A lot is said that traditional m&a groups give the best experience all around, but I’m curious as to why people think this way. Certain offices/groups have first year analysts only do things like spread comps, or only edit pitchbooks, etc. Not a very robust experience. But maybe somebody who works for a small family office boutique or maybe a commercial credit underwriting group at a regional bank might get much better technical experience.
In my experience, I finally decided to interview for a couple medium sized PE shops. They gave me modeling tests and case studies which I did just fine, but when I did the final in person interviews the staff all seemed cold, distant, etc. I frequently got combative questions like “it sounds like you’re doing more lending, why do you think you’re capable of this” which is frankly insulting but whatever. I don’t think I would have been treated this way if I went to an Ivy or had a better “brand name” bank/group on my resume, even if my answers to their questions were exactly the same.
So I work at a very large bank but we do a variety of things, sometimes m&a advisory but more often just providing financing on sponsor deals. It’s “investment banking” under our org structure, I’m still building 3 statement DCF models all day, I’m still doing industry write ups, etc, but the title seems to throw people off.
I’m likely never going to get exit opps into a mega fund but I don’t care about that; I would like to go buy side, however. I’m wondering if maybe it makes sense to lateral to a smaller boutique just so that I can say I’m at a 100% pure advisory group rather than having to explain how on XYZ transaction I was in charge of refinancing the target Co’s revolver? I really don’t want to lie and say we were the lead advisor on the deal when we weren’t. Can end poorly for me, don’t feel comfortable.
Curious on everyone’s thoughts.
I haven’t done corporate PE interviews but questions like that are common - they’re basically asking how / why you’re prepared for this job which is totally fair. You also don’t know how they treated other interviewees. Maybe those same questions were asked of everyone.
I think they’re testing how well you can spin you’re experience. If you genuinely believe you’re prepared for PE after working on sponsor backed financing transactions, just tell them why you think that
Perhaps I didn’t phrase the question correctly. Clearly, these type of interview questions are common and shouldn’t be surprising. The tone was more “we don’t think the type of work you’re doing is technical enough.”
How much more technical can you get? I think it’s a matter of “I did this type of work before I moved to PE, this guy didn’t, therefore this guy isn’t prepared.”
So then the question becomes, if somebody is a group that does exclusively advisory work, would you really get better technical experience? Would the same be true at no name boutiques? I mean, guys in asset management, commercial banking, etc, don’t they still build models? Don’t they still analyze company and industry prospects? I’m having a hard time understanding why a different group is “better,” aside from the prestige factor.
These type of interviews are always some type of combative they want to see how well you handle yourself in uncomfortable situations. Also any deviation from the normal path means you will have to prove yourself and really sell your story. It sucks, it isn't fair and it isn't accurate but that is how it is. You're right other groups may prepare you better for the technical work but at the end of the day the people skills and soft skills are also important and you get those from being in the typically preferred groups.
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