I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Compass Lexecon (New York, NY) in Feb 2014
Interview
First round behavioral phone interview. Expect questions about resume and past experiences.
Second round in NYC office. First hour was a capital budgeting question involving DCF calculations. Given data on bond ratings, wacc, market data etc. Second hour was an essay question on a recent court case in the financial industry. You have access to internet, excel, and word. After lunch, was asked to defend my case recommendation. Demanded very thorough understanding of corporate finance. Important to keep calm under pressure and admit fault if you make a mistake.
Overall it was a pretty intense experience. The people were nice -- no one was particularly passionate about their work. The workload sometimes seemed a bit crazy. Quiet office.
The work you'd be doing as an analyst seems largely dependent on what the VP or senior analyst want you to do. Not so much room for ownership, but you can definitely have autonomy in your day-to-day.
Compass hires by practice group. The IA team is based in NY, Houston, Latin America, and London.
I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Compass Lexecon (New York, NY) in Feb 2022
Interview
1st stage - phone screening
2nd stage - case interview (1 hour) + behavioral interview (45 mins)
In the case interview, I was shown two graphs and asked to interpret them. Knowledge of stocks and investments will help you at this stage. The interviewers also aid you along the way if you are finding difficulty coming up with a concrete answer. The behavioral component had regular questions relating to your resume. Be prepared to speak about a time when you used data or a time that you worked on a research task.
Third stage is apparently with another senior exec. Not sure if I will progress to that stage yet or not!
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Interpret graphs. What is the efficient market hypothesis. Try and estimate the damage value to investors who were affected by fraud. Resume and past experience related questions.
I applied through other source. I interviewed at Compass Lexecon (Washington, DC)
Interview
It was a behavioral interview followed by a case interview which you have to develop a DCF in a hypothetical scenario. A senior person (usually a vice president) will then go over the case and your thought process while doing the DCF. They are mostly interested in your thought process rather than if you got everything right.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What is the beta of a stock?
What are your hobbies?
What is the function of an interest rate?
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Compass Lexecon (Houston, TX) in July 2015
Interview
First round was phone screen with HR then phone call with a vice president. Then they flew me for their final round consisting of case study, interview, and essay. Interview questions where purely behavioral following STAR format.
Essay was a recent article about a probable merger and their antitrust issues, i was to determine if consumers would actually be affected by the merge of this two companies and explain how this would affect the current prices of the companies.
Case study involving capital budgeting questions, Quants and Econ. Pretty straightforward nothing tricky. Was asked to calculate profitability index, IRR,Chebyshev inequality, covariance, Herfindahl-Hirschman index calculations and explanation.
As for the interview itself, purely behavioral questions. Was also asked about a recent project Compass was involved in.
They threw technical questions in the interview section all of them involving statistics. Such as explain Skewness and Kurtosis.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a time you had to think out of the box. Tell me about a recent project Compass Lexecon has worked in. Tell me about a recent research project you have worked in.