Have you ever passed an interview you thought went poorly?
Had a lateral interview today that didn’t go so hot. Nothing terrible, but I got a technical wrong and just didn’t feel as eloquent about my answers as I would of liked to have been.
Maybe for my own catharsis, or maybe just curiosity, but has anyone came out of an interview thinking they were definitely dinged and then got through to the next round?
If so, what’s the story? What was the position, what did you mess up on, and how bad was it?
I've gotten past an interview while missing a technical or two (I'm guessing these were technicals that most people missed tho, not something simple). I think getting past the first round interviews for IB recruiting was a bit of a crap-shoot for myself. I mostly interviewed at boutiques, where most technical questions were focused around LBO and Merger Model. I'm guessing the majority of the interviewees got at least some of these wrong, honestly. There were some that were a bit more straightforward where I killed all of the questions, but still didn't make it to the second round. Most of my first rounds were fairly technical focused as you might imagine from the above.
Never gotten past a super day without feeling like I killed it. Even small errors have meant no offer. I could generally tell whether or not I was getting an offer by the time I walked out of the interview room though. That said, I've heard about other people who work currently at BB in IB where they said they felt like they got killed and then got an offer.
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So for the story itself. I had a first round with a well known independent advisory IB firm. The whole interview was three technical questions. Got the first two no problem. Fucked up the third one, but not that badly. Was convinced it was over. Start negotiating the answer with the banker, and get the right answer by the time the interview is over. Thought there was no chance I was making it past the first round. Got a super-day invite that evening. Killed the super-day and got the internship.
For FT analyst position, boutique: did not feel like the superday went exceedingly well having somewhat tripped up on a multi-step technical. I didn't leave thinking I had blown it but knew I was not 100% on my A-game. Ended up getting the FT offer which truly surprised me, accepted that. A year later I stumbled into a folder of resumes for that superday and was blown away by the caliber of candidates I was up against. I guess my "fit" outweighed a fumble or two. Conversely, I have smoked technicals and fit questions and not moved on...
Out of curiosity, how do you "stumble onto a folder of resumes" for the exact superday that you were at?
I think he's referring to when he got a full time offer, he was able to see the resumes or profiles of the people also joining full time.
I got to do the same when joining both my internship and my full time. I admittedly wasn't the most impressed with the people who were working at my internship (had high expectations but recruitment was less impressive than expected), but was blown away by the people who are working at my full time shop (had low expectations but was far more impressive than I expected).
No it was quite literally a folder on the drive that contained the resumes. I'm sure it was there so interviewers could access and just got forgotten about.
Had superday with top MM and only thought one of the 6 interviews went well; I got an offer for the group that the 1 person I clicked with was in
was this a super or just round
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Never lol.
Never happened to me and if it did I am sure would be fine. Here's the deal I'm the best there is. Plain and simple. I wake up in the morning and I piss excellence.
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