How competitive is it to break into ER vs IB?

See title. I wanna break into ER at a respectable investment bank or a boutique bank. I've been networking like crazy. Have a call next week with a ER Associate at CS and I'm currently exchanging emails with an Executive Directly of ER at CS currently and UBS

Background: EY Strategy and Transactions = 2020 for 7 months. 

Plan for Summer 2022 = EY Strategy and Transactions Internship. 

CUM GPA = 3.20 Non-target (had serious familial issues in 2020 which led to my GPA falling off a cliff) Major GPA 3.70+

I hope to apply for summer 2023 internship that leads to a full-time roll. 

What advice can you give me? 

11 Comments
 

build out the strongest stock pitch you can. It should take you 40 hours of

1) getting familiar with the company

2) getting familiar with the industry

3) understanding current drivers of company performance

4) understanding growth strategy

5) evaluate the effectiveness of the growth strategy

6) find catalysts that will precipitate a change in the stock price over the next 12 months

7) model it out and place a valuation on it

 

Thinking of doing the same for HF. How long should they be for ER and HF? Concerned about balancing between being having a comprehensive analysis but too tedious to read and having a high level analysis but risk missing valuable details.

 

Also one more thing occurred to me. Once i complete the stock pitch, do I send it to one of their analyst? I have some connections in Oppenheimer for example, or do I pitch it in the interview? 

I know a guy who covers healthcare in Oppenheimer, we spoke briefly on the phone and messaged me (via linkedin) "If there is anything that interest you in opco, let me know, i'll see what i can do." 

 

1) congratulations on the strong connection! It will help tremendously

2) I've heard/found it prudent to mention the pitch to the analyst who's putting you through to the hiring managers BEFORE having it examined in an interview setting. Most analysts that I've found are very willing to review the pitch and provide some pointers to improve before sending your resume + pitch along to hiring. It will greatly improve your candidacy and will help develop your relationship with the firm. Additionally, having a completely polished pitch vetted by an professional will go a LONG way in intro calls.

Hope this helps!

 

Network with everyone and anyone who will pick up the phone. Refine your "story", refine your stock pitch. Unfortunately there are far less seats in ER than IB, so contrary to some on this forums belief who are IB over everything, ER is quite competitive to break into. I'd recommend being industry agnostic and try networking and applying at all levels BB/MM/EB/Boutique. In ER the analysts "brand" means far more than the banks name

 

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