Investment Banking Analyst

Very standard process with the exception I was an employee referral, so the bank reached out to me. I was actually interview for two separate analyst positions within the bank (two separate groups). I spoke to an individual from each group on the phone prior to moving on to the in-person interviews. I arrived in Charlotte the night before the interviews, I drove from Atlanta after work on Thursday, and was put in a nearby hotel...I believe it was the Hilton. I got in late and ended up eating at the restaurant at the hotel. The MD told me her credit card was on file and to just charge whatever expenses I had to the room, so I did.

I essentially had 2 sets of interviews in one day, so I met with my first interviewer around 9 or 9:30am and started there. I was individually interviewed by 6 people during the morning and was taken to lunch at a local restaurant, a few blocks away, by 2 of the analyst working in that group. One of the analysts picked up the tab and mentioned that he would be reimbursed by WF. Following lunch, one of the analysts walked me back to the main building and took me up to the floor where the other group was located and introduced me to one of the guys I would be interviewing with there. The afternoon interview portion consisted of 5 or 6 individual interviews all with separate people...similar to the one conducted in the morning.

This was your very standard, very typical IB interviews. They all showed up with sheets of paper that had separate, predetermined topics on them in an effort to cover all of the material without having each interviewer spending time on questions that had already been covered. Most of the interviews lasted right around 30 minutes. Most interviewers asked the standard fit questions like "tell me about yourself" and then would move on the topics they were assigned to cover. Topics ranged from qualitative questions like how I would approach certain situations or solve certain problems to more technical questions like what line items are typically on an income statement and how do you value a company, etc.

I have looked at and studied various forms of IB interview guides, like Breaking Into Wall Street, and feel that I was really well prepared. Additionally, I already worked in a similar finance role and already had some exposure to job responsibilities that were very analogous.

Both positions were looking for experienced analysts to come in and hit the ground running. While I had more knowledge than most, it turns out that I still wasn't the best available. One group decided not to hire anyone at that time and the other went with a candidate that had his masters in accounting. Obviously I wasn't thrilled with the decision, but understood that they were taking the safer bet since there was no training class schedule as these were off cycle hires.