How to Avoid Cramming for a Goldman Superday Deal Discussion

February 09, 2025

The Non-Target Playbook 

By Jack Kolb

There’s one advanced interview question Goldman doesn’t bother asking until the final round.

Even the top candidates struggle because nailing it takes lots of research and knowing how to properly use banker lingo.

When they ask you for your opinion on a deal they’ve closed in the past month, simply memorizing key metrics and tossing in a few buzzwords isn’t going to cut it.

My sophomore year, I came up with a system to continuously add fresh deals to my arsenal that I could use in interviews.

The last thing you want to do is cram and have to research a bunch of deals right before the interview.

Here were the five main steps of that system.

As president of my school’s academy, I taught dozens of kids how to use it so they could standout from the crowd during their superdays.

Step 1 - Subscribe to 2 Daily Newsletters

When I was a starry eyed freshman asking upperclassmen how to break into banking, they all told me to “start reading the news….”

I wish they would’ve been more specific because I was overwhelmed and had absolutely no clue where to start diving in.

No banker will expect you to read the Wall Street Journal cover to cover every morning. Most of it is irrelevant and won’t help you out in interviews anyway.

There were two daily newsletters I subscribed to that give you only the relevant info in bite size pieces.

I got in the habit of skimming both every morning which would take a total of about five minutes.

Newsletter 1 - Fortune’s Term Sheet (https://fortune.com/newsletter/termsheet/)

Term Sheet will start out with a quick piece of industry insight like a news story or expert interview.

I’d usually just skip over that and go right to the bottom where they have seven sections titled

  • VENTURE DEALS

  • PRIVATE EQUITY

  • EXITS

  • OTHER

  • IPOS

  • FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS

  • PEOPLE

For banking interview deal discussions, focus on the “PRIVATE EQUITY” and “EXITS” sections.

I wrote down one that naturally interested me every day in the notes sheet of my phone.

Mine were typically something like this.

Newsletter 2 - Transacted (https://transacted.io/signup/)

This one is basically a carbon copy of the previous newsletter.

Most deals will overlap, but sometimes one will have some that the other won’t.

You can go straight to the section titled “DEALS, DEALS, DEALS”.

I did the same thing here and would capture one deal that caught my eye like the two below.

Step 2 - Research Key Details

Every Sunday, I went to that notes sheet and picked two deals to add to my “log”.

The log was just a word doc that had the following details filled out for each deal.

  • Purchase Price: Dollar amount, Valuation multiple, Premium paid

  • Financing: Percent mix cash / stock / debt, Names of lenders

  • Advisors: Lead investment bank on buy side and sell side

  • Dates: Both announcement and closing

  • Rationale: Motivation for both buyer and seller

  • Background: Recent performance of each company

  • Deal Context: Anything unusual with the negotiations / agreement?

Every deal has a press release on the PR NEWSWIRE website.

The “Transaction Details” section of that press release is where you search for this info.

Step 3 - Dig For Company Specific Deals

You should have three or four “general” deals like those above ready for every superday.

Anything older than two months isn’t recent enough.

You ALSO need to prepare two or three recent “company specific” deals.

These are ones the bank you’re interviewing at was the primary advisor for.

To filter by bank, you can go to each of their websites pull up their “tombstones” like the one below.

Here are links to few of those closed transaction pages.

Knowing details of a few of these also gives good talking points for networking calls.

For superdays, I always tried to steer clear of picking deals in the industries my interviewers were in.

They’ll know those deals inside out and are more likely to grill you on the details.

Step 4 - Outline Your Answers

In the superday, they may ask the question in many different forms.

  • “Tell me about a recent deal that interested you or that you’ve been following…”

  • “Can you run me through a recent M&A deal we advised on?”

  • “Talk about an M&A deal that interested you recently and whether or not you think it was a good one…”

It seems open ended, but they expect a rehearsed two or three minute answer with all the important details and a well-supported opinion.

The opinion piece is about whether you think it will be beneficial for both parties in the long term.

For me, figuring out how to organize my answer and logically flow from one point to the next was the hardest part.

This Mergers & Inquisitions article has a couple great examples of how to lay it out.

A month before superdays started, I went to back into my log and my picked three favorites.

I then outlined discussion points on a piece of paper for each of them before starting to rehearse.

Step 5 - Get Feedback

I was doing two or three mock interviews with upperclassmen my second semester sophomore year.

Since you’re almost guaranteed to get asked this question in a real interview, make sure you refine it during mocks.

If you have an interview coming up at a particular bank, try to mock with upperclassmen that interned at that firm.

They’ll have more insight on the individuals that might’ve worked on that deal or similar deals, which gives you a significant advantage over every other kid interviewing.

Cheers 🥂

- Jack