BX first round phone interview
I tried doing a search and came with pretty sparse results regarding specifics on this so thought I'd see if anyone has any new information on this--anyone on the site done the BX first round R&R phone interview? I've heard BX is much more technical than other firms, but does anyone have any specifics in regards to what I might see (ie. purchase accounting adjustments, LBO modeling, etc)?
Need this information pretty quickly so if anyone has any insights would greatly appreciate them. Thanks in advance.
Also does anyone have a resource (book or website) for accounting questions that are more advanced than what I would see in a summer interview?
http://www.ibankingfaq.com/category/interviewing-technical-questions/le…
http://www.ibankingfaq.com/category/interviewing-technical-questions/ac…
That may or may not help. I know it's for IB and you probably already know all that but I figured I'd share.
The new M&I guide looks pretty solid, maybe give that a look.
Check out the WSO Company Database. Some firms have interview questions posted.
It is also worthwhile to appreciate that you can't prepare for everything. Especially at Blackstone, they know what all of the "standard" questions are, and will not rely exclusively on them. So it may be just as worthwhile to focus on knowing your accounting principles so you can handle a curveball, as opposed to merely memorizing the vault list.
Oh absolutely and I would never try and memorize answers I feel like that's just asking to get torn apart by people who actually know their shit. I just meant when it comes to something like that how does an R&R charge hit the two sides of the balance sheet during an M&A deal differently than a mark-to-market asset devaluation there's no way you'd know that answer unless you've modeled it during the summer. Obviously no one's gotten exposure to ALL of those situations in one summer and if that's the level that they're going to be quizzing me at would rather try and at least look at different questions to test myself theoretically.
At the same time thank you I do need someone to keep me grounded and keep me from freaking out haha.
What is the angle between the hands on a clock when the time reads 3:15?
I got this one too from an MD in their advisory group. Wonder if it was the same guy or if that's standard at BX.
Do you think I should expect those type of S&T brainteasers?
Thanks for your help, greatly appreciated.
Won't be that bad. It's your typical valuation questions--just a lot tougher. They ask everything in the Vault / M&I / WSO guides, but they ask it at a much higher level that requires you to actually understand the concepts (e.g., instead of "Walk me through a DCF," you might get "What is the central metric a DCF uses to derive TEV?" [Answer: unlevered free cash flow]). I didn't get any accounting questions (except for one standard walk me through $10 depreciation). They are looking for intelligence, passion, initiative, and enough of a technical grounding to suggest that you can pick concepts up quickly.
Good luck. I'm sure you'll be fine.
EDIT: Do expect brainteasers, but they're all standard. (Example: I have a 10x10x10 cube made up of 1x1x1 cubes that is painted red on the outside. How many of the cubes don't have any paint on them?)
Thanks, really appreciate this. Just to make sure when you said TEV did you mean total enterprise value (we always referred to TEV as terminal but your answer wouldn't make sense for terminal value, assuming you use a multiple)?
Also yeah if those are the extent of the brainteasers I think I'll be ok. I was the most worried about the accounting questions so thanks a lot.
TEV is almost always total enterprise value
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