How to prepare for a buy-side internship
Phew. Finals are over! “School’s Out” by Alice Waters is blaring from some room down the hall whose occupant thinks he’s way funnier than he actually is. Isn’t he an English major? Whatever, you’ve got more important things to worry about, like your upcoming summer internship!
Whether you mastered your technical interview skills with the WSO Prep Guide, or you’re Lloyd Blankfien’s illegitimate love child, you managed to get an internship this summer with a prestigious investment management firm. Now you just have to kick back and wait for day numero uno to get here, right?
Child, please. If you want to be the best you’ve got to prepare like the best.
And that leads us to an interesting question: What is the best way to prepare for a buy-side internship?
Without outside learning most undergraduate students are woefully ill-equipped for buy-side internships. But most employers recognize this and will recommend some outside reading. For example, to prepare for my upcoming internship with a technical analysis heavy fund I was sent some books the PM liked and thought would help me hit the ground running.
But not all PM’s are created equal, so what should those unlucky individuals left to prepare on their own do?
Well, even though you probably already did this before your interview, it bears repeating: understand the firm’s strategy to the best of your ability. From here it will be easier to find information that will prepare you for your specific fund.
For specific examples of books, I turn it over to you guys. What books/other resources would you recommend to aspiring monkey’s to prepare for a buy-side internship?
read Buffett's shareholder letters
http://www.hedgefundletters.com/
[quote=RainEllington]http://www.hedgefundletters.com/[/quote]
Thanks for the link.
helpful links: //www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/will-buy-side-internships-help-to-get-into-sell-side-or-backfire
//www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/the-difference-between-buy-side-and-sell…
OP, no need to be so cute... save it for Huffington Post
haha, yeah man
Alice Cooper, not Alice Waters
valuation by mckinsey
YO, Alice Waters? come on, she wrote about organic food and stuff. Alice COOPER sang angry horror rock.
Any way, check out www.quewey.com - they seem to have a nice user base of senior PE professionals answering questions about stuff (I think they might be friends with the founding team)
Yeah, rookie mistake calling Alice Cooper Alice Waters.
ALICE COOPER hahahahha what a chuckle that just gave me.
ER buy-side internship, no clue what i'm doing (Originally Posted: 06/27/2008)
i'm currently a rising junior at a non-target. It looks like I'll begin a ER internship, and basically the guy asked if I know how to look at a balance sheet, income statement, etc, do some financial modeling (i'm not sure why he asked since its ER), npv, irr, and stuff like that. I didn't lie, as I did take some intro classes, so that's exactly what I said. I told him I am familiar with them somewhat since I took some courses.
Is there a website or any books that I can cram or have like a crash course session w/ a textbook that you guys recommend? I'm really nervous that when given these tasks, I wouldn't know where to start.
Although I'm no expert in this area (I'm sure there are others on this board who can provide a deeper insight into this), check out Damodaran's website. You can google this and his name should pop out.
As to why he asked those questions to you, financial modeling is part of ER -- I did a small ER internship as well.
Check out that site. Hope that helps.
though damodaran is good, it'll be a bit tough to comprehend if you don't fundamentally understand how to interpret financial statements. WallStreetPrep has a great book that you should find helpful - it'll only set you back $30 and covers a ton of relevant accounting topics in a very straightforward manner.
I actually purchased the Accounting crasher book. It has some great stuff that are easy to comprehend. I would also recommend for you to google, "baruch college guide to financial statements"
Hope this helps. Goodluck and congrats!
I agree with Mlamb. The yellow WSP accounting refresher is helpful. SCOOP books Guide to Investment Banking is also helpful but expensive ($100). Go to your library and get a financial statement analysis book. Financial modeling is used in ER by the way to update earnings and operating trends.
One of my favorites is Analysis for Financial Management by Higgins. It was a textbook for one of my finance classes and I loved it. It covers a ton of the basics, goes over most of the major ideas (npv, irr, cost of capital, all the important ratios, etc). Easy to read presents things clearly and logically. Good pick up.
I have heard of scoopbooks, but have never personally gone over the guide. When compared to the vault guide, is it more helpful? would you recommend going over scoopbook instead of the vault guide? is it worth purchasing?
Thanks.
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