Writing Sample

A boutique investment bank is asking for a 5 page writing sample - on any subject (for analyst position). Does anyone have gone through this experience and maybe on what type of topic they are looking for / interested in reading?

Thanks a bunch

 

Try to send them a paper that you have wrote for one of your non-business courses to show you as a competent writer, but also someone that can write about more than the markets. If the sample is something outside of their field of expertise they will be more interested to skim through it, and will be less likely to really scrutinize any of the points that you try to make. I'm sure throughout your U Grad experience you've written some solid papers - use one of those - edit it, punch it up, make sure it is better than when you submitted it for class and send it over with a quick few sentence overview on the topic. They are not really that concerned about the content as much as seeing whether you can deliver a coherent and well-written paper that makes a point and does it well. Good luck.

 

It can be general rather than financial. Go ahead and take something you wrote for school, the polish it up if you can.

My other advice is, to be honest, not to spend a ton of time/energy on this. Shaw takes pride in their rejection rate.

 

I was asked for a writing sample once and submitted a piece from a friend as I wasn't and still am not the greatest writer. I got a 2nd round but I wonder if that would have came back to bite me in the ass had I received an offer...

 

It doesn't sound like you're going to be writing any public materials on their letterhead. More likely they just want to make sure you're familiar with basic punctuation and can write a client email without disgracing yourself and the firm. It doesn't take more than a few sentences to distinguish good writing from bad, I would keep it short.

My humble opinion.

 

I ended up just using a couple pages of a report I wrote. Hopefully that will work and I'll end up getting something out of it! Thanks for the advice!

make it hard to spot the general by working like a soldier
 

I'm coming in late on this, but for future reference - I suggest writing a short piece (1-2 pages) of analysis of a recent public deal, setting out the rationale, sources and uses of funding, valuation benchmarks, analysis on whether you think it was a good deal.

Those who can, do. Those who can't, post threads about how to do it on WSO.
 

Definitely keep it finance or economics related.

Why can't you just phone your interviewer and ask for some clarification on what exactly they'd like to see, and then let him know what you've got.

I had to send in a writing sample for my ER position, granted it's just SA and not FT they were ok with an economics paper.

 

I sent a writing sample from an Economics class to 2 boutique ibd shops when they asked me. Got to the next round for both. It wasn't very technical and had no graphs or appendices at the end. They're probably just looking for writing quality. If the model is really impressive though, then I could see that being helpful on the margin. I don't think they are going to ding you for sending them a finance related paper. It would probably be a plus.

 

That was what I was thinking. It's a case write-up with a merger model that I worked on for a class. Do you think it would be ok for me to email the contact person and ask the person if it would be ok to do so? The contact person my school provides is actually a Sr. Associate from the firm. The thing is that I don't want to bother the person with such a question for the application process.

 

Unless I'm missing something, I don't know why you would ask if a finance paper with a model attached counts. As long as the writing is good, I don't see the problem. It sounds like it's somewhat open ended and that your paper fits within the guidelines.

 

Unless I'm missing something, I don't know why you would ask if a finance paper with a model attached counts. As long as the writing is good, I don't see the problem. It sounds like it's somewhat open ended and that your paper fits within the guidelines.

 

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