Qatalyst Interviews
How do I prepare for Qatalyst's interviews? for anyone that went through the SA or lateraling process?
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currently trying to lateral
What about London? From what I see the group is small. Any clue?
Is 2022 SA open?
not that I know of
It is open
Source?
current 1st year analyst here, not open yet
I interviewed and two from my school accepted SA offers there. Interviews were intense and technical and dug deeper on tech and finance knowledge than anywhere else I interviewed (BB or EB). Expect many rounds - I got cut after 7 and the kids who got offers did 10+ each.
wow, getting cut after 7 rounds of interviews is brutal.
can i pmu?
got cut after 6 feels bad
can you PM me?
what do you think made you got cut after 7? does it get more behavioral after the first 3-5 rounds?
so has 2022 SA begun??
Interviewing for it has begun with very select people, yes.
The internship itself has not, because we are currently in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty one.
lol Guess I'm dinged, I applied a week ago
prepare to get buttfucked
I tried lateraling. I did 3-4 interviews and got positive feedback throughout the process, including after the last one. While waiting for next steps (which likely woulda been another interview or perhaps wishfully a superday) I then got another offer that I wanted to use to accelerate their process...they told me gfy so I accepted the other offer.
So depending on how bad you want them, may need to be patient. You may kill the process if you ask them to accelerate.
Hey, can you PM me about your experience?
Tried to lateral but got ghosted after a few calls (which all went super well) once they realized I'm international. This was shockingly similar to the negative experience I had with Q when recruiting FT. It's truly remarkable to me that such a prolific tech bank can have such a messy, poorly-communicated recruiting process run by the world's least responsive HR people. Despite half of their team coming from Canada, they stopped sponsoring recently for some unclear reason (guess the transaction fees they get from $30B mergers aren't enough to pay a couple of $10K fucking H1-B application fees).
If you're not an American citizen, don't waste your time with these guys.
Completely understand the frustration, but just for your international point why pay $10k for Canadians when you have Wharton, Stanford, Ivy league, really really strong state school etc.. students right here in America?
don't they take a few from Ivey each year?
Q not worth your time
Following
Bump. A recruitment agency (working for Qatalyst) recently reached out to me apply to their FT Analyst position in London.
Submitted my application and within a few days was invited to make their online assessment. I'm guessing I passed (just finished it so I'm not sure yet). But I'm international and live in Continental Europe. So I guess that's an auto-ding?
Got the invite to the test just yesterday. Do you perhaps have any input on what to expect? Didn't find much noteworthy w search.
Did you hear back after the test already?
I'm also paneuropean, so would be interested if we're flipped automatically.
Was a relatively straightforward numerical reasoning test (15 minutes), not difficult in my opinion.
Didn't hear back yet post-test. Let me know how the process goes for you.
Received a first round interview invite.
Interviewed for SA last year. Got grilled.
For you personally, I don’t know but maybe sharing my experience can be helpful to you as something to learn from as I did not advance in their process. Somehow was invited to interview with them for an SA role in college. Interview was morning after super bowl. I think I spent most of the game prepping but did watch a bit of game/commercials. Interviewer was like a VP and asked me what my favorite commercial was. Nevertheless, seems like the people I know / my friends who work there and/or have worked there were very sharp on the financial technicals. At the time, I don’t think I would have been surprised if those guys could have gone on to the top HF/PE/IB jobs based on qualification/entry knowledge. Also, they seemed to know tech and have a meaningful passion for the sector. The guy who I know who still works there I believe I very passionate about tech. When Frank came to speak for OCR in like 2014 was a very tech heavy crowd (plenty of Wharton engineer types from my memory) who all seemed to love tech. Good luck. I hope this helps
Exceptional insight - has anyone else heard that guys at the Q are into Tech?? First I am hearing of this
Can confirm after going through the lateral process, you will find many people at Q to be from a Stats, Math, or Comp Sci background.
While not everyone at Q is from a STEM background, a lot of people there do have a deep passion for tech that really is hard to beat with a lot of shops having tons of bankers who work in tech, not a ton of tech people who work in banking.
Because of this, you will find that people do typically not go to PE or HF's out of Q. And this is not because Q is a bad shop. On the contrary, it is because the people at Q are from these more STEM backgrounds and like tech so you do see many more people going into Venture Capital or Growth Equity or even Corp Dev / Strat since they are more focused on being in tech long-term and following their interest rather than being your typical bankers.
Just went through a lateral process to move out to the west coast and did a lateral process with Q.
My route of going through this was reaching out (since networking is hard for some of us) was to go through and reach out to the analysts. I focused on those that had lateraled since they understood what I was wanting and were the best advocates I had in the process. Once I had talked to a few and they had said that they had "sent my resume to the recruiter", I then went and followed up until I got the interview.
My Process and Advice:
The website IBVine (dot) io is a website some guys put together that has all of your IB flashcards but sorts it and has more difficult questions.
If you click the little dropdown, there's a section called "Outside the Guide" that takes your standard flash card questions and asks them in a very different, and more challenging way.
.
Bump currently trying to lateral and I’m scared to death of the technology technicals they’re going to ask
Have heard there’s ~10 rounds and they’re extremely tough. Only way to prep is to just know everything tbh
I've walked people through this on the phone and it usually takes 45 minutes to cover everything. But my advice put succinctly is to:Obviously know your technicals extremely well. Beyond the guides I would read Rosenbaum and Pearl at least twice and outline/take notes the 2nd time. Also brush up on various other sources including YouTube (M&I/BIWS has some solid content for M&A, LBO, etc.), IB Vine Outside the Guide, etc.Familiarize yourself with the industry of tech (main verticals are software, internet, semiconductors, fintech). Industry trends, drivers, outlook, etc. Do not slack here.Be familiar with Tech M&A transactions (especially 1bn+ in TV).Know Qatalyst deals. Seriously, Outline them and study them going a few years back.Know one vertical within tech extremely well and be prepared to devote and entire call to that vertical/a company in that vertical.Perhaps the most important point for once you pass the first 5-7 rounds which cover everything above: nail your behaviorals. Most importantly, you need to have a well-crafted story as to why tech, why M&A, and why Qatalyst specifically.Hope this helps. Don't feel like typing out an entire book rn as that process warrants, but this should get you headed down the right path. If you think you've done enough to study, I would keep studying.
Edit: One last piece of advice I have is to not cram; start studying about a year before you anticipate your process starting
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