Questions I got asked:
- What would you expect to find on a CIM?
- What was your favorite class at your university and why?
- Tell me about your experience/tell me about yourself
- Why are you interested in Investment Banking?
- Why CapM?
- What type of investors would be more interested in the management team of an acquisition and why (financial or strategic)?
- If I purchased $100 of inventory with cash how does that affect the three statements?
- How do the three statements connect to each other?
- Would you say that negative working capital is a red flag? Why or why not?
- Tell me about the different valuation techniques?
- What are some deals CapM has done?
- What are DTAs and DTLs and how are they created?
- What is the difference between GAAP and IFRS?
- What is the angle between the short and long-hands of a clock if it is 3 and a quarter hours.
All of my interviews (except for one) went really well and I answered each question thoroughly (except for one). The CapM team was friendly, considerate, intelligent, and treated me as an equal.
The Partner interview, however, was horrible. They were 90 minutes late, didn’t apologize, and did not ask me a single question about myself or my experience (other than my brief elevator pitch). The questions were nit-picky and designed to trick. When I was stumped with a particular question, they were condescending and at one point laughed in my face. They displayed zero respect or common decency.
Unfortunately, the most important interview went poorly, despite 7 others that went really well.
Be cautious about working for a Partner that treats its candidates this way. Other than that, the CapM team would have been an incredible group to work with.