Hi everyone! I have a TMT off-cycle internship first round with Jefferies London consisting of 2 short interviews - one behavioural and one technical. Any guesses what kind of questions I should anticipate and how I should prepare for this? I know TMT is one of Jefferies' best teams and coming from a complete non-target this is really important to me, any general advice at all would help too! Thank you!
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Based on my experience interviewing with Jefferies UK, you should expect to be grilled on the technical questions.
Make sure your valuation, merger model knowledge, and accounting interview questions are well-rehearsed. Be prepared for different scenarios within the questions that will test how you quickly you can think on your feet.
Hopefully it isn’t as tough but better to go in over prepared than not.
For behavioural, just prepare your answers with decent research on the firm, its market positioning, what its been up to, some deals you can talk about etc. As long as you can articulate strong motivation, good culture fit, and can pitch yourself clearly, should be fine. Good luck!
Thank you so much! Any tips for preparing for the different scenario-based questions?
Firstly you need to have a pretty strong theoretical understanding of the concepts. Arguably more important (and this is where I slipped, personally) would be helpful to play around with a DCF model or Merger Model on excel; change around the inputs to see how they relate and affect the outputs etc. That was my personal takeaway for what I'd have done differently.Bear in mind, I was probably asked more in-depth questions as I had previous internship experience, so previous experience is (understandably) a factor when they're questioning.
Also, when I say market positioning, I mean you need to be able to answer “why Jefferies, an upper-tier Middle Market bank” is a better fit than say, a BB, or a more niche boutique. So you need to be aware of where they stand and identify as a firm and be able to answer comprehensively.
Thank you so much for your responses, they are a huge help!
This dude doesn't know what he's talking about. Do not refer to Jefferies as an "upper tier middle market bank" in an interview- that's some embarrassing WSO terminology. Explain how you want to work for the fastest growing bank in both the US and EMEA and how you are entrepreneurial (must give evidence for this bc they will grill you if you say this and have no answers proving it). Explain how Jefferies' growth sets it apart from competitors and give examples, for example the recent poaching of CS FIG's group head will position the team to increase market share in the sector. Explain how Jefferies does very well in the middle market as well as increasingly upstream, but also offers clients a full suite of products as a full service bank. Most MM shops (Houlihan, Lincoln, Blair, Baird, etc) are advisory heavy and offer little in terms of underwriting capability with lack of balance sheet, research, etc. This is what makes Jefferies stand out in the middle market and growth leaves it poised to make moves upmarket in EMEA/UK. It already regularly competes with BB/EBs on UMM deals $1-3b USD in the US (and wins mandates). Obviously, yes get your technicals down cold but that's for any process.
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