IBD Associate interview from PE
All,
Currently working in PE as an associate within a large fund (have done this since undergrad), I am looking to lateral into IBD for various reasons.
Got interviews aligned at a top EB soon and I was wondering what should I expect for an IBD associate interview?
I don’t have a background in banking so I am a bit scared of the outcome - I expect interviewers to be technical and suspect that working the 400 questions guide/similar guides won’t be enough.
Any input appreciated.
i would expect to be grilled in detail about your deal experience. make sure to have a strong and comprehensive understanding of the transactions on your resume. many of the technical questions you get may arise from your deal discussions.
youre unlikely to get random questions on esoteric topics just because of your background. I’d simply expect you to have a firmer understanding of key concepts than a more junior candidate. a smart interviewer can suss this out pretty quickly.
Thanks for the insight. Do you mind elaborating on « deeper understanding of key concepts than a junior »?
Don’t have a huge deal experience (3/4 closed during my 4 years tenure, the latest 2 years have been particularly challenging). Hopefully can get away with this.
Make sure you can clearly articulate the basic rationales and weakness in the everyday analysis done in banking. In other words, come prepared to do more than just regurgitate formulas. For example, I've had like 5-10 minute conversations about the weaknesses of accretion/dilution analysis (e.g., its hugely sensitive to consideration structure, it only indirectly penalizes overpaying since goodwill isn't amortized).
You have more than enough deals to talk about.
Many thanks for this. Will focus my efforts on various M&A questions as well then. Until now, I spent a lot of time reviewing basic corporate finance concepts, deals, and anything around LBOs as I am coming from PE.
I am specialized in Real Estate and did mostly asset deals (one of the reason I wanted to transition into Real Estate M&A, to do more corporate related stuff), so hopefully my background will be enough to answer detailed questions.
I just used the M&A thing as an example. You're much better off knowing a few things very well than barely understanding a lot of things. Given your background, I do not advise trying to become an expert at M&A in the next few days. Anything is possible, but you're far more likely to be asked about stuff you should reasonably know already.
Good luck
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