I’d always had a hidden desire to work in high finance until it turned into the scapegoat for the economic disaster. So it caught my eye when I read You Think The Google Interview Is Tough? Try Getting A Job At A PE Firm, I couldn’t resist taking a look. In case you don’t know, PE stands for Private Equity, and the people who work in this profession are the new “Masters of the Universe” in terms of international finance. Even as we come out of the economic turmoil of the last few years, investment bankers are still being paid enormous sums for the work that they do. It’s unbelievable.

Want to get in on the act? Be prepared for a nightmare interview. Here’s one of the scenarios you may see:

…the typical interviewee is walked into a little room and told he has two hours to write out the steps necessary in something like an LBO (leveraged buy-out)…once done, the interviewee is taken into a room with one or more men (it is usually men, he says). They ask him to walk them through each step he took and listen while he justifies the reasons behind everything he suggested. If he does well, he is brought into another room where he begins an interview with someone else. The whole process takes at least three hours, he says, they are trying to trip you up the entire time.

This doesn’t sound like my idea of fun, but if you want to eventually make the big money, you have to be prepared to jump through the hoops!

Ever been through an interview like this?

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1. Gradversity Quick Tip #21: Practice For Interviews
2. Job Interviews vs. Informational Interviews
3. JT & Dale Talk Good Cop/Bad Cop Interviews
4. Guest Post: I’ve been through many interviews…
5. Lying During Job Interviews