I have a phone interview with Greenhill early next week. I networked with an MD and vice president, who got me the interview. I go to a non-target.
From searching WSO, I see that Greenhill tends to be very technical. I have the WSO and M&I guides. I have also done a BIWS/TTS-type program. Are those good enough? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
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did you intern at a bank this summer?
I interned at a small (five people) M&A boutique. I worked on a few M&A deals, which I listed on my resume.
Is this for New York?
Stay up to date with their bid-ness ... http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/greenhill-expands-capital-adviso…
Read the Rosenbaum & Pearl chapter on DCF, makes things much more intuitive.
remember, step 1 is always: Study the target.
nice
seems like you should be fine for the technical portion. don't overlook the fit and behavioral portion tho. make sure you have concrete examples that showcase your skills and make your responses more lively (read: interesting). and make sure you have your story down cold. not memorized, but a tight and chronological response that finishes off with why your previous experience(s) + Greenhill set you up for success.
I am really nervous for the technical part. I will definitely read the Rosenbaum chapter on DCF (makes me wish I had read the book in its entirety earlier). I just started with the M&I guide and will read through that. I have read through the WSO one about five times now.
Any other advice? Thanks a bunch :)
Technicals should be the least of your worries. It will not be too different from any other banking interview you have had, I presume.
Why Greenhill? Walk me through your resume, etc? Pray, if you do that. Good luck. Let us know what questions they asked, too. I am going to apply to GHL for a SA position.
Thanks.
GHL was actually very different from any other IBD interview I had, including other elite boutiques. For one thing, the associates and analysts will grill you on technicals; be prepared to sweat, but do your best not to panic. Senior bankers will mostly focus on fit, but be prepared for a couple curveballs too.
With regard to the DCF, there'll be an analyst or an associate or two who will grill you on it. The difficult part is that they'll only focus on one specific part of the DCF, but will go very in depth, but since you don't know which part they're going to pick, you have to prepare everything in depth.
Don't neglect other interview subjects either (i.e. fit questions, merger consequences, analysis, comps, etc.) as these are sure/likely to come up too.
Best of luck!
By the way, is this a phone interview or superday? Typically, phone interviews are handled by analysts (occasionally an associate), whereas associates and above do the superdays (true across almost most banks, not just GHL), if that matters to you at all.
It is a phone interview. How far did you make it in the GHL interview process? If you got dinged, what do you think you did incorrectly?
I had the phone interview yesterday. It was supposed to be with two analysts, but one was on a call, so only one interviewed me. I got the interview through an associate I cold e-mailed.
The first few questions had to do with my background and resume, but quickly turned technical. There were questions about different types of valuation, DCF, how to calculate WACC, how to calculate the terminal value for a DCF, the standard "What happens if depreciation goes up by $10?", multiples and equity value vs EV, and how stocks are priced. I could not answer two or three, but did not try to BS my way through it. Surprisingly, "Why Greenhill?" was never asked. I ended up getting dinged.
Dude, M&I guide 101 for these questions
keep networking tho, things will open up
You couldn't answer two or three of those questions? Come on man, don't take this as me trying to hit you when down, but you better shape up. Interview opportunities at these places are once in a blue moon (especially if you networked into them), the answers to those questions need to get rattled off because they're only going to get harder from here on out.
Good luck with prepping. Focus!
That makes sense. I will take that to heart.
To be fair, GHL's interviews are notoriously difficult. Some of the stuff they ask you, you wouldn't know unless you worked in banking or otherwise had a very strong finance background.
Every question that he said he got asked is very easy to answer. Every interview guide out there goes over them. He should not have gotten dinged on those questions.
Since when does anyone go over pricing stocks? That is totally irrelevant to banking, and I don't know the (correct) answer to that after interviewing with most top groups on the Street. I would guess something about comps or prospects for growth, but I really have no idea.
Hey KKS,
Sorry to hear about your misfortune, that sucks man. I'm from a non-target as well and I was wondering if you could touch on how you cold-networked with these guys.. Ie did you share the same undergrad or something or did you end up just cold-calling them, being upfront and telling them you wanted an opportunity to interview or what?
Thanks for your help and best of luck bud.
Patrick, thank you for the feedback. I have taken what you said to heart and spent most of today studying for future interviews. Thank you for all that you do.
youngbuck99, I used LinkedIn to find bankers, and then I would cold e-mail them. I only have two alumni who work at banks, and neither have been helpful.
Hey KKS, came by this thread and was wondering how you contacted them? You found them on linkedin and just sent them a message/email? How were their responses?
Greenhill interview (Originally Posted: 09/01/2012)
Has anyone been through a Greenhill phone interview for full time analysts? Any details would be appreciated.
I think someone else asked for this a couple of days ago?
Yeah, they grill you pretty hard. I actually had two phone interviews, both times with 2 analysts (so 4 total) before going to their superday.
First phone interview was supposed to be half an hour, ended up being a whole hour long. They go pretty hard on technicals, including asking some questions that I hadn't encountered before (or even thought about), like doing a DCF lite by hand where you had to prod and get all the requisite info. I'm trying to remember since this was a while ago, but I do remember questions where you had to "take it to the next level", like actually going through a lot of examples of technicals rather than just going through the concepts.
Wow I never heard that before - were you allowed to use a calculator for the DCF at least?
The DCF lite that I did was over the phone, so I suppose you COULD have used a calculator, but I do remember that they were like, "Try to multiply out the discount rate by hand." If I remember correctly, and I very well may not, the discount rate wasn't something wacky like 11.7%; it was more like 10% so the math itself wasn't particularly difficult, it was just nervewracking to have to multiply it out by hand and have it be right in the middle of a phone interview.
Also, I recommend finding somewhere with a nice speakerphone, like one of those conference speakerphones so that you can have both hands free to write stuff down. I know my handwriting sucks, and when I'm holding a phone with one hand and writing with the other, it becomes borderline unreadable, even to myself.
Upcoming Greenhill Analyst Interview (Originally Posted: 02/11/2011)
After working in Asset Management for 2 years since graduating from college, I'm looking to transition into investment banking and have an interview with Greenhill coming up. Does anyone know what I should expect to be ask? What does GHL usually ask? Are the questions pretty similar to what bulge bracket banks ask? Any insight/advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
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