what can i bring to an interview?

Hey guys,

I have an interview coming up and I was wondering what I am allowed to bring?

Obviously I can't bring my trusty TI-84 and I know I should bring copies of resume but for stock pitches.. can I bring a piece of paper with some notes on the company or am I supposed to memorize all the quantitative info?

thanks!

 

This idea is beyond dumb and what you're proposing could get you in a world of trouble including getting fired from your current role. You noted yourself that it's confidential and if you're a third year analyst presumably you know what that means. If I was was interviewing you I would immediately ding you for showing terrible judgement and I don't understand what value it would add. They know what an investment memo is so you don't need to show them.

 

The idea is not dumb when there are places that are asking for this in preliminary rounds.

There are many things you can do to avoid showing information that would identify the company (i.e. deleting names, locations, taking out some numbers, changing some assumptions around, etc.). The point is to show how you present your thoughts, the analysis made, how deep you got into diligence, how clear your writing style is, etc.).

Normally, the only way for them to test this is to wait till a later round with a case study. This weeds out a fair amount of people that are only good crunching numbers and not so good in writing in prose (very common in our industry).

I'm just asking to know if people are doing this.

 

I actually don't think it's a terrible idea. Of course make it to where it's anonymized. And I wouldn't dwell on it, I would just print a copy. When the discussion of your current responsibilities comes up, I'd list all of them including memo writing, and say, "I actually brought a redacted example of one I did recently. You can look over it later if you'd like. In addition to memo writing, I focused on...." and just kind of move on. If the person is interested, they'll back up and bring it into the conversation, and if they aren't, it will sit on their desk for a little while and at least make sure that MD sees your name a couple more times!

I recently brought in a Business Development strategy deck to an interview for a BD/sourcing role and it went over well. We didn't go into it in detail but he asked me to send it to him.

 

Don't bring it but offer at the end of the interview to send sample work product.

In the past, when interviewing places I've attached copies of case studies I've done for other shops to my thank you email. It has been well received. As I'm typing this I now realize that case studies are a better thing to send instead of an actual memo. A case study is truly yours not a collaboration of your team.

 

Generally don't think it's a bad idea. I brought a (blinded) teaser I wrote as a summer analyst to my full time analyst interviews and whipped it out as soon they asked me what I had worked on during the summer. Ate up a good 5 minutes (out of 30) just reviewing it and showed I knew what I was getting into.

In your specific situation, probably not that helpful. An investment memo is pretty basic.. If you put together a market study or something more interesting/complex/technical.. probably worth the risk as long as it's appropriately redacted.

Coffee is for closers
 

It's a very bad idea. I don't see the return outweighing the risk. I would just speak to the work product and your role / responsibility on the project team rather than offering confidential information outside on an NDA.

I have successfully lateraled twice in my career, and I have never thought to do this and have never been asked to provide examples of prior work.

 

I usually have them in my portfolio when entering an interview if they bring it up i will add it. Other than that a great way to make sure they get it is when sending an email to them as a follow up for an interview say something along the lines of "as a supplement to our conversation earlier I have attached a letter of recommendation blah blah blah" that one has worked well for me too as well as some good friends.

 

In my experience (U.S. experience), I have never personally and have never seen anyone bring letters of rec to interviews. If the interviewer wants letters, they'll ask for them, or, far more likely, they'll ask for contact info - email address or office line, for your recs and reach out if they feel like it or feel it is necessary. Personally, carrying around letters of rec sounds like a bit much to me and doesn't seem to be necessary - but I'm sure some people have had success with it.

My advice is to leave it at home and save it until you are asked for it. If, however, you want to bring it with you, fine, but don't randomly offer it or ask the interviewer if they'd like them - wait for it to come up naturally - if the topic of recommenders comes up, then you can play it out and decide if you want to give them the letter - don't force-feed them your letters of rec thought.

 

It may not be the best approach but I've always just started off asking either culture questions (i.e. why you first came to the firm, how you would describe the culture, why you like most about this division/company, ...) or things I was genuinely interested in and then went from there. At least one are two are bound to start a solid discussion.

Might not be the most personal or show off your firm specific knowledge but you never have to worry about forgetting your questions or running out. Also, for whatever reason, most interviewers seemed to like answering these types of questions.

 

You may want to all ready know a little about the firm culture, that is one way to answer why this firm questions. It may be better to come in with a couple topics you are interested in hearing more about then depending on what the interviewer says, think of questions then. The interviewer may also bring up additional info that you can ask questions about during the interview or in response to a question that you can continue the conversation with. Show you are interested and don't ask a bunch of cookie cutter questions.

 

Done both.

Honestly, better to not have them written down because it forces you to pay attn to the interviewer; whether you are interested in them or not. It will force you to listen to what they're actually saying rather than just nodding and agreeing. Also, your questions will be more unique and relevant to the interview, which makes you stand out rather than the typical -- what's the culture like, what's the structure of the program, etc. If it makes you feel better, have it written down, but really try and just listen to the interviewer when they speak -- without a doubt they will say something that you don't know about..

 

I'm sure interviewers become tired of repeating their history/group choice/favorite deal - I know I would. If you have a quirky question, go for it! If not, you might come off a little socially awkward.

 
Best Response

1. Don't show anything proprietary outside your firm.

2. It never hurts to have a visual just in case the subject comes up. The more documents you throw in their face, the more thinking they have to do, and the fewer pointed questions they have time to ask. This is more engineering/CS specific advice, but if you work with a complicated product or did a bunch of complicated research that came to an interesting conclusion, it's a lot easier to explain using a visual.

3. Don't get the visual out unless it pertains directly to a question they ask you, and stick to sheets of paper in a folder, not powerpoint. Don't make it look like you spent too much energy printing off the documents- please just use black and white printer paper. This is just a casual way of transmitting a large amount of information visually in an interview- not a presentation. You want them to remember that the interview went well and that your internship might have had some depth to it, not that you stood up halfway through the interview and started giving a powerpoint presentation from your old job.

 

@Marcus- I brought a folder to my interview. Had several visuals there for the system I was working on- got one of them out with some schematics to show folks what I'd put together on two occasions; helped me land the offer.

Visuals are much better suited if you have had some sort of experience that requires a large amount of information transfer to explain; if a picture is worth 1000 words, a diagram condenses a long and technical paragraph into a simple and elegant image. It is unlikely that someone who's only worked as an intern needs to bring a visual, but it could be helpful in a few circumstances, hence the long post.

 

Aright let me sugar coat it for you guys getting your panties in a bunch...

1- its demonstrates a complete and utter lack of judgement to the extent of incompetence to take another firm's presentation materals and hand them off to a third-party... yeah there no fuckin nucleur launch codes in there, but thats standard practice. Its also against policy at just about every firm to remove any of their materials from the office and/or use them for unauthorized purposes... yes everyone may hoard their own work for future reference, but they dont go around showcasing it to potential employers... it also tells the person that you're only looking out for yourself to an extent that can/will harm/embarass the firm and if they hire you, they can expect you to steal materials from them as well and pass them out like flyers on the subway.

2- next, this kid isn't asking about showing a flow diagram outlining algo modules, unless Im mistaken he wants to take a Jefferies presentation he worked on and hand it off to RBS.

3- its pretty elementary really, so you're not impressing anyone by showing them a presentation you did

4- as an intern, an analyst and even an associate at some shops, you are literally a puppet, you're putting absolutely no thought into the presentation and the finished product is likely the result of the multiple layers of butt fuckers above you pulling your strings such to make it look like a real boy in fact made this presentation. The analysis is seldom inspired by some idea you had, the final product is usually the result of numerous mark-ups of your sloppy and untrained intern/analyst work

5- there will ALWAYS be a mistake, I don't care if its a book that been getting turned across 3 different groups for 3 weeks, there will ALWAYS be a mistake, and that will do more harm than good

 
PierreC:

Hi guys:

I write (for myself) market recap newsletters covering overall market conditions and news for fun (pathetic... I know). Is this something that I should bring to my private banking interview?

Thank you!

Whether people are going to tell you to bring it or not, that is definitely not pathetic. That is something I, and I am sure many others, would like to do. And it can definitely help your understanding of it.

I can't guarantee that your write ups are of the highest quality, but trying to write summaries of the market up is more than likely to be beneficial for yourself and your knowledge.

That is all I can say though, because I am not in the position to answer about whether you should actually bring it to an interview or not.

 

My vote is don't bring it. Sounds like you are bringing notes to an interview. Whatever you wrote down will be much more impressive if verbally said like you are thinking of it on the spot. If you wrote something down, it will be judged much more critically. Also, I've interviewed people for pb....if someone started reading something they wrote down or handed me something to read I would 1. find it very weird that they are reading something and 2. not want to read anything about the markets in the interview (we spend all our time reading that shit), at least in an interview we can just listen.

 

I would advise against it. This goes along with something dosk17 said on a previous thread. Mentioning this would most likely open yourself up to highly technical questions. If asked about your knowledge of valuation methods, I would mention you're familiar with basics of DCF, comps (trading and transaction), etc. but would not get this specific. As simple as the Vault guide and your schooling examples might seem, it would take no time at all for these guys tear your analysis to shreads.

They want to know you're interested and can learn quickly, not that you think you can value a company accurately now.

 

Generally speaking, whenever someone gets out of their depth in an interview and tries too hard to look smart - they open themselves up to being challenged more than normal, and end up exposing the fact that they have a very superficial understanding of what they are talking about. If you don't think you can handle difficult, challenging questions about every minute detail and assumption of your DCF, avoid drawing much attention to it. Having some thoughtful insights about a handful of stocks that you think are good investment ideas (and good reasons why) might be more useful in the interview. (Read tons of sell-side research).

If I were you, my angle would be more "I am interested in fundamental analysis of equities and have been practicing DCF valuations - here's an example of my work", rather that "look how smart I am, I did a DCF valuation of microsoft and proved they are reasonably valued"

 

Don't bring it. It is almost certain that you will show the interviewer more of what you don't know rather than what you do know. Given that you are an undergrad sophomore, you aren't expected to know that much, but once you say you do, then you better know it very well - doesn't sound like you have a particularly strong grasp of valuation though, nor should you.

 

i got ripped to SHREDS last year when my resume said i was versed in technical analysis. i know what it is but DAMN those HF traders ripped me. as they said earlier, demonstrate basic understanding and a passion for it, not necessarily actual solid knowledge. the drier the sponge the more it can absorb also, ya dig?

 

You can exaggerate your non-finance activities/experience all you want and chances are, I won't know the difference.

However, as soon as you say you know a lot about DCFs or something financial, I'm going to grill you on it.

I told the story of that guy I interviewed who said he could do DCFs but couldn't tell me what WACC was, right?

And if you bring whatever you did, you're asking to get destroyed by the interviewer.

You can maybe mention it in passing that you've done a bit of research on your own on stocks and fair valuations but don't make it sound like you're the expert.

 

The 8% figure probably doesn't mean anything. Knowing how these surveys are worded, "accompany" probably means the kid carpooled with his parent to the interview. It's the 3% figure we should be worried about.

 

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