I'm talking from knowing absolutely nothing about finance, to being able to pass BB/EB superdays.
I guess you can break this down into (1) how many months it took. (2) how many hours in total (roughly).
Don't BS either. Unless you identify as Oprah Cherokee Winfrey on a wheelchair, nobody gets through PJT superdays without spending a sizeable chunk of time on technicals.
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Think where you're missing the point is 'memorize' - you need to understand technicals not just parrot off a couple of phrases and buzz words.
Came from a completely non finance background, did basically no prep apart from half reading an IB textbook and was fine at interview. Watched some lectures in basic accounting/finance before actually starting as an analyst and that was really helpful too.
Ew it’s not letting me edit out the first paragraph, sorry I misread your post, my bad
4 weeks to go over the entire BIWS course - from basic accounting to LBO (prolly spent 1-2 hours a day)
Took about another 2-3 weeks to go over the technicals (400 question bank) down. Not memorizing them. Understanding.
1 week of like 70 hours to go from basic (know a DCF, valuation methods, basic accounting) to very advanced (killed an EB interview)
What would you say you did in order to get up to scratch for an EB interview? Going through the in depth BIWS guides or something more?
Spent time going through BIWS and the WSP 400q guide. I then spent the remaining time going through questions that had already been asked last year at EBs (most helpful) and mocking with bankers/upperclassmen. I've found the previous questions to be the most helpful. You can get them from online, friends, upperclassmen, WSO database.
Would like to know as well your course of action/how you split that 70 hours up.
See above
As a super nontarget polisci major way back when, I went the long route and took the free MIT courses in finance before even buying my first IB guide (due to monetary constraints). I really think those free lectures and ppts were actually really useful as they helped solidify my fundamental understanding of corpfin. After I hit my first IB interview guide, it took me probably 2-3 months to be fully comfortable with all the different questions I was expected to know and having taught myself the core concepts certainly helped.
80 hours to get the guide memorized
80 hours to intuitively understand it
40 hours to be able to answer any question not out of the guide
40 hours rehearsing in front of my laptop camera
You should intuitively understand it BEFORE you memorize it, so it’s not even really memorizing it’s just critical thinking at that point, that was my mistake. I wish I started earlier, I struck out in my one interview at an EB but fortunately secured a mid tier BB offer two weeks later.
Would definitely recommend memorizing cold a few questions you will be asked like walk me through a DCF, walk me from revenue to UFCF, walk me through an LBO, what are the main drivers of an LBO etc but you should be able to do DCF LBO single step accounting questions from your own knowledge base in your brain if that makes sense. Know the why behind every question (why do we unlever/lever beta, why do we multiply by 1-the tax rate etc), don’t just know the formula for cost of equity, know what it actually means . Before my BB interview, I personally highlighted everything I was even slightly unclear about in the guides, did more research on each of those concepts (investopedia and WSO are good resources), and got the point where I knew the why behind the why behind the why for each concept.
Definitely wish I had started earlier on technicals, technicals are just a check the box deal (but you should be able to articulate them beautifully), behavioral and fit questions are arguably more important. Also maybe I’m a nerd but I highly recommend Aswath Damodarans stuff online, he has a ton of free courses and content and his website is great. It’ll not only give you an edge in understanding the concepts, it’s super fun to dive deeper into valuation and approach it from a more academic side.
In college, I was involved in some finance clubs where I learn a thing or two over just by being there. There were some weekly 1 hour trainings from the club as well. No finance major
One day I decided to crack the guide. It took me about 15 hours to understand technicals. 2 hours per guide. I didn’t read the questions. Just the contents. I did pretty well in super days
I feel like my undergrad courses helped me understand at least the valuation and accounting technicals pretty well. I probably studied roughly 5 hours for LBO / M&A modeling
I’m more than 5 yrs into my finance career and there are still technicals I couldn’t answer
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