The Investment Banking Superday Explained in Plain Language

June 1, 2021 0 Comments

You are likely to face a wide range of bankers, from analyst level to CEO level. But since you’re a short distance from an offer of over $ 100,000, the interviewer sheet will be stacked to the senior side, meaning fewer junior bankers than the early rounds and there are definitely no HR representatives.

As for the numbers, you can face from just 3 interviews to 7 or more.

As you can imagine, a true banking Superday can last anywhere from 3 hours to most of an entire day. And sometimes they can even extend into the night.

But fear not. Banks tend to err on the side that less is more, because organizing more than 5 interviews per student is logistical insanity and generally a surprisingly taxing use of bank resources.

We mean senior bankers time, of course, not $ 20 an hour analysts! Consider the sliding scale with respect to range, interviews, and duration; the higher the bank and the hiring campaign, the higher the rank / interviews / duration. It’s no wonder BBs (bulky brackets) are the source of the infamous Superday war stories, unlike mid-market i-banks and low-end boutique investment banks.

Why does the approach to each bank interview differ from the superday?

There will be different interviewers to test you in different aspects. This is often decided based on your level.

Consequently, students can experience 40 minutes of technical questions when interviewing analyst Chuck Chuckford and 40 minutes of mind-numbing “Tell me about yourself” questions during Dr. Larry Larryson’s Power Hour.

However, let’s break it down very clearly …

Younger monkeys (analysts and associates) will throw down the gauntlet of technical questions as they try to objectively evaluate you for brains. Think of McGee NCIS. If you have any finance and accounting studies or worse, a banking internship, to your credit, expect a lot more pressure than someone with a liberal arts major.

Although technical finance questions can hurt, investment banking accounting interview questions won’t; they are relatively easy.

Meanwhile, the gray-haired monkeys (MD Larryson and the other BSDs) will get ‘fit’ and ‘you’ will go crazy as they try to answer the question “Would Richard be a strong member of the team and do I want to work with him?” For this, think of Gibbs in NCIS. But don’t forget that Larry will also enjoy asking you (with a blank face) “How many 128-slide note books would fit on a Lear Jet chartered to Greenland?” *. In other words, interviews with grizzled apes will often involve technical and suitability questions. The Masters of the Universe will give you a taste of everything!

Finally, it is worth noting that multiple interviews in a single bank can also overlap both on topic and on specific questions asked. This is done on purpose. Like a computer-driven personality test, this repeating process allows bankers to spot inconsistencies in their responses over time when they share notes at the end of the day.

Were you lying about your leadership experience at Chucky Cheese? Either way they will find out.

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