Banking Story
Does it make sense to have part of your “tell me about yourself” point to a certain group? in my case this group is FIG and I kind of lead up to that in my story and it reaches that conclusion. was wondering how this would play out with banks that give out generalist offers but then still do have group placement
Your story may naturally point to FIG, but it's better to speak in broader terms. Don't narrow it down for the "Why IB?" either. If they ask what groups you're interested in, you can mention FIG and a few others.
Thanks for your comment. Let's say i had a freshman internship for an insurance company and sophomore internship for a commercial bank in their treasury department. my issue is how to say these show specific interest in investment banking outside of FIG ... it seems to make more sense saying i liked working within these financial institutions but do want to work in a role in the industry that advisory work for a variety of business rather than internally. Maybe i'm looking at this wrong?
Take those experiences and talk about how they got you interested in the various functions banks provide (strategic advisory and capital raising). Then you can say, I’m by no means an expert at financial institutions but it may be easier to leverage the knowledge from my past internships and focus on learning all the skills of being an analyst if I am in a FIG group.
For your story: talk about how you were interested in finance, which led you to the insurance company freshman year. Then, you worked at a commercial bank, where you further explored that interest.
Your answer to "Why IB" doesn't have to be based on your experiences. However, you could spin that the commercial bank was not as fulfilling because you were doing mostly financial/risk management and didn't feel like you were adding value. In IB, you'd be able to work in a more execution style role, be exposed to the financials of different companies, and make greater impact with the work that you do, blah, blah.
As an undergrad, your decisions for the internships you do aren't as important than if you were already well into your career. Lots of people in your shoes do these internships because that's all they can get, and interviewers know this. I was in a similar position, having two different buyside internships prior to interviewing for IB. It was obvious that I was interested in finance/IB. The only question that I got was why not do PE instead of IB. Nobody is going to ask you "so why didn't you want to pursue a career in insurance instead of IB?"
What was your answer to the question of why not PE?
It was a LMM fund, so the bulk of my time was spent on deal sourcing...I talked about how I didn't enjoy this. There were a few other things. 1. IB gives more live deal execution opportunity. Fewer deals get closed in PE. 2. Sourcing and spending time on portfolio companies isn't something I wanted to do. 3. Many PE funds naturally force you to think with a very specific strategy (i.e. SaaS growth equity investing). I'm not ready at this stage of my career to commit to that. Basically, IB gives more optionality.
I had to be kinda careful with this because I'm looking to exit to PE after banking, didn't want to come across as a 2 years and out guy, even though it can be predicted given my background and the bank I'm headed to.
Only if interviewing for FIG specifically.
During interviews I married myself to healthcare and ended up getting it connected to healthcare people so uh yeah it works out sometimes in this way and you should lead in if you're confident with it.
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