Example of Interview Questions

Remember the rules for self-awareness questions:
1. Predict, prepare, and practice.
2. Be honest, but emphasize the positive.
3. Keep your audience in mind.
As you prepare for self-awareness questions, ask yourself the following:
• What were the motivations and decision-making processes behind each of
the experiences summarized on my resume?
• What personal qualities do I possess that would make me a particularly
strong candidate for an investment banking analyst or associate role?
• How would other people (friends, colleagues, classmates) describe me?
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• What are my personal and professional weaknesses, limitations, and
vulnerabilities, and how might they impede my success in an investment
banking role?
• What have been my most significant failures and mistakes? What have I
learned from each of them, and how have I applied these lessons to other
endeavors?
Question 1
Why did you choose ABC University (or XYZ Business School)?
Question 2
I see that before business school, you worked at Fix My Business
Consulting for 3 years. Since consulting firms are so focused on
developing their analysts and associates, I’m sure you participated in a
fair number of performance reviews during your tenure. What did your
last performance review say?
Question 3
Tell me about a time that you had to overcome a weakness to achieve a
personal or professional goal.
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Capacity Questions
Remember the rules for capacity questions:
1. Be prepared for confrontation.
2. Imply—but don’t state directly—that your previous achievements prove
that you’re highly capable of doing the work.
3. Remember that capacity refers to more than just intellectual horsepower.
As you prepare for capacity questions, think of specific instances in which you
have demonstrated the following characteristics:
• Exceptionally high performance standards
• Considerable intellectual curiosity, quantitative aptitude, and analytical ability
• Willingness to work extraordinarily long (and often unpredictable) hours
• Willingness to do unglamorous and tedious grunt work
• Abilities to learn quickly and work efficiently
• Consistent attention to details, even under significant time constraints
• Ability to stay calm and productive under pressure
• Capacity for juggling several complex projects (at various stages of
development) simultaneously
Question 4
Of the academic and work experiences listed on your resume, I wondered
if you could discuss the role that required the most juggling or
multitasking of complex projects?
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Question 5
Describe a time when something that you worked on—whether in an
academic, extracurricular, or professional setting—required considerable
personal sacrifice. How did you stay motivated to achieve your goal
despite the sacrifices it required?
Interpersonal Aptitude
Questions
Remember the rules for interpersonal aptitude questions:
1. Where possible, highlight the team-based components of the pursuits
listed on your resume.
2. No bragging, blabbering, or bluffing.
3. Get comfortable, but not too comfortable.
As you prepare for interpersonal questions, think of specific anecdotes or
experiences that will help your interviewer assess the following:
• Whether you are extroverted, social, affable, and likely to thrive in a dynamic,
team-based environment
• Whether you are likely to be a consistently positive contributor to the teams,
especially in high-pressure, time-sensitive situations
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• Whether your communication skills will inspire confidence among colleagues
and clients (this includes both effective speaking and active listening)
• Whether you take direction and criticism well, that is, without taking things
personally and creating conflict (i.e., whether you have a “thick skin”)
• Whether you can successfully navigate intraoffice personality conflicts
(especially avoiding them in the first place!)
• Your ability to manage difficult and demanding personalities effectively,
particularly when faced with competing priorities from different deal teams
Question 6
Have you ever had to work with someone that you didn’t particularly like
or get along with? How did you overcome personality differences to get
your job done?
Question 7
I noticed that here at Stanford Business School, you currently serve as
the co-president of the student association. I wondered if you could
describe your role in this group, focusing on the people management
(rather than the project management) component of your job. If I spent
some time here on campus and spoke to the students who worked with
you in this organization, what would they say that they liked (and
perhaps disliked) about working with you? Do you think that you were
an effective manager?
Question 8
Have you ever worked on a team that didn’t achieve its objectives? Why
do you think the team wasn’t effective?
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Commitment Questions
Remember the rules for commitment questions:
1. Know exactly why you want to be an investment banker.
2. Examine your resume and transcript for anything your interviewer might
perceive as a gap or inconsistency.
3. Remember that investment banks love to be loved, just like the rest of us.
As you prepare for commitment questions, make sure you’ve given some
thought to the following questions:
• Why am I pursuing a job in this industry; specifically, why am I pursuing a
job at this firm, in this specific function?
• How will I walk my interviewer through my resume in a way that suggests a
logical progression to a career in investment banking?
• Are my reasons for pursuing the analyst/associate track thoughtful and
credible?
• How will this job advance my own personal and professional goals?
• Can I provide a realistic outline of the roles and responsibilities of an
analyst/associate? What does an analyst/associate do every day? What is
appealing to me about assuming those responsibilities?
• Do I understand the extent to which the profession requires personal
sacrifice? How can I convince my interviewer that I have thought this
through?
• If I secure an offer at this particular bank, will I accept it? Why? What makes
an offer from this bank more appealing than an offer from another?
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Question 9
Describe what you think the role of an investment bank is.
Question 10
Why do you want to be an investment banker? Explain how you arrived
at the decision to pursue an analyst position in investment banking.
Question 11
So I know why you want to be a banker, but why here specifically? I
mean, if we at ABC Bank give you an offer, are you going to accept it
over your other offers?
Question 12
Aside from the hours, what do you think you’ll like the least about
investment banking?
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Technical Questions
Remember the rules for technical questions:
1. Keep your answers short and sweet.
2. Think concepts, not formulas.
3. If you don’t know, then just say that you don’t know.
As you prepare for technical questions, keep the following things in mind:
• For finance, accounting, and economics majors: What was the most
complex or difficult concept you encountered in your quantitative studies?
Would you be able to explain this concept to your grandmother so that she
would understand it (or at least so that she wouldn’t lapse into a coma)?
• For nonquantitative majors: Can you use your common sense, analytical
reasoning, and business intuition to walk through a case-style interview
question on valuation? If faced with a technical question regarding valuation,
what top-line concepts will you draw on to craft an effective answer?
• For MBA candidates with banking experience: Do you know the deals
cited on your resume inside and out? Can you answer detailed questions
about the financial projections, transaction structure, and valuation behind
each transaction?
• For MBA candidates without banking experience: Have you reviewed
your graduate-level finance and accounting courses so that you know the
material cold? Can you demonstrate a strong enough foundation from these
classes to hit the ground running as an associate?
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Question 13
If you had $10,000 to invest—but you had to invest the money in a single
common stock—which company’s stock would you choose, and why?
Question 14
I see on your resume that you worked on the acquisition of Company B
by Company A. I wondered if you could tell how the buyer arrived at a
value for the seller, and tell us whether you think it was a good deal.
Question 15
So far, we’ve talked a lot about multiples: You’ve mentioned EBITDA
multiples in your discussion of the analysis you did at Morgan Stanley,
you’ve talked about P/E multiples in your analysis of a common stock. I
wondered if you could tell me what a multiple really is—to say that a
company is trading at “eight times.” How would I make sense of that?
How is that meaningful to you? What does it tell you about the
company?
Question 16
If I asked you to tell me what a skyscraper in Manhattan was worth—
let’s say the one we’re sitting in right now—how would you go about
valuing that skyscraper?