How does anyone actually pick a coverage group?

I've been in a product group since I've started banking (like LevFin), and I can't really see the allure to coverage. I'm not sure how someone in college could feel that strongly about a certain industry and sell themselves in an interview, unless they had an internship working in that industry or a family tie or something. I've noticed that in products (M&A, LevFin), the focus is much more on execution as you run the deal process. How is this different than coverage across the banks? Any insight is appreciated.

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In my city, there is a great school concentrated on oil and gas sector, so there are kids graduating from it with intention to do oil and gas industry coverage. Then, you can have folks majoring in chemistry and then doing med coverage. I am myself covering whatever there is to cover (perks of working in an frontier/emerging market).

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Three considerations for me: deal flow, industry growth potential, coworkers. It also helps that coverage runs point on execution, including M&A, at my platform.

 
 
"Analyst 1 in IB - DCM"

Is it typical that coverage runs point on the model at most banks? Do you know which banks will run M&A and the model separately from the coverage team?

Platform-specific. This is something that I would encourage most interviewees to know prior to any informational, technical screen, or super day.

 
 

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