Has something like this happened to you before?
Recently, I did an interview for an M&A position as a lateral. My previous M&A experience has been mainly sell-side. On my resume, I described the sell-side deals I worked on and noted the ones for which I built merger models. Everything I stated on my resume was true.
The interviewer was perplexed by why I would do a merger model for a sell-side deal. I explained that we almost always did one, and the reasons are to do a sanity check, understand a bidder's purchase price capacity, present scenarios at the request of the client's board or management, etc.
He said what I was saying didn't make sense and he could not imagine a reason to build a full merger model unless working on a buy-side deal. He did not say it directly, but I got the sense he didn't believe that I had actually done the work I claimed. I didn't want to be contentious, but I also could not "admit" that he was right.
It was a polite debate, but a debate nonetheless. I did not get the sense he was simply testing my knowledge or resolve by being contrarian--I've faced that before. He seemed legitimately skeptical.
To make things more odd, the bank in question is a very highly-reputed firm and very well regarded for M&A.
Anybody ever face this? How did you deal with it? What was the outcome?
nope, we do the same in regards to building merger models on sell-side assignments, not sure why he would think that is preposterous...
Next time just walk him through the process. Use big words and sophisticated chain of thought- outline the process. When the person cannot understand yet still see a formulated statement; that person probably will just agree since he doesn't have any knowledge of this. He should at this point feel like an idiot and will back down. I guess this is the most you can do.
He was trying to test you to see if you would flip your answer. This has happened to me a few times as I work in a specific industry and someone will say something like "are you sure that's the correct discount rate? I've never heard of a discount rate that high" or "I've never heard that term before, what does that mean and why would you ever use that methodology" when they are clearly industry standard terms.
The purpose of this type of approach is to see if you actually know what you are talking about and also how you keep your cool. You didn't get contentious so it sounds like you handled it well. Always best to approach it from a standpoint of humility, which you did.
Yeah, i've been tested before. From my experience though, if it is a test and you pass it, the interviewer eventually acquiesces. In this case, even at the end, he was clear in expressing his skepticism with my experience.
Eh, didn't get the offer. Some feedback was that I was being defensive about some point . . .
I guess I need to go back to the drawing board and make sure my tone is right.
Actually, the more I think about it, the more upset it makes me. This guy must have genuinely believed I was lying about my experience.
While hearing that you didn't get an offer never feels great, if you were in fact justified in your rationale in answering the question (and it sounds like you are) if the interviewer won't acknowledge that he/she is wrong or at least that there is validity to your approach then it's likely not the type of environment that you would want to work in because discussions won't be very collegial if they are closed minded or unwilling to acknowledge that they were wrong. Maybe they weren't testing you, from the feedback you gave it doesn't sound like they were, and if that's the case then you can take comfort in the fact that you know that's the way you do things, and you aren't wrong. Their loss....
You're right. I just wanted this particular role very badly. Hate to think one guy who was maybe having a bad day could spoil things--particularly by accusing me of lying.
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