As a junior getting ready for investment banking interviews, I'm sad to say I have not yet started reading the guides. Due to limited time, I was wondering the top five areas/questions I should immediately focus on first? Thanks!
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You realize recruiting rolls into early next year, right? As in January... That should be plenty of time to prep. In all likelihood, you can get through one of the guides in a week.
Anyway, the top questions you'll get are:
Depending on your background, the bank, and most importantly, the specific interviewer, your interviews will get proportionally more or less technical.
Great stuff. Thanks man.
^^I would probably say the same 5. And for FT recruiting (I accepted an offer about a month back), I started prepping for interviews in late August, so had around a month, so you should be good if you start soon. I would say the most important thing is being able to walk through your resume/story and how that ties logically into you wanting to work in banking and at that specific bank.
For technicals, definitely #4 above you will be asked about everywhere. For most of the interviews I had, it was walking through the 3 main valuation methodologies and being able to compare them at a minimum. I don't think anywhere will be less technical than basic accounting, valuation, DCF, etc. I used the M&I guide, which I would definitely recommend, and it covered pretty much every technical I was asked.
I spent a significant amount of time researching banks/recent deals/industries for interviews and can definitely say that while that may help, if you have limited time I would focus mostly on your story/resume/past experiences. I didn't spend time on behavioral questions, as you should be able to hit most of those on the spot and you don't want to sound like a robot with those.
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