1. How long have you been here and how did you get here? What's your background? How does Merrill compare to the bank at which you previously worked? 2. How much responsibility am I able to expect in my summer at Merrill? 3. Can you tell me a little bit about the firms training and rotation program? 4. What are some deals your group's worked on recently 5. How has Merrill changed since you joined the firm? 6. What’s youropinion on some of the big-picture trends in the industry right now? For example, Merrill Lynch & Co. has taken a minority stake in the Indian research firm Copal Partners, which specializes in creating what are known as "deal books" for corporate mergers and takeovers. 7. Ralph Cioffi, a senior hedge-fund manager for Wall Street firm Bear Stearns Cos., said that a meltdown in the subprime-mortgage market was "unlikely to occur." In a sign of the market's stability, Merrill Lynch & Co. launched an offering of roughly $1.6 billion of new securities backed by subprime loans. It generated significant investor interest, according to one market participant. 8. Could Sprint Nextel be on Merrill Lynch’s shopping list? It reports on a job move by Victor Nesi, a telecom specialist and investment banking honcho at Merrill. He is going over to the firm’s private-equity investment unit. According to the article, which cites an interview with global private-equity head Nate Thorne, Merrill wants to get more active in big telecom buyouts. 9. Take a look at the stock of Merrill Lynch. It’s down more than 3% in the last five days, amid worries that Mother Merrill has strayed too far from the safe old world of retail brokerage and into the exotic and profitable, but risky, worlds of trading and bankrolling buyouts. investors are nervous that Merrill has exposure to so-called bridge loans that have “gone bad.” Wall Street banks make bridge loans to finance LBOs before bond investors and the like can be brought in to fund them. 8. A week after Merrill Lynch & Co. installed co-presidents, it unveiled a new organizational structure reporting to them. co-presidents Ahmass Fakahany and Greg Fleming said they have "flattened" the brokerage's management structure by having eight executives in the firm's global markets and investment banking group report directly to them. The group is Merrill's largest by revenue and profits. 9. The $27.5 billion leveraged buyout deal for Alltel announced today shows the healthy appetite private-equity firms now have for the telecommunications industry, an area whose volatility once would have scared them off. That has helped stoke speculation of who may be next. Merrill Lynch thinks it could be Avaya. Avaya, which once was part of the AT&T empire, makes Internet telephony gear and other communications equipment for corporations and has a market cap of $6.2 billion. What could make the company attractive to private equity is the stability of its results, as well as its cash flow and improving profit margins, Merrill says. 10. I'm an exceptional candidate, ahead of the curve. Can I get my resume seen before the deluge of thousands of them this fall?