Interview at KKR

widely regarded as the 'baller' firm in finance, i could hardly believe my shit when i got called for an interview with them, based on a speculative application (yep, you read that right)..

finance interview lasted 30mins, i went in confident, having done shit loads of modelling and lbo valuations (especially for healthcare companies)...but came out with the overwhelming feeling that i really didn't know jack shit about anything.

i was interviewed by 2 guys, both seemed to be the geeky types...how the fuk did they get in i thought? but then they (especially the junior one) smoked his keyboard and in 10mins or so, created this unbelievable model, which they asked me to analyse.

on a different planet, these guys, no doubt about it.

22 Comments
 

yeah maybe, but they could calculate eps accretions / dilutions in their head...fukin awesome man, i tried doing that when i came back to the office, still took me the best part of 5mins to do, these guys did it in 5 seconds! even when i changed the numbers, they still did it! like they had mini sensitivity table functions in their heads...

just general observations, i definately saw film-star types in the office, smooth, dressed like a million dollars etc..these guys are probably the meet+greet people, with the geeks doing the modelling.

firm kicks ass man...i feel priviledged just to have set foot in there and used the bathroom.

 

it was just them conveying to me an example of the super-familiarity of financial modelling that all KKR guys are expected to know, in that you can run a model in your head basically...they care about ALL financial performance parameters, not just specific ones.

yes, i'm a 3rd year looking to enter into PE...most of my analyst class quit (>95%) after year 2...i left it 1 year too late i think.

may as well go on to be an associate and screw over the incoming analyst batch.

 

KKR, Blackstone, TPG, Carlyle... ppl who work at these firms are all the same. They are good at what they do. But if you were doing LBO modelling for 100 hrs/week and had 4000 to spend on suits, you'd be in the same place.

We've worked on more than a few deals with them. Like all big PE places, they are good. But hard to argue that their people are better than any of the others. Just different.

I believe they hire 5 for the NY office/yr.

 

agree, had a good friend interview at one of the top shops. they asked him a technical question which he didn't know the answer to. they called him back a few days later and asked him if he figured it out yet--kept calling him until he had the right answer.

intense process. good luck, you're going to need it.

 
WizardofOzagree, had a good friend interview at one of the top shops. they asked him a technical question which he didn't know the answer to. they called him back a few days later and asked him if he figured it out yet--kept calling him until he had the right answer.

intense process. good luck, you're going to need it.

I like that.....thats how they treated us engineers at my school....always bugged us 'til we got the right answer. Professor even called me once to ask if I had figured out a problem I missed on a test.

 
KanonGuys, check the date on the OP's post - Feb 2007. No point on calling BS on something from 3 years ago...

VERY good point.

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