Hoping to Join School's Investment Banking Club
Hi everyone, I am a freshman (technically sophomore) at UW Madison who hopes to enter the investment banking field. I came in with 40 degree credits, so I will be graduating in three years. Given that UW Madison is not target school for investment banking, I am planning on applying to the Investment Banking Club in order to have an easier route to breaking into the field. When I was following a four year plan, I knew that I would have time to master the technicalities of investment banking because recruitment would be in the spring, but now that I am technically a sophomore, I can apply now. I don't want to fall behind in the process, as it is best to spend three years in the club. With zero interview prep and a limited understanding of the concepts, I feel overwhelmed and unprepared to be ready to submit my application, which is due next week. I was hoping to get some advice on readings to do and good responses to interview questions. I'd really appreciate any input!
Find a pdf of the mergers and inquisitions 400 on google. This will give you 90% of the questions you'd need to answer for a real interview, and you can use the framework to answer the other 10%.
Your first question in any interview is to walk through your story. As a freshman it's pretty hard because you obviously don't have work experience or a GPA yet, so try to craft your story using your best qualities. If you played a sport in high school, had any good extracurriculars, talk about them. You need an answer as to why investment banking too, tie it to your personal experiences even if they are not directly related yet.
Also, probably some other threads on this, but graduating in 3 years really works against you from a non target. It helps to have 2 summers of internships to try to break in, and the extra few years of maturity seems like nothing now but makes a difference. 3.5 years moves you down another recruiting season, worth considering if the extra semester is doable.
Couldn't I just do an internship during the summer of my sophomore year (junior) and then one the following summer? That would be two internship experiences. Also, I looked on another thread about people graduating early and no one talked about it being an impediment to breaking into the industry.
You definitely can, and plenty of people graduate early and are fine. But at this point with early recruiting you're going up against people with 1) 3+ total internships, with freshman summers becoming more important (I didn't do anything freshman summer, but most resumes I see now have freshman internships) 2) Two full years of finance and accounting classes.
It's very possible in 3 years but you already mentioned feeling overwhelmed, just a suggestion to give yourself the best chance.
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