Public Finance Analyst (Stone & Youngberg)

Started with a informational interview with a MD that is an alumni of my school, which went well as he informed me that his company would be hiring an analyst in the coming months and I should come in to check out the office and interview after I told him my story. Several months later representatives of the firm reached out to me to set up an interview. I had kept in contact with the MD since it appeared as if the process was moving quite slowly. The interview lasted only 45 minutes which was pre-arranged on their end then I did an excel test which apparently every candidate failed. My interview was with three other firm members who were vice presidents with the firm. Every question was behavioral and pretty much straight from the WSO behavioral interview guide. Should not have been a difficult interview but I had not had to much experience interviewing and the lead interviewing appeared to dislike me from the start. The company is a small public finance boutique with 5 MD's and 4 VP's and the head interviewer was a VP looking to be a MD and made it clear there was NO opportunity for advancement with the firm. I got dinged because I vaguely mentioned that I wanted to come in as an analyst and work my tail off to learn as much as possible and then advance with time. My personality did not appear to mesh with the lead interviewer which I believe ultimately led me to not receive an offer. It was difficult to read what they were looking for since everyone that is getting into IBD wants to eventually move up from being an analyst after 3 years. It was odd because I did everything I could to explain during the interview that I was more than fine working 80+ hours and doing as much grunt work as necessary since it comes with the territory. The lead interviewer obviously did not buy it and told me she didnt think I would be complacent doing the grunt work that the job entails. I will say if I had any faults during the interview it would be that I could have done a better job SHOWING instead of TELLING while going deeper with my answers. Again, this position while it was attractive to me at the time, it appears that they were looking for a certain personality fit that would be complacent as an analyst beyond the typical time frame since all the VP's want to be MD's and you essentially can't advance. Very frustrating because the pub fin sector of IBD was appealing to me to break into and I got along so well with the MD but after further thought I would have hated working for/with the lead interview/vp after going through the process. When, I followed up to see why I was not selected she was extremely vague and just went on and on about how all the candidates were so close. That is why I received the vibe that she just did not like me much. Again frustrating process and they took forever before informing me of their decision, I would have been way better of interviewing with the MD's which is tough for me to swallow since I felt like I could have meshed much better with them.