PLEASE READ ---- Technical Interview Yesterday. Thoughts?

All,

I have been trying to get recruited to an off cycle first year analyst position for awhile now and actively networking to that end. This past June I was trying to make connections in the industry and got thrown into a technical interview a week after starting my efforts and fell on my face. The director of the group called me a few days later and told me to go study for a month or two and circle back to him. Said that he liked that I wasn’t non traditional etc. I ran into him on Friday after exchanging emails the pst six weeks and we made a plan to visit the following Thursday (yesterday).

The Director guy pulled in an Associate Director where we exchanged pleasantries and then jumped into the technical. All of my three statement answers went well. After accounting, he asked me to name the valuation methods and I left off LBO—Having not worked with financial sponsors, I viewed LBO as a means of targeting an IRR, not valuation . They then asked which valuation method produced the lowest value to which I said public comps and they said LBO was the answer they were looking for. From that point, I decided to explain why I had been hesitant to say LBO. Namely, one can solve for the purchase price they can pay given an IRR target, cap structure and time horizon. They also asked how a firm with a 20% hurdle could meet that if the LBo projected IRR was 12%. I said they could bleed cash through dividends, divest certain assets or most importantly work on the price. They were looking for dividend recap, which is whatnot I was referencing with my firstborn answer, but obviously my verbage was off. Last thing that bothered me was when we discussed screening for comps I didn’t mention “industry” as one and they kept saying “there’s one you’re forgetting.” I guess I thought it was obvious in a coverage group. Clearly Wallgreens and Parsley Energy aren’t comps.

I was able to fairly seemlessly explain my understanding of most everything from a conceptual standpoint, but there were a few things like what I mentioned above that have me wondering where I stand. I made it a point to explain my thinking if I hadn’t any doubt.

At the end of the interview they asked how I thought I had done, to which I replied “fairly well, but more important is how you both thought I did.” He replied that I had done much better than previously and couldn’t tell I had put in some work. Told me to enjoy my weekend and connect with him Monday afternoon.

Think I’m still in the running??