First round at BX PE (phone interview) tomorrow. What questions should I expect? Interned at a BB in IBD.
How long does the 1st round phone interview usually last?
When do they inform us about the result of the 1st round?
Any other tips on how to prepare? Websites? Guides?
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30 minutes, usually very technical with some fit along the way. You should know your stuff, and if you don't know something be prepared to reason through everything.
Is this for the London Office?
Interview just got postponed for a few days. Thanks a lot Matrick.
Anyone else? Any advice will be very helpful!
In addition to knowing your technicals, you should know how to evaluate a business or investment proposal. Having some sort of framework would be smart, but understanding how to qualitatively look at a business (competitive threats, growth opportunities, upside/downside cases, formulating an equity story, "porter's five", etc.) is more than just knowing your corporate finance technicals.
Technicals aside, you should probably try to remember as many details about the deals you were involved in during your BB internship as possible as well as the reasoning behind each of them. Just treat it like you would any other interview, no need to get intimidated by the name.
for the technicals, is the M&I BIWS guide (basic? advanced?) sufficient? or does Blackstone look for a better understanding of the theory itself?
I was thinking of going over rosenbaum for accounting and lbo stuff if M&I wasn't going to be sufficient. Thoughts?
...
@dreamer1992 - if you're talking about Bain Capital, they focus almost exclusively on hiring people with a consulting skillset.
Regardless, I believe it's going to be heavy on the case to test how you approach investment analysis. They aren't going to ask an explanation for the 10 types of debt tranches. Probably high level LBO valuation and accounting
my friend interviewed here last year, and he told me a big part of it was a case study.
damn, i wouldnt feel even remotely ready for a bx pe job. hats off to you
not quite sure what you mean by that
Yup with BX it really is.
You should also think about coming up with an investment proposal. When I interviewed with them, one of the interviews consisted solely of walking the interviewer through my idea of where to invest at the moment and why. Explain the pros/cons, etc. This is something that you should really prepare. Just look at where the current M&A activity is the highest and then come up with a thesis that you can defend on the basis of industry or even company specific numbers and trends. I would stay away from anything that is too specialized, ie FIG or any real NatRes assets. High Technology is usually a good choice, for example.
Hahaha I also had that interviewer and he was not looking for a precise number. I got cut after the super day. I heard a rumor that BX M&A didn't take many people from the super day or anyone at all...any word?
I know a guy who got it through accelerated recruiting.
Anyone heard back about superdays yet?
about getting a superday or about getting an offer after a superday?
Either. I think superdays are next week.
to clarify, do you mean pe or m&a? i kind of hijacked this thread with m&a questions, sorry
I'm talking about PE.
i heard bx m&a took 4 people outside their intern class, 1 of whom whom came from another bx division while the other 3 came from different banks. does anyone know which groups those 3 others came from?
2 GS, 1 Jefferies?
i can't tell if you're being serious
I am. Not 100% positive, but have heard the above.
jefferies --> bx m&a is a big jump to say the least and quite unlikely given that they interviewed a ton of kids from top BBs and EBs
yea, as I said, not 100% positive
I can confirm that one of the analysts to BX M&A came from Citi M&A.
Are you guys talking about London or Nyc, they are still interviewing for London...
Sounds like London. I remember my first phone interview ever for a summer program abroad. horrible hate that! but i think its normal that they really have technical questions sometimes I would say very specific, they want to check your skills for the rest there are round 2&3.
and now : how was the interview and when did you think you will recieve an answer, i guess if they are interested in you within less a week.
Does anyone know how long it'll take them to get back to you after the 1st round phone interview？
1st Round Interview - Blackstone PE - Undergraduate (Originally Posted: 09/19/2009)
-Rockstars*
Situation: I have first round interviews (1.5hr phone interview) with Blackstone PE next week and wanted some insight
Background: I'm a college senior at a top target (Harvard, Yale, Princeton) and worked at an elite boutique (Moelis, Greenhill, Lazard, Evercore)this past summer
Advice: I was hoping there would be some individuas on this forum who could shed some light on the PE interview process(more specifically Blackstone's) for undergraduate candidates
Note: It'll be geat if there were some 1st or 2nd year analyst at Blackstone PE who are a product of undergraduate recruiting that could shed some light
Thanks, CC
P.S. I understand this should be posted under "Private Iniquity" but I feel "I-Banking Bullpen" will have more insight. Private Iniquiters are welcome to post
I've heard that Blackstone PE undergrad interviews are mainly behavioral and you might get one technical
Not true. Interviews can be very technical, but of course you have to nail the behaviorals as well. Some technicals will be the same as what you've seen in banking interviews, but also expect to see more buyside-specific questions. They're investors, not salesmen. You'll need to adjust to that.
Finally, Blackstone PE very much has a rockstar culture. They don't want modest, meek people. They want the best of the best and you need to show them that you're exactly that. Don't be cocky, but be sure to come across as very confident. You need to be well-spoken, put together and sure of yourself. Again, beware of crossing into cocky territory.
You will have a case.
Can anyone else confirm a case?
expect a good number of technical questions (accounting biased rather than purely finance i.e. valuation).
Thanks...anymore feedback?
How did your interview go?
I'm in a similar situation to CaviarCartel, would also definitely appreciate any other comments on the interview process. Thanks.
Bump
Blackstone PE undergrad interview (Originally Posted: 01/26/2011)
Anyone know what kind of questions to expect? I'm assuming they're not going to expect undergrads to build an lbo model on the spot...
they won't ask you to build an LBO on the spot... they will ask you some tech questions and perhaps a case study type thing. They asked me "what all the costs would be if I was opening a pizza parlor in college town and how long would it take for me to break even / become profitable.... etc." That's more just being logical than anything else though.
not sure what round this is, but eventually they'll ask you to take a written math / finance test. Doesn't require much knowledge and is pretty easy, but you have to move as quickly as possible to get a good score.
Does anyone know how SAs BX typically hires for PE, and how many get return offers?
BX PE Interview (Originally Posted: 09/05/2012)
Have an interview coming up for BX PE for undergrad analyst entry (in London). Anyone that passed through the same who's willing to share his experiences?
first give to the community, so you might get some feedback
BX PE - Interview (Originally Posted: 09/01/2010)
What are BX PE interviews like? Note this is for a directly out of undergrad analyst position. I was told to expect case interviews. Any advice on how to prepare for these? Thanks
Europe ? US?
US
They give you a written quant test and you don't get to use a calculator - which could spook some people, but it wasn't hard.
Apparently they expect you to be able to calculate accretion / dilution in your head.
bump
How did it go?
Blackstone Interview for PE Analyst position, more info? (Originally Posted: 09/05/2012)
Hey everyone,
Has anyone on here interviewed with BX for a PE Analyst position? If so, I'd appreciate if you would PM me or post in this thread.
Thanks!
E-mail [email protected]
...yeah, thanks for the tip...
Beretta--way to fail. You can't spell Stephen Schwarzman correctly, even when you're trolling?
Matrick--interview is actually not very difficult. R&R / M&A interviews were substantially more difficult for me because they were simply ultra technical. BX PE already knows everyone interviewing is extremely smart, so they do ask a few (layup) technicals to make sure you have some understanding of finance. After that, however, it morphs into a mini-case interview, where they try to test how you think about a business and its operations. PE requires a lot more understanding of how businesses work than banking does, so that is how you'll differentiate yourself in the interview. They usually test this in the context of technicals--that is, you need to be familiar with the technicals to be able to answer the question properly--but the purpose is not to see that you are familiar with the technicals. Hopefully that makes sense.
Most of the other interviewees will be ridiculously smart. There will be very few spots available. I'm sure you're a competitive candidate, but don't hang your hat on it. I think all 3 SAs accepted their return offers--2 Harvard kids and a Dartmouth guy. All top-notch. My understanding is that PE may take one or two more kids.
Just tell them how much you wanted to get into KKR but sadly didn't work out and now you're in plan-B
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