Private Equity interview preparation

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100

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83

Firms

40

Updated

September 2026

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All firmsAdvent International6Apollo Global Management6Audax Group6Carlyle Group6EQT6Silver Lake6Vista Equity Partners6WPWarburg Pincus6HIH.I.G. Capital5Oaktree Capital Management5Platinum Equity5TPTPG5General Atlantic4AMAres Management3Blackstone3Clayton Dubilier and Rice3GSGuggenheim Securities3Insight Partners3Invesco3Lazard3Neuberger Berman3NUNuveen3TSTruist Securities3Bain Capital2HWHarris Williams2Kohlberg Kravis Roberts2Millennium Management2Moody's2Rothschild & Co2WBWilliam Blair2Bessemer Venture Partners1Citi1Evercore1FTFranklin Templeton1Houlihan Lokey1HPS Investment Partners1KKR1Mizuho1MSMorgan Stanley1Sycamore Partners1

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All topicsLBO mechanics7Value creation5Returns2Fund economics9Investment judgement18Valuation6Firm knowledge2Credit and financing9Operations4Due diligence8Career and fit11Sector knowledge4Accounting2Deal structuring7Industry knowledge3Brainteasers3

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1. 080Would you have done the deal you worked on, at that price?Career and fitHardsuperdayEvercoreInvestment Banking · Menlo Park · 2025EQTLeveraged Buyouts · Germany · 2018

   Say this

   Take a position. The question is whether you form independent views or just execute instructions, so the worst answer is that the client decided and it was not your place to have an opinion.

   Then walk it

   1. State your view in the first sentence: yes at that price, no at that price, or yes but only with a different structure.
   2. Then the reason in investment terms: what you would have needed to believe, and whether you believed it. 'At 14 times against peers at 11, the buyer needed the full synergy case to land, and I thought the revenue synergies were aspirational' is a real answer.
   3. Then the specific thing that would have changed your mind, which shows the view is considered rather than reflexive.
   4. Acknowledge what you could not see: the buyer had diligence you did not, and there may have been strategic reasons outside the model. That is accuracy, not hedging, as long as you still commit to a view.
   5. If you would have done it, say what you liked and what you would have watched during the hold. A positive answer needs as much substance as a negative one.
   6. The framing that works: answer as though you had to defend it to an investment committee, because that is exactly the skill being assessed.

   Where candidates lose it

   Deferring to the client's judgement. Bankers moving to the buy side fail on this constantly, and it is the single clearest signal of whether someone thinks like a principal or an adviser. Have a view on every deal on your resume.

   Expect next

   • What price would you have paid?
   • What would have made you walk?
   • Which of our portfolio companies would you not have bought?

   Reported by candidates at Evercore (Investment Banking, Menlo Park, 2025); EQT (Leveraged Buyouts, Germany, 2018). Source: Wall Street Oasis.

Firm tags come from public, anonymous candidate reports on Wall Street Oasis: strong signal, not sworn testimony. Firms are named as the places a question was reported, not as partners of Fin Maverick. Answers are written for this page to show how to think out loud; they are not scripts to recite.