Rothschild Private Equity/Hedge Fund/VC-Manager Interview Questions and Answers

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: Since it is a Finance profile, it would help if you have any finance /economics/ MBA projects to write about. DB looks for a good CPI and decent projects or extra curriculars and interest in the finance sector. It also wouldn?t hurt to mention your technical skills here.


Round: Test
Experience: And since most of the finance work in India is back office (with all due respect to all those who have been placed in this sector) you have to be comfortable with numbers and calculations. The test is a typical CAT type paper mostly concentrating on quantitative analysis and data interpretation. There is also a bonus finance section for those who have knowledge on the subject. Again practice cat type papers well and sit with a knowledgeable friend of yours to discuss topics in finance.

Tips: Realize when you are in a recession period. No job comes easy. Most of us who are not insanely intelligent like that one dude in your wing need to practice hard for the test to get through. In a recession/slack scenario core companies save the day. Don?t neglect your core courses.
Duration: 45 minutes

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Started with an informal chit chat. I grabbed my opportunity. In my first line I told them that
I had done my internship with Lehman Brothers. (Remember I wanted to drive my
interview). No wonder the next 5-6 questions were on my internship. There were followed
by a couple of questions on swaps, spreads etc which I had mentioned in my resume (Note
questions were not out of the blue

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: DB directly shortlisted from resume. There was no test. After the initial shortlisting procedure, I had a months time to prepare.
Tips: I had started preparing for my resume from August when SPO had asked to send in master resume. After making a rough draft I had sent it to a lot of seniors from my department who were placed in different companies and edited it accordingly.

Round: Test
Tips: I had used the material from T.I.M.E and also from CL to prepare for it. Also,there were some classes arranged by SPO and CL which I had joined.

Round: Group Discussion
Tips: I did not prepare much for the GDs. I just participated in 3-4 mock GDs organized by the placement preparation cell.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: I had prepared all my interns and projects along with the courses written in the resume. I had prepared my answers from all the basic questions which are generally asked in an interview and was very thorough with them. I had also gained sufficient knowledge about the work profile of DB along with all major deals in the past year. Specially, for DB's interview I had also prepared for the current affairs by reading newspapers daily for about 3 months and also kept up to date about some major happenings in and around the world such as Syria happening, US shutdown, crisis and bubbles, etc.


I had my interview scheduled at 6:30 in the morning with DB. My first interview went really well and the person told me that I should definitely see the next panel.
Tips: Please do not write those courses in your resume which you found tough as it will create problem at the end moment when you have to prepare so much.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: My second interview was fine and most of the questions were from current affairs and my resume. They also asked me to guesstimate in this interview.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: In my third interview  I messed up some economics related concepts.I thought they wouldn't like me but I was called again

Round: HR Interview
Experience: My fourth interview also did not go well but then somebody from the HR hinted that they liked me for a certain profile and would want to know my take on that.

General Tips: Be yourself and give your best shot. Have faith in yourself. Do not panic.
College Name: IIT KANPUR

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: First, I had a look at loads and loads of ‘good’ people’s resumes, which left me feeling very inferior. Then I looked some ‘not-so-great’ people’s resumes who landed up with good jobs nevertheless, which gave me hope. I prepared a rough draft (which eventually had no relation/similarity to the final resume) which was sent to infinite people for an honest critique, and an honest appraisal I received which shook me to the core. Tips from order (chronologically or in order of importance?) to which stuff to include and NOT include were garnered. I never found the need to look at resume-writing material, with one workshop organized by McKinsey and other people’s resumes being enough
Tips: Pre-placement talks are greatly under appreciated by students, with the focus being the pizzas most of the times. Yes, the pizza is important, but it helps if you pay attention first to what the company people say (and not just the compensation package). I had an ambitious resolution to note down all the biggie companies’ good points with things said and qualities expected and such stuff- needless to say, this resolution fell flat on it’s face midway through PPT season. However, if not anything else, the PPTs were a great source for picking up the jargon for preparing in the final days. And asking questions after the PPT is over by sacrificing a pizza can be beneficial too, especially if you are targeting a particular company/type of company. (Note- As luck would have it, the company i got recruited by was the single company who's PPT i DID NOT attend, with me having to rely on second-hand information. So you decide). As for actually choosing the job, I had full (maybe a bit too much?) faith in the placement body’s infinite wisdom for deciding the order of companies invited for placements. I had consultancy and finance as my two preferred options, for which I talked to loads of seniors, relatives and family friends. It is important to know what you want to do, or at least what you don’t want to do (in my case, a coding/tech job was out of the question), because this is often asked during your interview. And the long discussions I had, although sometimes leaving me in a more confused state than before, helped me eventually.

Round: Test
Experience: Deutsche Bank took a written test as Round 1 for elimination. This was followed by a shortlist of 92 people, who had to sit for a Tech interview. ~80% of these people went ahead to give an HR interview, with 22 people being offered jobs eventually. The written test had 3 parts- The 1st part was a proper CAT-style test which focused on quantitative abilities. Most of the questions were those we already encounter, and almost everyone who got through scored really well in this section. The 2nd part had a few questions on general market awareness, like 'Who has the highest market cap' or 'what's the current oil price per barrel'. The 3rd part was finance-based, with questions on inflation, coupon rates, options, futures, currency conversions etc.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: The first 'Tech' interview started off with a fairly non-tech question- 'Give us 3 reasons why we should hire you.' Then, they went on to questions on quick arithmetic (what's 58 x 62?), probability (how do i divide 50R and 50W balls into two identical containers so that if i pick a ball from a random container, the probability of picking a W ball is maximum?) and finance (what are options? what is strike price? what is a premium?). They asked me whether I had any other nonacademic courses I had done in my stay in IIT which I liked, which was where the Literature and Economic Reforms courses from past semesters came in handy. The interviews for different people were very different, with some people getting deep into finance or economics, some concentrating more on things like market awareness, stocks, shares etc and some having to survive stress interviews.
Tips: First, there's a test to crack, which requires a good quantitative base. This is where CAT preparation helps a lot. There are general awareness questions which depend more on, well, the student's general awareness. The finance section is typically unworkable- it helps if you can write down out there whatever you know however wrong it might be, because those guys simply want to know how much you know, even if it might be slightly irrelevant to the question asked :P Then, there is the tech interview. Now many people (including the company people during the PPT) will tell you 'It's ok if you don't have finance fundaes', but they sing a totally different tune during the actual interview. And honestly this makes sense- if you want to get hired by a finance company, the least you can do is read up some basic finance stuff, instead of sitting there and saying 'I have zot finance knowledge, hire me.' There was a Derivatives workshop organized by Lehman Brothers which, although not being too helpful, at least introduced me to the jargon. Then some quickie wiki sufficed to increase my fin-gyaan. And it always helps if you start off with a 'I know very little of finance, but what i know i know it well' kind of a statement :)

Round: HR Interview
Experience: The second HR interview was a pretty cool one, starting off with the standard question 'Tell me something about yourself' to things like hobbies and non-academic stuff done in IIT life and elsewhere. Questions like these present a nice opportunity to the interviewee to lead the interview as and how he/she likes. I mentioned my passion for international football, from where we embarked on a long discussion on which club i like, which are my favorite players, why, etc. I was asked what are the parameters i give importance to in selecting a job. I was asked whether have prepared for CAT, what scores am I expecting, what do I wish to do in the next 2/3/5/10 years, what do I expect from this job, etc. There were two people conducting the interview, with one fellow asking most of the questions. I addressed the second person with a 'don't you have anything to ask?' to which she asked me 'tell me five people you would love to invite for a DB sponsored dinner'. A creative, tongue-in-cheek, honest and somewhat humorous answer got me through it. They then asked me - 'Do you have any questions for us?' where i got cleared a few doubts about the quality of work, the training and future growth opportunities as an employee of Deutsch Bank. The tests took ~45 minutes to finish, and each interview was for around 20 minutes or so.
Tips: The most important thing I did was sit down with 2 other friends and conduct mock-stress-HR interviews of each other. This thing helped me greatly, primarily because I treated it with proper seriousness. Many things come to light if your friend’s are forthright and frank, because this is the place where you can go wrong as much as you want without severe repercussions (This mock interview especially helped a friend of mine when we asked him questions which seemed off-tangent but ended up being asked in his actual interview!). Also what proved to be extremely helpful was a long and intensive Wikipedia session, where I sat down with a friend and wiki-ed for each and every word mentioned in the job description document supplied by the company along with the JAF.

General Tips: For most companies, your resume is all they will know about you, so make sure you know properly what you have written in the resume, where it is and how many points. This prevents you from being surprised when the interviewer refers to stuff which, let's just say, has been made to look bigger and better than it actually is. Bluffing in resumes or during the interview is of no use, people can catch these things very easily. Instead, it helps if you can make things appear a wee bit fancier than they are, as long as you can pull them off. The interviewer is god. Treat him/her with respect and argue decently without getting dirty, however irrational things might sometime seem. An honest 'I don't know' is better than some contrived bluff, as long as the 'I-don't-knows' are rare. Impromptu interviews seldom go well. Some preparation is always essential. Prepare for HR questions, and don't be surprised if you are asked a lot of Department-specific questions. A knowledge of what the company does is important, as also is knowing what the job profile being offered does and doesn't include :) Vis., dressing, étiquettes, coffee etc Dress well, first impressions are important. Don't wear a suit if you aren't sure you'll be comfortable (i wasn't), a tie
works just fine. But informal clothing is a no-no. Have a bath and a shave (for boys mainly). Have a folder containing some spare sheets and copies of your resume. Have a decent, working pen. Avoid plastic bags or similar things which make irritating noises. And don't get too frazzled by questions asked to other candidates. Make eye-contact (but don't try to play mindgames) with the interviewer while talking. And smile, enjoy the interview, or at least give the impression that you are having a good time :)
College Name: IIT BOMBAY

Round: Test
Experience: The Maths section had questions on basic probability and statistics. Also the Maths section had a higher weight age than the other sections (Questions carrying 3 marks each while other sections had 1 or 2 marks for each question. They were here, offering a quant profile so that justifies the distribution.) The DI/Quant (2 marks each) and English (1 Mark Each) section were similar to CAT. The finance section had questions on Basic Accounting. Anyone who did well in the Maths section could find his name in the shortlist.

Round: Technical + HR Interview
Experience: Possible Lapses: I

Round: Interview
Experience: The interviewer also said: "It seems like you are more interested in finance and BCG is only the second option. We don’t like being the second option." All these questions required some delicate handling.

Round: Interview
Experience: This was a sort of stress interview because the interviewer seemed disinterested and dissatisfied with everything i said and kept on demanding for more while impressing that whatever I am coming up with was really of no significance.
Tips: What worked in my favor was I dint get flustered by his attitude, kept smiling and working at the problem objectively. When I would come to the end of one line of thinking and would have no more answers to his “What next” I would frankly tell him that and ask him in return for more suggestions. It resulted in him complimenting my way of thinking at the end and saying that I was one of the best and most practical candidates that he had interviewed that day.

Round: Interview
Experience: 1. Both the above questions were the part of one interview.
2. The interviewer didn't want me to solve the case fully in either instance. He just wanted to see my structure and evaluate my thinking process.

Round: Interview
Experience: Almost all my interviews went well with BCG except the last VC one, because by then I was complete drained out and could hardly think. I also did some minor silly mistakes in a couple of the smaller cases while dealing with numbers, but otherwise everyone seemed to appreciate my structuring of the cases. Some of the interviewers also delved into the HR side frequently.

College Name: IIT KANPUR

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: Firstly, studied the resumes of seniors who had a similar profile like me and had secured good jobs. Then, attended the Mckinsey resume writing workshop which also helped a lot. I had also looked up the Mckinsey website for tips on resume writing. After doing all the homework, drafted a resume on my own and passed it on to a trusted senior who suggested changes. After making changes, passed it on to at least 4-5 seniors who also suggested changes. So, finally, after getting it reviewed by several experienced persons, drafted the final version.Frankly, I attended very few (only 3) PPTs. Only those which I was serious about. I do admit that going to a PPT does give you a good idea of what the job is going to be like and will help you choose between two jobs. However, I also believe that missing a PPT does not actually blind you and you can easily ask people around you about the details of the PPT which actually gives you enough information for the time being.Resume shortlisting close to 80 people were shortlisted.First interview (25 minutes) close to 40 were shortlisted. Second interview (10-15 mins) 20 were recruited.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: This was always going to be easy for me I presumed, and it actually was. Frankly, since I have good communication skills and PR skills, I only had to look up certain standard questions which my seniors sent me by email. However, eventually, the HR part I handled on the spot.
Tips: First prepare your answers to certain questions which you think you will be asked. Then get your friend/senior to ask you those plus any other questions he thinks are relevant and take feedback from him after the session.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I looked up a lot of PDFs (available on institution servers), of which I would say the most useful was Kellogg_casepack2001_CASES. The others were also pretty good, like the Harvard one, but the best thing about the Kellogg casepack was the way they presented the solutions.
Tips: The best way to do case studies is in pairs. Pick you partner, pick some case studies which each will ask the other on that day (say 3-4 per day or more). The person who is going to play the interviewer should read the case well and come prepared before presenting it to the interviewee.

Round: Puzzle Interview
Experience: I only looked up puzzles at the end of the first day, after losing out on Mckinsey. Googled for a lot of puzzlesall night and prepared as much as I could.

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: I was pretty good at that already. So, left it to myself.
Tips: Obviously should be done in groups of 5-8.

Skill Tips: Dress well. It matters a lot. Especially for these big Ibanks and consults. Of course, what you do in the interview matters, but looking good will always add to the overall effect. Do not overlook this. It is better to wear a suit for the ibanks and consultancies. For the rest, formal shirt, tie would do.
College Name: IIT BOMBAY

General Tips: I recently interviewed with Goldman Sachs, and had 4 rounds of interview with them at their campus in Bangalore.
Skills: Algorithm, Data structure
College Name: na