Summer Analyst

I applied to Roark through my school's (small, southern liberal arts college) online career platform and used a simple resume drop. I was a Junior at the time. After about two weeks I was notified that I would be doing a phone interview for them in about a week. I prepared using the Mergers and Inquisitions guide for IB and some of the PE stuff. The phone interview was with two people at separate times of the day, one in the morning, one in the afternoon both thirty minutes long. The interviewers were a mixed bag, with the morning one being somewhat dull and the afternoon one being much more lively.

In general, the questions they asked were about PE broadly (what is PE, what do you look for in a company you're buying out, etc.), prior financial experience/interest (as a nontraditional major) and about the three accounting statements. I had not taken accounting so I was stuck on those. At the end of the interview, there was a chance to "sell yourself" and just say why you would be good for Roark. One question that came out of left field was when I was asked to "explain something hard," as I did not have anything immediately prepared. Also, not as hard, there was explaining the 08 Crisis in layman's terms.

I heard back from them a few days later over email that I would not be going any further in the interview process.