How my interview went on, and question about how to write a thank you letter
I had an interview with a MM firm today. The interview went on with two interviewers(senior associate and an associate)and just me. I feel like I have to send a thank you letter, but I don’t how to write those things. To give you some information about the situation,
I applied for a global M&A division, and they have said I was the first shot for the following interviews till Thursday. I assume that there won’t be a lot of people interviewing for the intern position, because they said only short listed people is having the opportunity.
The interview went on for about 40minutes, and I think I did pretty well I guess, except for the one I couldn’t say about the DCF model. Before the interview, when I had a phone interview, the guy said we won’t be asking technical questions, so I only looked through my resume. But in resume, I written down that I was a TA for a corporate finance class, and he told me to say something about valuation. I told him valuation methods consist of fundamental valuation, relative valuation, and the one using option pricing models. And he asked me to elaborate on DCF model. At that point I lost what I should say. There was about a two second silence, and he told me to start from EBIT. I knew what EBIT is, but at that point the only thing I could remember was the generic formula, since it was a really long time ago, and I told him, “To be honest, the class was a beginner class, so we didn’t really nail down to the specific ones, but in a nutshell it is just dividing the numerator with the denominator. The numerator is the CF and the denominator is the minimum required rate of return.” I screwed up on this one right. After the questions, they told about how is the firm, working hours, pay you’ll get, the things you’ll learn, and you’ll get real duties than merely just copying works. This explanation was about ten to 15 minutes. They told me you’ll be noticed on Thursday if early, and it could take a week or so. And after that he told me if there is any questions you would like to ask, and I told them I don’t have a specific question, but whether I get into your firm or not, I will study the models and excel spreadsheets that are used in M&A. They said it is a cool idea, and right before the interview ended, I took out the firm’s brochure from my bag and mentioned about the deals the team had done before, and noticed them there seems to be a mistake on the client company’s nation. And they told me we don’t even look at them, and seemed to impressed about the fact that I figured out the thing, and followed up a question with, are you detail oriented person or more like person of seeing the big picture. And I said I first look at the big picture, and become detail oriented…
Btw, can anybody mention about how to write a thank you letter, and which people should I write to? I don’t know what I should write on the title and body. Please shed me some light!
Oh God, don't worry about a thank you letter. In my experience the decision is usually already made by the time you leave the office - ie. nothing a letter can/will achieve.
I know that it really doesn't matter, and hopefully I really want to get into the position, but really sincerely I just want to write a thank you letter, because they really seemed to be good guys. It’s just the “how” thing.. And I think there is some kind of a format or norms when writing these stuff…
Judging by your hesitation with technical i doubt you'll get the position dude. I think a person who wants to be in IBANKING should know how to walk someone through a DCF model.
Ok you don't write a thank you letter because they seemed to be good guys, you might do it because it WAS protocol, but to a lesser extent in financial services because they should be too busy to give a damn, just as these guys probably are.
I am inclined to agree with dipset, that aside if you really want to...
Say you appreciated their time, enjoyed speaking, blah blah blah. DO NOT mention anything remotely relating to your DCF blunder. DO try to convey the idea that their firm is your top choice, priority etc. I usually try top save a stick of dynamite from my interview to casually drop into a thank you letter (if I'm writing one), if you don't have one don't try, if you can't do this eloquently don't try. Try to come across as if you have balls, gusto and and hack IB. Sign Regards.
bueno suerte
I know you tried hard but it really is unacceptable to not be able to walk through a DCF. It is by far and large the most common technical question you could possibly get asked. If you're going to continue pursuing banking, pick up a tech guide (the one they sell on this website is cheap and works fine) and at least get the basics down.
Beyond that, for the other technical question they asked you, they were looking for you to say comparable company analysis, precedent transaction analysis and the DCF. The answer you gave sounds as though you have taken some classes in school but didn't prepare specifically for a banking interview.
It's a tough year, aside from you, I'm sure there are tons of people who have prepped heavily and are fighting for a spot. I'm not trying to be a dbag or anything, there's just no point in being anything but straightforward and realistic.
P.S. - Thank you letters don't count for anything (at least not for banking interviews). If you haven't done so already, don't worry about it. It will not sway the decision on you one way or another.
P.P.S. - Use paragraphs next time you post... it makes reading the post bearable.
Here, use this format:
John,
It was great meeting you and ____________ last Friday. I appreciate the opportunity to interview and particularly enjoyed ______________________________________________________. Thank you for your time and I look forward to the next steps of the application process.
Sincerely,
(phone number) (B.A. Finance, school)
Short, simple and BlackBerry friendly. Also, don't expect a reply.
I do have some ideas of making the capital efficient(I think this is the whole point of finance), but I just didn’t possess the most basic and specific ideas that I should have known. Actually, my concentration until now was not in the buy-side, actually I’ve concentrated on the risk side and I passed the FRM exam held last year, so my basics of valuation is not near to strong.
I think I am a beginner in this race. I thought about a lot for my future, and although I couldn’t provide an answer to the most basic questions, I’m not going to give up this race. Aliazz and dipset1011 thanks for your comments, and although I was disappointed about the fact that I was far below the mountains I have to climb, you guys gave me the motivation and the right direction I should pursue. yawster thanks for your format, I’ve sent it to one of them. And your words of comfort is really helpful.
Instead of jumping into the prep, I would read around to find out what exactly you would need to do to prepare for the interviews. Given the realistic odds and from what I can deduce about your situation, this might or might not be something you decide to pursue.
There's too much to nit-pick at your last post so I'll just generally say that I think you're approaching the interview prep in the wrong way. It's not a matter about having creative ideas of finance. It's strictly a matter of learning a set amount of material and crafting answers for fit/behavioral questions.
I know you're eager, but understand, this is a TERRIBLE job to be pursuing right now. The chance you land a job in IBD is literally less than .5%. Anyhoo, best of luck.
San jose for future reference i wouldn't bring a bag with you to an interview. Also pulling out their brochure and correcting them on a mistake was a bad decision on your part, in fact, its unorthidox. Just for future interviews know yourself and the technicals cold. I went through some of the old threads here and bought a corp finance book (Im an econ major) and have plowed through within a month or so. LOL but did you tell the guy that DCF was CF/(1+r)^t
The fact that you were lucky enough to get an interview in this market, put information about you being a TA in a corporate finance class, and then going in and NOT knowing how to walk through a DCF is pretty unbelievable. You really need to do some research about how this interview process works. As yawster said, if you did ANY prep whatsoever you would know that you would likely get that questions, and your interviewers know that. So... they think you did zero prep, which essentially you did. This doesn't bode well for your chances.
Nonetheless, if you have more interviews, learn from your mistakes. Buy the guides they offer on this site (they provide a good overview of questions you may encounter and are cheap) and study up. Don't make the same mistake twice.
Good luck
NEVER lose your BlackBerry www.conveniencesoftware.com
The OP does bring up an important question for many of us. If we did not manage to secure a summer job in ibanking, what can we do in order to best position ourselves for full time recruiting?
I'm in this situation.
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