Final intern projects at banks?

Hey everyone,
Curious if any of you had to do a final project during your IB summer internship in NY this year. Which banks actually have them and what do they usually look like? (e.g., M&A pitch, LBO case study, etc.). A quick sentence on what the final project looked like at your bank would be super helpful.

Thanks in advance!

14 Comments
 

Dont really understand the point of this post. Intern project has never impacted whether you get a RO or not. If you are good a shit intern project wont kill you. If you are bad a good intern project wont save you

 
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It definitely has an impact at my bank, though reason why is kind of dumb. They just have a bunch of people sit in on it, and these can sometimes be people who you didn't interact with all summer. Then they leave reviews which I've seen harm interns who were on the margin

Honestly really pisses me off. I helped this one intern who was super nervous prep and asked him what I thought people would ask him based on his company, and at first he didn't know but when I sat in on his final presentation, he did get asked those questions and nailed them. Some anal analyst left him a bad review though because he had a formatting issue which I heard through the grapevine was what ended up tipping him to no offer.

 

Final projects are not the equivalent to a final exam where it is like 50-60% of your grade or more. This is more to give you experience and something to work on over the summer. There is usually a presentation but folks are not looking to pick apart your thesis in these. As long as you are a decent intern and put some effort in, you are fine. 

Most banks have some sort of "propose an M&A deal for XYZ company and build a simple model and pitch deck for it" type of prompt. Some do group projects. Don't get too stressed over this.

 

Final projects are not the equivalent to a final exam where it is like 50-60% of your grade or more. This is more to give you experience and something to work on over the summer. There is usually a presentation but folks are not looking to pick apart your thesis in these, and there's not really a "right answer" for these prompts either. As long as you are a decent intern and put some effort in, you are fine. 

Most banks have some sort of "propose an M&A deal for XYZ company and build a simple model and pitch deck for it" type of prompt. Some do group projects. Don't get too stressed over this.

 

I’d say projects are slowly becoming a thing of the past. Not sure if GS still does them, but I know JPM does though each group has its own spin. In the group I exited, interns were tasked with building a full 30–50 page deck and then ranked against each other based on different criteria like speaking skills, technical ability, deck presentation, thesis quality, and model back-ups. If you were on the back half of the average score, your cut. That project score only counted for about 10% overall, though, and it couldn’t outweigh subpar exam results. Definitely not the best use of time but I know other teams are 5–10 pages and table stakes or 4–5 person groups. Hope that helps.

 

Depending on the bank and group you’re interning with, the significance of the intern project will differ dramatically. Tbh, when you’re getting cranked and you HAVE to work on your intern project too, not only does it take second priority but it becomes a total nuisance; you know you have to work on it, but it feels unnecessary and useless since you have real work to do.

My bank has us do a group project, where each person really only talks for 2-3 min each and prepares a few slides. It was light work, but have heard at other places you prepare a 30 page deck on your own and present before a panel of senior bankers ready to grill you. Nothing you can really prepare for at this point in time though

 

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