Everything I Wish I knew About Sophomore IB Recruiting (Q&A)

Glad to hear it was helpful and wish you the best of luck with recruiting!

I actually lateralled after half a year of my analyst stint, rather than during my SA. I'm assuming you're asking about how to FT recruit during your SA experience. It's best to start reaching out to people halfway through your internship as that allows you to craft your story of having properly experienced your current group but you want a different experience. This recruiting moves extremely fast - usually by week 8 of the internship, groups know who is not getting return offers, hence new spots open up. If you've been actively networking with that group for the past few weeks, you should be on their radar. Of course, sending out emails comes with risk, but vast majority of interns still do it as it's the only way. My FT recruiting experience was much more in-depth and typically you will talk to most of the team, so this entails more interviews overall as well as more interviews with senior leadership. Be prepared for a model test - I had a 90 minute 3-statement dcf but it was relatively simple.

Do not rush but ease back into understanding what is happening. Also you are going to GS worst case you strike out and you can join a lower BB

First of all Merry Christmas and congrats on getting the internship offer. I agree that getting the return offer is extremely important and rerecruiting is very difficult and nothing is guaranteed because of your brand name (but certainly helps).

Re my above post, that is specifically for sophomore recruiting, so maintaining a 3.7 GPA and knowing your techs wouldn't actually make a difference in getting your return offer. I would highly recommend doing a powerpoint and excel course a few months before your job to be fluent with those functions as that's what's going to help you most on the job. Also, doing some research (maybe sell-side reports or just general google research) on the group you're joining will give you a big leg up on your peers. Let's say you're joining Industrials, it'll be good to dive into each of the subverticals and understand what companies are in that universe.

When reviewing intern feedback over the summer, we divided each intern based off of fit and performance (think performance is much more important). The reality is that the most tedious grunt work goes to the interns - as long as they maintain a good attitude, strive to work hard, and don't make the same mistake 3 times, they're probably safe to get a return offer. 

I've seen 2 ways people didn't get a return offer before (at least in my group): First, a person is smart, but it's obvious they do not like the work and their attitude or lack of communication in later hours gives them away. Second, the team can sense the person isn't super bright, and it shows from them making mistakes many times.

One thing I'd note is that your team can read the interns extremely well - they know immediately if a specific intern is bright or not and able to handle the work because they were also in their shoes once. Take this as it will, but it will be hard to hide things over the summer. 

Anyways, the fact that you're reaching out in advice ahead of your internship already shows you're a motivated and proactive individual, so I have confidence that you'll do well in your internship. Also, statistically speaking, most groups have a 80%+ return offer rate so you're in good hands.

That’s completely fair but ultimately I feel like it doesn’t hurt to send multiple follow ups as a sophomore. Maybe it was a rare case but I got a very important chat on my third follow up which allowed me to get my 1st round at Citi (it was my only chat with them at the time) so 3 follow ups has stook with me as advice I give others.

Oh grow up you sad sack of shit. We all got to where we are because someone decided to help us. Whether that be a family member or a random analyst that had some extra time waiting for comments. There's literally no need to gatekeep this industry, help the kids out and get on a call with them. If you don't want to be helpful after the call, that's different. Worst case, if you're deadset on not taking a call, take 30 seconds out of your day to email them back and at least give them closure by letting them know you will not be getting on a call with them. 

Yeah for sure - I started the lateral process 3 months into my stint because my original group lacked deal flow and at that time I was prioritizing deal flow to try to get into PE. I had 4-5 really warm contacts that I knew would let me know if a position opened up in their group which is how I got the first round interview. These warm contacts is by far the most important thing for lateralling since a lot of processes are informal. Many lateral positions are not actually posted online but by word of mouth so having connections or building them is essential to get your foot in the door for the process. Once you get the first round, then it's up to you to grind on your off time all the technicals related to the specific group you're trying to join. Technicals will be quite a bit harder than sophomore recruiting and there will be model tests, so this will be a leg up from what you're used to. Happy to elaborate further if you have any specific questions.

Yes for sure - my experience at both firms were quite different. At one firm, the staffer of that group decided who we would give interviews to, so for any chats we enjoyed, we would forward an email to that guy. I'm assuming if he sees multiple referrals, he ends up sending out first rounds to those individuals. Believe everyone I referred ended up getting first rounds.

At my second firm, as part of the recruiting team, we kept a spreadsheet across the group and actually ranked chats. So depending on quantity and quality, first round interviews were handed out. The one advice I'd give is that quantity doesn't matter at all if their scores were low, hence why 3 great chats will always be better than 10 bad / non-memorable ones. One other thing is that each person in their group has their own reputation, so if someone with a good reputation refers you, that holds a ton of weight. Hope this helps and happy holidays!

I would err on the side of caution and say 3.86. For context, HR gets your transcript after you get the offer, so the analysts will not know what’s true besides what’s on your resume. By no means is this advice to lie about anything on your resume but rounding is completely safe.

Hey! Yeah, I went to a target school, and a lot of the bulge bracket banks ran recruitment processes specifically for our school. For example, Citi gave us 12 first-round interviews and ended up making 4 offers. Barclays did something similar, offering around 4 spots for our cycle as well. Non-target recruiting is more scattered and less structured. I remember back then, Wells Fargo had a separate process for non-target schools after their super day for target schools, but that could be totally different now.

From my experience, non-target recruiting tends to be less organized, and some banks might group those candidates into their own category. There are definitely opportunities, but to stand out, non-target candidates usually need to have a more impressive resume or background compared to their target school peers - like answering tougher technical questions or showing a stronger overall profile.

Personally, I wouldn’t say one route is necessarily harder than the other, even though that’s often a common belief. At my school, over 300 students were actively recruiting for investment banking, so the competition was intense. I’ve heard that semi-target students sometimes have it easier because it’s less common for students from those schools to pursue IB, so they end up getting more attention from alumni and recruiters.

Yeah hirevuesare honestly awkward for almost everyone, so if it felt unnatural that’s totally normal. The people who seem really smooth usually just have more reps talking on camera or have done public speaking, etc. Biggest thing that helped me was practicing answers out loud and recording myself, then watching it back. Then I'd ask myself if I was an analyst and I saw that video would I have confidence in them to move them to the next stage. If the answer is no (which it almost always is) I'd keep practicing responses until I was confident.

Small details matter more than you think too. Put your camera at eye level so it looks like you’re making eye contact, have decent lighting and a clean background, and try to sound relaxed instead of robotic. I also think a lot of hirevues are at least partially screened by ai, so clarity, confidence, smiling a bit, and not sounding monotone actually help. Just have to practice a ton but it will pay off since your competitors are generally tackling these cold.

Could you please send over the questions you got? Thank you!

Could you also share with me pls?

First of all congrats! It really depends on the firm, but the general advice is pretty consistent across IB interviews. 

For behaviorals, make sure you fully prep the core questions you’ll always get. Have a very tight “tell me about yourself” that’s linear and makes sense from start to finish. What you studied, what you were interested in, what you did in college, your experience, and why that leads you to being here today. That story needs to be automatic. 

Also, have a strong why IB and why this firm, and prep 4 - 5 solid stories you can flex for basically any behavioral. It would be beneficial to briefly think through markets / miscellaneous questions just in case they come up such as walk me through a deal, pitch me a stock, impact of AI, opinions on the market / rates, and how all of these things impacts on IB. There's usually one or two of these that might pop up for interviewers that like to stray away from just asking generic behaviorals and techs.

On technicals, be very solid on accounting, ev/equity value, and valuation, and have general familiarity with LBO and M&A. MM firms usually aren’t insane, but if you get a common technical wrong that'd be bad. I'd still say be comfortable with the easier paper lbos and merger math questions, these have been coming up more frequently than you'd think.

Practice everything out loud like it’s a real interview. Mock with classmates, friends, anyone. Confidence matters a lot. If you're not confident in your answers, even if you get everything "right", you still might get screwed.

Hmm, I don't think you're screwed necessarily but definitely behind. One thing that actually might help you is hirevues. When I was interviewing, there were way less hirevues per bank, so it almost always came down solely to GPA and networking but it seems that if you can nail the hirevue you still have a chance (but still tough without any chats at the bank). 

I'd still recommend hammering out networking emails even though apps have opened up and see if you get any hits. You can also mention in these chats that you have already applied. If offers have already been given out, then it's pointless but it's definitely not too late right now since first rounds are still being handed out. 

This is actually something I recommend to a lot of my students. I know a handful of people from college who delayed their graduation or recruited again and ended up with an offer or a better offer.

The logic is pretty simple. You don’t officially change your graduation date upfront. You recruit as if you’re graduating later, basically positioning yourself as a sophomore or earlier junior. If you end up getting an offer, you can then go to your school and formally push your graduation back. If you don’t get an offer, you just graduate on time like you originally planned. So it’s kind of a win-win since you’re not actually risking anything by doing this.

As for the chats, yes, not getting enough of them is definitely not ideal. That said, recruiting has shifted a bit and with more hirevues, chats aren’t quite as make-or-break as they used to be. They’re still very important though, especially for getting your foot in the door. At this point, I’d go full force on networking while also tightening up technicals and your story. It’s tedious, but it does move the needle.

Being an engineering major honestly doesn’t hurt you as much as people think. Banks take students from a wide range of majors. At the end of the day they care that you’re smart, motivated, and genuinely interested. If you have relevant finance internship experience and can clearly explain why IB, you’re in a perfectly reasonable spot.

100% would recommend trying again in junior year as it doesn't hurt. Lateralling after junior summer is super luck based - for example, you'll be pressured all summer to try and get on something live but if you don't, that kind of lowers your chances by a lot. Also, the full time recruiting process is just so unstructured and requires a ton of personal connections. Rerecruiting junior year for a better firm is definitely the best bet because now you have an incoming IB analyst on your resume which will boost your chances.

One thing you'll face for sure is demotivation to go as hard in your junior year because you have something already lined up. People without an offer tend to work way harder than without, so they fall into the trap of having it in their back pocket and not going all in. Just wanted to give a heads up that this is going to happen and want to prepare you mentally ahead of time.

I also went to a target where your entire grade's finance students recruited for IB so getting replies from alumni was so difficult. At these schools, the unfortunate fact is you have to put in a ton more work on the networking front to secure those few first rounds for your school, but the interview process imo is easier than non-target students.

Hey! Hmm, this is a tough position, but you may have to start taking the longer route where you talk to non-alumni and ask them to refer you to alumni from your school. Since, it's more of a semi-target, most of the non BB banks (and maybe some BB banks) probably will still put you in the generalist pool rather than school specific, so does not hurt at all to talk to non alumni.

You probably are already doing this, but make sure to send 2-3 follow ups to all of the alumni you reached out to - think follow up emails still give a good chance to reach these folks. And more general advice is to try and hone in hard on your warm contacts (people you're close to) and try and leverage those people as much as possible. 

Look for similarities between yourself and the people you're reaching out to, like same sports, high school, hometown, hobby, etc and put that connection in your subject line to get people to open your email. The networking game is rly tough but what differentiates you is how hard you go in sending emails and your existing warm contacts. Know most of this advice is pretty generalized but hope it's hopeful in any way. Let me know if you have any follow up questions based on this and good luck!