How to Juggle On-Cycle Interview Prioritization?
Hi all - current AN1 who's a bit overwhelmed with the on-cycle process right now. I've received a couple interview invites for tomorrow, and I've heard that generally, if you're doing well the firm interviewing you will try to keep you interviewing with them for as long as possible. I'm very interested in both firms that I've received invites from, and just wanted to know that in the case I'm still interviewing with one fund but my interview with the other fund is coming up (say, within 30-45 minutes), how I can work through the situation. Would there be any way to leverage my other fund's interview to speed up the process, or would I be forced to choose between my chances at the current firm and the next firm?
are these coffee chats or interviews?
I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer to this. If you’re in the interview room waiting and you get an invite from a firm you’d prefer then you can definitely bow out of that process. But if you’re in the late stages at the first firm and you feel like you’ll get the offer it’s a difficult decision to make because you’ll throw away this process for a new one.
I’d suggest making a doc that outlines your preferred firms and pros and cons. Create a list of priority on which offers you’d take. That’ll be the best bet especially in a high stress environment when you may have an exploding offer.
Best thing you can do is what was mentioned above - literally make a ranked list of funds that you want to prioritize. No ties, should be force ranked - and then use that to guide you. Do that thinking now before you start getting into actual interviews.
In terms of your question about one interview coming up, I highly doubt the first fund you'd be interviewing at would speed up the process because you have an interview with another fund coming up. Once you're in an interview, you need to either stick with it and accept you're giving up on the other interview, or you can drop the current interview and run to the next one.
As someone that has gone through on-cycle recruiting and has now spent several years trying to hire associates through this whirlwind process, here’s my two cents. If you stay at the current interview, you run the risk of the other firm filling up its slots before you eventually arrive in their office. If the other firm’s slots are not filled by the time you arrive, you will have a chance to interview with them. If you’re stuck at the first firm, just let them know that you cannot be there immediately but you will keep them posted in the interim. All the firms are scrambling aggressively on their end so they don’t know who came in immediately vs pushed back. It won’t be held against you as long as you’re a normal human about it. Candidates do this to us all the time.
All great points - another thing to consider is that you run the risk of showing up midway through the other fund’s interview process and never catching up to the kids who were there from the start.
I remember during my on cycle kids showing up halfway through the day and never getting to the modeling test/case study because there were just so many people to interview. They literally showed up and had no chance against the people who were there all day.
Agree with all the other posters above and echo their advice. One additional item would be that when you’re at a firm waiting (e.g. between interviews), you should be constantly evaluating how likely you think you are to get an offer. If the model test went poorly, you should probably leave and not waste precious time sitting there as other firms fill up. The unfortunate reality is that the process is so hectic and disorganized that you could be sitting in a waiting room for hours after already being basically dinged. But no one has made the final call or they forgot to dismiss you. That’s a worst-case scenario. If you’re getting strung along for hours, try to develop good rapport with one of the current Associates facilitating things and ask them what next steps are. We were recently in your shoes and don’t want to see ppl getting strung along. We can sometimes accelerate decision (dismissal or next interview) if it’s been too long.
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