Online Application

For Perella Weinberg, the online application is under the ‘Prep Program’ option on the firm website, with the Women’s and Diversity programmes running in parallel. You will need to make an account for the website, and the online application requires a CV and virtual questions.

Example task

As I applied for one of the 'Women's and Diversity programmes', there were questions surrounding how I have been active regarding other diversity/women’s initiatives in my time at school and university alongside my motivations and reasons for applying to the programme and a career in investment banking. These were around 200-300 words for each question as a limit.

Expect a 3 to 4-week wait before progressing to the next stage.

Phone Interview

The second stage of the application process is a telephone interview with an interviewer from the firm’s external recruiting firm, Dartmouth Partners. This will be between 10-20 minutes and is a form of pre-screening as opposed to an in-depth interview. The interview is casual and brief, with questions being based around your motivations for applying for the programme, your reasons for a career in investment banking and potentially some questions based on your CV. It is overall highly motivational, so be sure to have some good justifications and research done. Do not worry if it is shorter than expected, it has no bearing on whether you go through to the next stage or not.

How to respond for success

Try to stay calm, be succinct but energetic and passionate. Attempt to ask a question at the end (but a good one!). If you can’t think of any interesting ones, don’t. Remember they don’t work at Perella!

Expect a 2 to 4-week wait before progressing to the next stage.

Final Interview

The final interview is much more in-depth than the first and will require much more research. It will likely involve motivational, competency and some technical questions, although not necessarily all of these.

Motivational questions

These are very similar questions to the phone screening and other springs will be asked. Why this firm? Why this programme? Why investment banking? Try to have some good reasoning and unique background answers.

Competency questions

I recall these being similar to the standard ones - EG: give me a time you worked in a team? A time you showed leadership? A time you came back from a failure/mistake? If you have some brief answers and examples prepared for the common ones, you should be fine

Technical Questions

There are two main types : Investment banking knowledge & Mental maths. Mental maths will likely be related to multiplication, division, squares and roots etc. Basic maths but can be tricky to do under pressure and quickly. The investment banking questions are basic context questions regarding processes ie. valuation, acquisition, etc. For example, what are the types of valuation model or what qualities do you look for in an acquisition target? They only expect very simple ideas, so don’t worry too much about these, but have basic knowledge on investment banking processes!

Expect a 3 to 4-day wait before receiving your offer

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