Investment Banking Intern Preparation

hi all.

I’m starting my first investment banking internship this summer at an elite boutique in London and wanted to ask for advice on how best to prepare beforehand.

I’ve been working on improving my Excel, PowerPoint and general technical knowledge, but since this will be my first internship in banking, I’m not fully sure what day2day expectations are like or what skills actually end up mattering most once you start.

Would appreciate any advice on:

  • what interns are generally expected to know coming in
  • what skills are most important to be comfortable with before day one
  • how technical the work tends to get
  • whether modelling practice beforehand is worthwhile
  • any resources/courses people found genuinely useful
  • general tips for performing well as a summer intern

Also interested to hear anything people wish they had known before starting.

Thanks.

12 Comments
 

Am I right in saying we won’t even be building the slides from scratch? Best practice is to use old pitches/CIMs and copy formatting from there?

 

Thank you so much for the thought behind your message - super appreciated. One thing I’ve seen a lot is that interns are responsible for lots of research and finding items for analysts. How can I prepare for this - I’ve heard it’s commonly done on Bloomberg but it’s unfortunately not accessible to me or is it just general web surfing 

 

Congrats, getting an IB offer at an EB in this day and age is extremely difficult. I know this post is primarily you asking us for help, but would you care to mention how you get the internship to begin with? Strong grades at a target + interview performance?

 

you just answered your own question you mug. Yeah you apply like everyone else, get screened and do well on interviews

 

Thank you! I go to a target with strong grades. First gen student and applied with two weak springs no internships, luckily got screened for interviews and made sure to take up the oppurtunity with open hands and banged out for the interview and AC

 
Most Helpful

Get familiar with terms in your sector and workstreams. You need to do a lot of context switching, tedious admin work etc.

Become super speedy with Windows 11, Excel, PPT etc. and also maybe before you join, set up some systems so you can manage your time better and keep track of things. One thing that was tripping me up in my SA was not being efficient with dead-time and losing track of deliverables


Use this prompt in Claude 
 

 "I'm an incoming AN1 at Evercore IBD in London. I want to hit the ground running from day 1 with lightweight systems that improve execution without over-engineering.

Build me a practical guide covering:

  1. Deliverable QC checklist — what to check before sending any deck or model
  2. Excel setup — Quick Access Toolbar configuration, key shortcuts, and formatting defaults worth standardising
  3. Folder and file naming conventions — best practice for deal files, model versions, and deck drafts
  4. Outlook setup — rules, flags, and inbox structure for high-volume IBD email
  5. Teams habits — notification management and response norms
  6. Master deck structure — what to build early as a running reference for your coverage sectors
  7. Daily/weekly workflow rhythm — end of day note, task tracking, context-switching under interruption

Keep everything lightweight. The goal is 80% of the benefit with 20% of the setup time. I'm an AN1 so I don't control my time — the systems need to work around interruption, not assume focus blocks."

 

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