Quick. Interviewers were not asking difficult questions. A more centralized interview process would/does vet out poor candidates. Rather than constantly looking for quality talent, they wait until people leave and then realize that their choices are not ideal.
Other Investment Banking Associate Interview Reviews for Kroll
I applied through college or university. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Kroll (Los Angeles, CA) in Oct 2013
Interview
Applied through my campus' job portal. Heard back relatively quickly.
I was destroyed in the interview. Was interviewed by someone who had been doing IB for 10 years.
You have to be quick on your feet and be able to answer financial questions. LIke how do you calculate Free Cash Flows, where can you find the components of EBITDA, how does *something I can't remember* affect EBITDA -- does it go up or down? There were several other questions. The interviewer was holding back laughing at me because I wasn't doing so well. He should have stopped asking me finance questions after the first couple. After a couple more technical questions, he asked behavioral questions.
"What would you do if you were about to give a presentation but found an error in your slides, and you didn't have time to go back and fix it"
Something about what if you had 2 group projects on your plate and you absolutely had to sacrifice effort on one of the group projects (2 different groups). What would you do?
I don't mean for this review to scare anyone away. In my defense, I am NOT a finance major. I'm an Econ major, which you can easily go through and graduate with out having taken a single finance course. Although, I have taken 1 or 2.
Additionally, I did not prepare for this interview as I had a midterm literally 10 minutes before I had the interview (interview was on campus).
Also, I have absolutely no interest in being an Investment Banker. I did not take the interview seriously, I accepted the interview for practice.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
how do you calculate Free Cash Flows, where can you find the components of EBITDA, how does *something I can't remember* affect EBITDA -- does it go up or down? Something about a leverage buyout. Something about M&A and valuation.
