1st Yr Banking Analyst Open for Questions

SA recruiting -- you could say that interviewers won't expect as much because you're younger and because it's just a 10 week deal and if they don't like you, they can find someone else to take your spot. FT recruiting tends to be more serious and has a lot fewer spots. Disclaimer: As mentioned below -- anything is fair game on your resume, so if you went to Wharton or Stern et al or you said you did a lot of finance stuff, you should be prepared to answer finance/acctg questions related to the work that you have done.

A lot of programs tend to fill a big portion of their class in the summer, while some will get rid of many of their summers and plan to get a good number from FT. You should start prepping for FT recruiting during the summer, and use your summer internship (if you have one) to start that prep by going over your finance and your accounting, knowing your resume, knowing your story, etc. I'd say SA and FT recruiting are pretty similar (main difference is that FT is more finance-intensive and there are fewer spots) -- but to give yourself a good shot at any standard IBD generalist role -- you need to make sure you have some understanding of the following:

1) Everything that you wrote on your resume

You need to be able to talk to anything you wrote or did -- people can and will ask about anything and it's totally fair game -- it's easy to get caught here, so spend the extra time and make sure you've got everything down to where you could summarize the experience in a couple interesting sentences (or more if its related to finance / banking and something that the interviewer might test you on, like what a DCF is if you said you created a DCF analysis with WACC sensitivities or something!). Particularly, being able to talk about previous finance experiences well and how they fit into why you want to do investment banking for 2 years -- that's 104+ weeks -- that's 730 days -- will be very helpful to making the case for why the firm should hire you.

2) Finance and accounting

To be safe (never hurts to be overprepared) you should know the basics / high-level of how a DCF / MM / LBO work and what the point of them is -- as I mentioned earlier in this thread.

You should know how the 3 financials statements flow together. IS = Revenue - Expenses = Net Income. Net income gets adjusted for non-cash items on the income statement and cash-related items on the balance sheet in Cash Flow from Operations. CFO + CF from Investing + CF from Financing = Change in Cash. This change will be reflected in on the balance sheet in the Cash (!) Account. There are other ways the 3 statements connect -- Net Income also connects to the balance sheet via the retained earnings account (Change in Retained Earnings from period 1 to 2 (on 2 side-by-side balance sheets) = Net Income - Dividends Paid). The list goes on and on. Depreciation is an expense on the income statement, gets added back to get to CFO in the indirect method, and affects PPE. (Change in PPE = Capex - Depreciation)

I would also make sure you know your ratios (Interest Coverage Ratio, Days Payable, Return on Equity, etc -- there are a lot -- and how to calculate them). Sometimes you'll get technical questions that can be easily solved if you know these.

Understanding the difference between levered and unlevered cash flows is important. Unlevered FCF go to everyone that owns a piece of the firm. Levered FCF go to everyone that holds equity.

The list goes on and on -- I'd get a couple of the guides (WSO, Vault, etc), and study with friends so you make sure you're not missing anything and that you can speak to this stuff while keeping your cool. In general, chances are, even if you know this stuff down cold, you will probably get an interviewer will ask you something you've never thought of. Key is to ask questions, and if all else fails, say you don't know and would have to look it up. Pretending to know the answer to something and being wrong is bad -- people can usually pick this up, and especially in FT where the firm is making a hiring decision for 2 years on faith, it's generally very not smart to try to pull a fast one or something.

3) Fit

Probably as important as anything else in the interview. Be yourself. Act normal. See if you can generate a rapport with your interviewers. Also, ask good questions and find out if they are people with whom you'd want to work, and if the firm seems like a place you'd thrive. The people you work with in banking will absolutely determine your experience -- and 2 years is a long time. So be relaxed, be yourself, and try to find people you fit with. If you are really strong on #1 and #2, and you spend serious time thinking about #3 with respect to the interviews you'll have, you'll give yourself at ending up in a great program where you'll work hard and learn a lot and enjoy the people around you. In banking, that's the good scenario.

With respect to networking, make a game plan as early as possible (even now), and map out the next couple of months. Who have you met so far? What do you need to do to decide what type of bank is best for you? If you're going to be in New York, who do you want to meet up with when you're free? Where do you want to apply? The list of questions goes on -- but they all make sense.