How difficult is the interview process for lateraling?
When lateraling and applying to experienced analyst positions, how difficult is the interview process? Would you say it is easier or more difficult than the traditional FT interview process?
Do they hammer you with technicals, or just make sure you are a good fit?
Would appreciate answers from anyone who has lateraled to another bank, and if they lateraled into a similar group or something completely different.
I've been trying to lateral from corporate banking to investment banking this year. With lateral interviews if you're not doing IB already I get a lot of questions around why I want to switch, what I do day to day now, what kind of modelling experience I have, what kind of financial analysis am I doing now, what kind of slides do we prepare/what kind of discussions are we having with clients, walking through deals I've worked on, things like that. In terms of technicals I would say it's similar in difficulty that you would get in regular FT interviews with college kids, but it's different from bank to bank. Sometimes I've had interviews that were extremely technical/difficult and had interviews were they're basically just fit and since I'm already in banking they assume I have a grasp on the concepts. Would just prepare for the normal questions from the 400 question guide (I mean there's only a certain amount of questions you can ask in 30 minutes anyways). I would say more time is spent talking about my current experience and deals I've worked since I have experience compared to college kids where you don't have any full time experience. I would say for industry groups would have a real clear story around why that industry and know the trends of the industry and about companies in that industry (I feel like we discuss that more in lateral interviews compared to when I was in college). I would say the only frustrating thing with interviewing for experienced positions coming from corporate banking is that there's definitely some bankers who don't really know/understand what CB does so they can be pretty skeptical on making the switch from CB to IB especially when they talk about hiring someone that "can hit the ground running and already have sell side experience". It can be a little frustrating since it can be hard to change bankers minds that already have the idea that a CB analyst can't transition to IB easily, even though in my opinion modelling is modelling and putting together pitchbooks is putting together pitchbook whether it's CB or IB the job isn't rocket science
Following up one more thought. I would say the bankers I struggle with the most would be career bankers who have never worked at a balance sheet bank (think bankers from pure sell side shops like HL/Baird/Blair) who don't really have an understanding of corporate banking and working on the financing/debt side since it's something they never really had to deal with. You would be surprised how little some of those guys know about debt/financing considerations if all they ever done is pure sell side work so they usually discount the work I do the most. I get the most traction with bankers who lateralled themselves from outside IB into IB (former corporate/commercial bankers, lawyers, corp finance, etc.) as they understand the most of what I'm trying to do and that the jump isn't impossible or anything
Hey buddy, this is some good info. Thanks for it :)
May I know if you work in a bank where CB sits inside IB? Because I interned at one and have an offer to join them but have been interviewing for full time. In my CB team we did two things 1. Origination for IB product groups 2. Rcf and term loan financing (we also did stuff like cash mgmt, fx etc.. Which I kind of stay clear of when I talk to people in ib about my experience). If this is the case with you too, then the financing deals that you will be doing are much similar to what private credit funds do, but ofc you'll work in senior financing. So you could put forward that part of work and get a hold on what transferable skills you have.
Just my two cents coz I'm getting decent traction and interviews from both balance sheet banks and sell side firms, including the ones you have mentioned. Just my two cents :)
Also may I know if you did try to latéral within your own bank? If yes, how did you go ahead about it and how does networking work in this context. Thanks again :)
This is really good stuff, thanks! I hope you are able to make that transition. I am an incoming analyst in DCM, so I hope that is better respected than CB. It is within IBD, but obviously it is not typical M&A/coverage.
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