Show Time!
Before you get a formal interview, try for a pre-meet. An informal opportunity allows you to continue gathering intelligence and learn about your audience. Although this may not seem like a lot of time, fifteen minutes can feel like fifteen hours if you're a bore.
The first-round interview is the most straightforward, but riskiest, stage. Typically, it's done with a single interviewer, so if someone peed in your interviewer's Cheerios, you're screwed. On the flipside, if their favorite NFL team won the night before, or if they closed a deal they've been working on for months, chances are they'll be in a great mood! Regardless, don't forget to strut like a peacock and stand out.
Your first interview will likely occur at your school. As an alumnus working at Jefferies, I was part of the Wharton team of about a half-dozen interrogators. We'd travel to Philadelphia and interview approximately 300 hopefuls on campus. After a few days of interviewing, we'd eliminate most of them immediately.
Imagine yourself in the place of your interviewer: in a windowless room listening to a succession of naive undergraduates or MBA bores drone on about how challenged they were in some meaningless school project. You, too, would be watching the clock waiting for cocktail hour. Keep telling yourself to be memorable, because your competition is breathing down your neck. Since you're being interrogated to sniff out any BS on your resume, recite unique behavioral factoids that show why you'd be perfect for the job. Remember, you are the pitch. Tell stories that illustrate how you'll crank out whatever is needed—budgets, business plans, financial models, laundry lists—until your laptop explodes. Feel free to embellish to the ethical speed limit. It'll show you have the potential to be a senior executive one day.
Super Saturday
If we interviewed 300 applicants at Wharton, we'd probably invite 50 or so to headquarters for another cattle call. This one is much more intense, filled with one-on-one speed dating–style sessions, commingled with idle chitchat lunches with multiple executives and candidates.
This next round may start on Friday with a limo ride from the airport to your hotel. The next morning, dozens of impeccably dressed candidates show up at headquarters for what on Wall Street is called sell day, or Super Saturday. Each candidate is assigned to a particular room where your first interrogator is waiting. After ten minutes or so, you'll rotate to another interview, each time getting grilled to see what you know, but equally important, to see if they know you. Remember, it's mostly about a cultural fit. You may get a case study or two, but unless you made up those Medals of Freedom on your resume, it's all about sizing you up using—yup, you guessed it—the Cleveland Airport Test.
Each candidate might endure up to eight or nine separate interviews, often concluding with the person who interviewed you on campus playing the good cop: “Hey, Dave, good to see you again. How'd it go today? What're you thinking? Do you have any questions for me?” This is another opportunity to shine because you've come prepared with astute, brilliant questions they've never been asked before. There are lots of ideas you can glean from books, but most of them are terrible. Never, ever use these:
“I spoke to I-Forgot-Her-Name-Because-I-Was-Too-Dumb-to-Ask-for-Her-Business-Card and she mentioned a Deal-I-Can't-Remember-Even-Though-We-Just-Spoke-about-It-Two-Hours-Ago. Can you tell me more?” There are multiple variations of this classic question, and they all drive me nuts. If you can't remember details like this, how am I going to explain to you the 50 finance scenarios I want you to run for the client in 24 hours?
“This place is pretty laid back. What do you do for fun?” Work. Next question?
“I don't have any questions.” Seriously? Unless you wear the Infinity Gauntlet and zapped your unimaginative ass into the future, how could you possibly have no more questions after spending a total of 14 hours with us? That's one workday on Wall Street!
I've also discovered some that are insightful, specific, and memorable. A few examples:
“I liked meeting Mr. Big Managing Director. He told me how he got his start after graduating from the University of Basket Weaving. How did you get your start?” If you haven't already asked this one, it's an oldie but goodie. It shows you were listening, and it gives the interviewer an opportunity to brag about how they walked through a hailstorm, barefoot, and stood in the arctic for hours to get a job. Nothing strokes an ego better than listening to them wax on about how awesome they were.
“I'm very curious about this specific deal that the firm completed. It looked like you maxed the leverage and created a holdco structure to minimize the equity check. Can you tell me more about how you syndicated that deal?” Very nice! Shows you won't need much training from me and that I'll make that afternoon tee time if I hire you. Unless you spilled hot coffee on your groin, I'd hire you now, and even then, I've spilled hot coffee in my nether regions and if you've lived to tell about it, you're the perfect underling for me.
“What will it take to get hired here?” I like it! Aggressive but consistent with the “Don't Ask, Don't Get” school of begging.
So come prepared with savvy questions. Sreene Ranganathan, a member of Facebook's Corporate Development team and former Jefferies banker, put it succinctly when he said, “I hate it when people don't do at least a minimum amount of homework. I mean how much friggin’ work does it take to look me up online and find out one or two interesting things about me? It shows me that I'm not just one of thousands of bankers and firms you're meeting with.” Nowadays, given how easy it is to stalk someone online, if you don't do it, it shows you're really not that interested.
Being the interviewer is really quite mindless because every candidate has the same answers to the same questions. So try to stand out, either because you're not wearing socks (this strategy is risky), your last name is Musk (or even Elon), or you've done your recon and can recite every deal the firm completed. I once had a candidate who read every interview I'd given in the Wall Street Journal and watched every presentation I'd delivered at industry confabs. That showed me a real interest in the industry, my firm, and, most important, me. In an ocean of candidates just looking for a safe port in the storm, nothing differentiates a candidate like a real, genuine interest in finding the right ship.
The Inquisition
So how exactly might you come off as unique? By providing one-of-a-kind answers (in a gregarious way1) to predictable questions. Here are some Q&As that should help get those gears turning:
What's your biggest weakness?Good answers: Almost any answer that doesn't relate to the job is good. For example:“I care about people too much.”“I love animals more than some people.”“I get very emotional about hunger and homelessness.”Turn any weakness into a strength. Here are a few others:“I'm obsessive.” Generally not great with boyfriends or girlfriends (see the film Fatal Attraction), but it can be a superpower if harnessed, particularly if proofing numbers and fonts is your bag.“I'm always pleasing people.” Again, not perfect if you're in Fifty Shades of Grey, but senior managers and bankers secretly love this. We all want loyal employees who will go the extra mile, and there's nothing like someone who's motivated not just by money, but by an innate drive to satisfy our every desire!“I love the weeds; I get lost in them.” Perfect because someone needs to check the work. It sure won't be me. I paid my dues and I'm done reviewing numbers and fonts that no client will ever check because they'll assume that we did!Terrible answers:Anything that could be translated in your interviewer's mind that you would not be a good employee and would be clearly bad for the job. Examples would be sloppiness, tardiness, and lack of enthusiasm. Tread carefully.Anything that presumes you're too good for the job you're applying for. In other words, don't overstep