Preliminary Interview with Lehman Holdings

I recently got invited for a "preminiary 20 minute phone interview" with Lehman, so I was wondering what types of questions will be thrown at me.

The position I applied for is "Finance Intern". I tried to use the search button, but everything I found was around the years 2006, 2007, and 2008. Nothing in 2011 or 2012.
Well the only thing I've found is the following:

"lehman is heavily fit oriented.

why lehman
why banking or s&t
tell me about yourself
what do you do for fun?

don't stress about technical, but read the wsj and you'll be fine."

I also want to know what type of work I'll be doing. This internship will be for the summer after my Junior year, before the beginning of my Senior year.

Thank you in advance.

 

It was through my university's career website.

I found the description for it btw.

Responsibilities include: • Assisting with the quarterly and year-end financial closes as well as corporate reporting. • Working with the asset teams to understand quarterly fluctuations and reconcile to balance sheets. • Preparing periodic operations/financial reports. • Reconciling cash posting exceptions. • Collecting data across all asset streams for corporate year-end accounting and tax packages.

What type of position would this be considered as? (Back-office, middle-office, or front-office)?

 
xhongxkongx:

What type of position would this be considered as? (Back-office, middle-office, or front-office)?

It's definitely back office, it's kind of impossible to have a front-office position in a bankruptcy liquidation, unless maybe you're the trustee...

It doesn't seem like a great idea out of undergrad to go to a company that, if everything goes according to plan, won't exist in a couple of years. But it could be a cool experience if you have an interest in bankruptcies/liquidations of financial institutions. You could probably build a pretty unique skillset in digging through the burning wreckage of a highly leveraged financial institution. Depending on what work you are doing (ie how much of it involves asset valuation) I guess maybe it could lead to opportunities in distressed/special situations investing but that seems more of a stretch given the description you posted.

 
Best Response

I found the interview very similar to Bear Stearn's. It involved a lot of oddly specific scenario-based questions to test your thinking process. The one I got at Lehman was "Say you're the CEO of a large investment bank, what would you do if you found out that certain assets that you highly leveraged the company to buy would lose tremendous value over the next few days?". I laid down a groundwork of assumptions but ultimately suggested selling every type of those assets in a fire-sale type scenario to cut losses as soon as possible.

I thought I did really well because they were furiously writing everything I said down, but it's been 3 years and 7 months since my interview and I have yet to hear back from them. Luckily my networking got me far and I was able to secure a full time offer at MF Global. I'm still waiting to hear back from them for my drug test.

 
Determined:
I found the interview very similar to Bear Stearn's. It involved a lot of oddly specific scenario-based questions to test your thinking process. The one I got at Lehman was "Say you're the CEO of a large investment bank, what would you do if you found out that certain assets that you highly leveraged the company to buy would lose tremendous value over the next few days?". I laid down a groundwork of assumptions but ultimately suggested selling every type of those assets in a fire-sale type scenario to cut losses as soon as possible.

I thought I did really well because they were furiously writing everything I said down, but it's been 3 years and 7 months since my interview and I have yet to hear back from them. Luckily my networking got me far and I was able to secure a full time offer at MF Global. I'm still waiting to hear back from them for my drug test.

I was gonna make a joke, but this post right here is just full of win. +1

I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.
 
xhongxkongx:
I recently got invited for a "preminiary 20 minute phone interview" with Lehman, so I was wondering what types of questions will be thrown at me.

The position I applied for is "Finance Intern". I tried to use the search button, but everything I found was around the years 2006, 2007, and 2008. Nothing in 2011 or 2012. Well the only thing I've found is the following:

"lehman is heavily fit oriented.

why lehman why banking or s&t tell me about yourself what do you do for fun?

don't stress about technical, but read the wsj and you'll be fine."

I also want to know what type of work I'll be doing. This internship will be for the summer after my Junior year, before the beginning of my Senior year.

Thank you in advance.

chung hei stop fukin around

 
Brezeck:
"Say you're the CEO of a large investment bank, what would you do if you found out that certain assets that you highly leveraged the company to buy would lose tremendous value over the next few days?"

LOL they literally put this in interview?

Whooosh
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford
 

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