the same as what you've seen in banking interviews, but also expect to see more buyside-specific questions. They're investors, not salesmen. You'll need to adjust to that.

Finally, Blackstone PE very much has a rockstar culture. They don't want modest, meek people. They want the best of the best and you need to show them that you're exactly that. Don't be cocky, but be sure to come across as very confident. You need to be well-spoken, put together and sure of yourself. Again, beware of crossing into cocky territory.

 

they won't ask you to build an LBO on the spot... they will ask you some tech questions and perhaps a case study type thing. They asked me "what all the costs would be if I was opening a pizza parlor in college town and how long would it take for me to break even / become profitable.... etc." That's more just being logical than anything else though.

not sure what round this is, but eventually they'll ask you to take a written math / finance test. Doesn't require much knowledge and is pretty easy, but you have to move as quickly as possible to get a good score.

 

Beretta--way to fail. You can't spell Stephen Schwarzman correctly, even when you're trolling?

Matrick--interview is actually not very difficult. R&R / M&A interviews were substantially more difficult for me because they were simply ultra technical. BX PE already knows everyone interviewing is extremely smart, so they do ask a few (layup) technicals to make sure you have some understanding of finance. After that, however, it morphs into a mini-case interview, where they try to test how you think about a business and its operations. PE requires a lot more understanding of how businesses work than banking does, so that is how you'll differentiate yourself in the interview. They usually test this in the context of technicals--that is, you need to be familiar with the technicals to be able to answer the question properly--but the purpose is not to see that you are familiar with the technicals. Hopefully that makes sense.

Most of the other interviewees will be ridiculously smart. There will be very few spots available. I'm sure you're a competitive candidate, but don't hang your hat on it. I think all 3 SAs accepted their return offers--2 Harvard kids and a Dartmouth guy. All top-notch. My understanding is that PE may take one or two more kids.

 

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