Effective way to "ramp-up" for summer internship (IBD) in London

Joining a BB this summer in their IBD division. 

We've been given our desk preferences and some of them seem very tough to me (as a non-finance student, more engineering for me). 

I want to ask people who have done summers how best to prepare ahead of them. 

We've been given training videos on accounting, excel, powerpoint etc. but I'm more curious about how to join the desk with a basic understanding of the desk and the macro environment. 

I have a list of items I thought best to cover ahead of the start date:

but I wanted to know if there is anything more urgent / more useful to cover aside from what I have mentioned above. 

Thank you all and all the best to those doing internships / starting grad roles / interviewing for next summer! :)

8 Comments
 
Most Helpful

From the experience of my own ib internships (not bb tho) -  knowledge about macro environment and the market does not matter much. No one will ask about your opinion on the market or the strategy for a deal you are supporting on. Ofc have basic knowledge about what is going on in the world rn, and what large deals have been happening in the sector you are working in. You can learn this in a few hours research.

For the internship focus on attention to detail in regards to PPT and Excel formatting, as you will mostly work on Ptiches/CIMs and simple excel tasks. Know how to conduct and present research effectively - so yes, knowing how to navigate Factset etc. will be helpful. For valuation, you will probably do CCAs and CTAs most of the time, so know how to use the transaction and company filters in factset to select fitting peers. Honestly, this is the main work I had to do during my internship. I assume that's more or less similar across the street.

 

How did you find competing with the Europeans?

+

Am I cooked if I’ve never touched PowerPoint?

 

I second the above.

You’ll likely be a PPT monkey depending on the group, may sound stupid but in the week before your internship start I recommend finding a deck online (eg Qatalyst Autonomy) and replicating some slides yourself to get up to speed with your own QAT and understand PPTs small details. I wish I did that, would’ve saved me plenty of time over the summer.

Another random but goated point I heard from a friend. Get yourself a Logitech MX3, it’ll probably be the most accretive acquisition ever (£70 purchase price for a £70k salary, basically 1000x MOIC). Just hope the Europeans don’t read this so you can mog them with the horizontal scroll.

 

Intern in IB - Gen

I second the above.

You’ll likely be a PPT monkey depending on the group, may sound stupid but in the week before your internship start I recommend finding a deck online (eg Qatalyst Autonomy) and replicating some slides yourself to get up to speed with your own QAT and understand PPTs small details. I wish I did that, would’ve saved me plenty of time over the summer.

Another random but goated point I heard from a friend. Get yourself a Logitech MX3, it’ll probably be the most accretive acquisition ever (£70 purchase price for a £70k salary, basically 1000x MOIC). Just hope the Europeans don’t read this so you can mog them with the horizontal scroll.

What gestures would you recommend on the MX3 in terms of configuration?

 

No way your allowed to download the software that enables extended functionality 

 

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