Tips & Tricks for your PE Interview

Have you been asked the question: “Why Finance in an interview?”

What about “Why Investment Banking?”

What about “Why PE?”

and how about finally, “Why should we choose YOU?”

The format that I recommend using is the following:

1.  The Beginning: Start with the city you’re from, anything notable or interesting about your upbringing, and where you went to college / what you majored in (and any notable college activities you’re involved with, like athletics or an investment club) – the interviewer might be able to relate to your life experiences, and sharing these details make you more “human” and likable.

2.  The Spark: Share what first got you interested in finance, and more specifically, investing or private equity. This can be an internship you had in college, experiences from family members or friends, or a variety of other things. Dig deep here to understand what event(s) got you interested in this industry.

   

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3.  Growing Interest: Take the interviewer through the professional and/or extracurricular path you took to get to your current job. Start with your earliest relevant experience (college internship, investment club, research, etc.) and talk about how it grew your interest in finance or private equity experience (college internship, investment club, research, etc.) and talk about how it grew your interest in finance or private equity. Talk about any deal work you’ve done at your current job and what you’ve learned from that.

4. The Future and Why You’re Here: At the end of the answer, you want to combine the prior investing experience you’ve mentioned with reasons why it will apply to a job in private equity and why you want to make this move now. You don’t have to get into the whole “why PE” or “why our firm” answer, but you can hint at it so that the interviewer can ask follow-up questions.