Just had an interview at Semi-BB

Hey, I just had an interview at a semi-BB for their SA position in IBD. Final round, 4 interviews, half hour each. I am from a non-target, 3.6 GPA, Finance concentration, good extra-curriculars, etc. I think the fit section of the interviews went extremely well, good conncection with everyone but I was wondering, how well do SA's do in the technical section who get the jobs. These are some of the questions I got.

  • Walk me through a DCF
  • Calculate WACC
  • What is the market risk premium? What is an acceptable value to use
  • What is Beta, what does it mean? How do you calculate it?
  • What kind of companies have high/low beta
  • A company is trading at 50 P/E, another is at 20 P/E, industry average is 20, is it overvalued?
  • What ratio incorporates growth into it?
  • Why do some companies trade at higher P/E mulitipless
  • What ways can you value a company
  • What is a comparable transactions analysis in M&A, what problems arise using that method
  • If company A is acquiring company B and they have company B’s cash flow, which company’s cost of capital would you use to discount the cash flows to value the company
  • What ratios can you use to value a company
  • What is the problem with valuing a company based on an EV/EBITDA multiple
  • If a company has the same revenues as another but a higher cost structure, what company will have a higher earnings
    Why use EBIT(1-T) rather than net income in calculating FCF rather than Net income.
  • Is EBIT(1-T) levered or unlevered.

I think thats about half of them. 20 min of non-stop questions. I think I only got 3 wrong, and one of them he kinda walked me through after and I figured it out. Is that pretty successful or are there literally kids who walk in and get every question right?

Also, I said that I was applying to a number of different firms, they asked which, and I named them (not INCREDIBLY different, but different all IBD though) and I then explained that in this job market I just wanted to explore all options and make sure that I had something for the summer because even if its not with your number one choice, its easier to break into your top choice with an internship somewhere on your resume than nothing, and then reiterated why the firm I was at was at the top of my list. Is that a big turn off/show lack of decisiveness even though the job market is so shitty we are all scrambling to get what we can, and they know that?

Ok so sorry I rambled, but help me out, how do you think I did? And how much impact does GPA/School Recognition have on the decisionmaking at this point in the process?


Thanks everyone.

7 Comments
 

As another finance major from a non-target, with interviews with several BBs, those questions are basically the bare minimum i think. I got asked 1/3-2/3 of those in all of my first rounds.

Good luck btw

 
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