How to prepare for summer 2018 internship recruiting season

Thanks!

BIWS, create a stock pitch, practice ib interview questions, mock interviews, and network. That's what I'm doing and I'm in the same boat as you.

Wow. You are really early, but that's great. I would think it's going to be very hard, if not impossible to get a finance internship as a Freshman, unless you are connected. There are a few opportunities in special programs as a Sophomore, but the big one is your Junior year internship. For prep, I'd generally read the Vault guide and/or the Wall Street Oasis guides. Joining a Finance club and taking finance courses as soon as possible will also help. I'd also go to the events on campus and talk to people who are recruiting. Get cards from them, thank them for any advice they gave you, and reach out periodically to let them know what you're doing.

Yes, take this time to network and meet as many people as you can.

Eh I'm kinda on the fence about putting "excel and powerpoint" on there. That really is way too broad and just about anyone can learn it. Put something financial modeling related instead if it is applicable to you and you have some experience with it.

I'll be at Cornell next year, let's ball up.

Also resume looks solid.

Bump, anything else I should edit/change/fix?

One last bump, there's gotta be other comments on it

Unless you can tell me what my favorite Excel shortcut does, whether it be a simple Alt EST or a curveball Ctrl tilde, I would not put Excel on your resume. Same for PowerPoint.

LinkedIn doesn't matter get rid of it.

Make the font Times New Roman. This is Wall St, not Madison Ave. Fit in.

Make the font smaller. Print this thing out and you'll be amazed how huge the text is.

Add another bullet point under each thing to extend this all.

The best advice is to start over and don't use a template.

Also, you have a hyphen in one date and an en dash in another.

Do all of that, just bump the beers and listening to Views up on your list and you're fine.

Beginning to network? Bud, you need to start NOW. If you start in the summer, you're already a step behind.

You're on the right track. I'd agree with Sil that it never hurts to begin networking earlier. However, I'd recommend you nail the important interview questions/guides before your initial calls with network contacts. This means you need to have your story/life pitch perfected and within 60-90 seconds, know how to build a DCF, and memorize basic accounting questions (e.g. depreciation flowing through the three financial statements). Those "5-10 minute chats" can easily become 5-10 minute technical sessions and you'll want to be prepared.

Also, TLOP > Views.

Try to work on continuing to "rise", "rising" is key... Maybe one day you can add "Rising Incoming Investment Banking Analyst" to your linked in

Only thing I'll add is to expand your networking efforts beyond BBs if you truly want to do IB.

Ha. I would like to see you actually "complete" all of those WSP courses.

Go outside?

Five steps to a good summer:

1.) Eat oysters and lobster 2.) Drink seasonal beers 3.) Fuck shit up 4.) ??? 5.) Profit

Just one tiny tweak:

-Interning at a boutique P/E firm -Completing WSP courses (Excel, Financial Statement, DCF, LBO, and M&A Modeling) -Beginning to Network -Studying interview questions/answers -Drink 100 beers for every WSP course completed, networking lunch attended, and interview question studied

Insofar as networking goes, I'd develop a system. I found it helpful to have a spreadsheet with contacts for 4-5 people in every firm I wanted to meet someone - go to linked in, figure out names, put into proper format, etc. Then start cold emailing people until you've spoken to at least a couple of people in each target company.

Also, I'll second SECFinance in expanding beyond BB. This has been a tough year for BBs... people are getting fired, bonuses came in low, C-suite keep talking about downsizing in media... I'm not saying BBs aren't good places, but simply that they aren't what they used to be, and are closer to a dying breed than rising enterprises. I don't want to make this into a rant about the BB-or-Bust mentality - just giving you honest advice: when you pull a couple of 100s in a row, patting yourself in the back for being in a BB won't feel all that great if you're working on bad deal flow (like a few people I know).

During my junior summer, I set up networking calls as much as possible. You should get on setting those up now. I also scheduled out reading the Rosenbaum & Pearl book twice during my summer, that definitely helped.

Also, TLOP > Views

You need to chill out. Don't spend your summers inside on Excel learning lbo models which you'll learn on the job anyway. Go have some fun. By all means try and meet some people in the industry over beers or coffee, but your list sounds like an awful way to do summer. Stop worrying so much.

I'm in the same boat as you - except I don't have any IBD internship experience.

If you haven't already I would suggest volunteering for your local CFA chapter society. Whether or not you're interested in completing the CFA, it's a great experience for volunteering and I feel as if not enough students do this. I've volunteered at numerous events and I've had great success with expanding my network in all industries (HF/PE/IBD/ S&T etc.) and building relationships that will hopefully offer some sort of a return in the long run.