Laughed at —> Top BB
Recruiting kicked my butt this year, so I want to share my story for all those who start recruiting late. I’ve got a decent GPA (3.7+) in finance/econ from a non-target that has enough kids aiming for banking to have a banking club on campus.
My background
Last November I heard about investment banking for the very first time, and near January I decided to shoot for it despite knowing that I had barely any internship experience + that it’s one of the most competitive jobs to get in the world + that I was far behind most target kids who start college knowing they want to work in investment banking. I have ZERO family members in the finance world (they’re all plumbers for the most part) so I had no connections previous to this year. I also had almost no internship experience at all, much less finance-related experience. I had never written a resume so even that was hard.
I joined the banking club right when recruiting season was kicking off and I didn’t let anything stop me. I started answering technicals on day 1 despite not knowing how to answer them, and everyone laughed at me when I got them wrong. I started reading everything that I could, then less than a month later I paid to fly out to New York to network. I had no idea how to network - I didn’t even have my “story” figured out. I barely knew how to describe investment banking + I was looking for an internship for summer 2020 ON TOP of recruiting for my junior year summer. It was a lot to balance, to say the least.
Networking paid off
I reached out to anyone and everyone, and I spoke with ~30 people on my trip just by using sheer willpower. I was unprepared and most of them brushed me off when we met. Even alumni were rude to me, which was something I didn’t expect. I understand that your job isn’t to help every unprepared kid who comes your way, but honestly, some people were ruthless for no reason. I found a couple of mentors on this trip who have stayed good friends despite all else though. I’m grateful for the few friends I made because I couldn’t have done it without their help.
When I got home I landed a banking internship at a small boutique so I felt like I was on the right path at least. Since that trip to NY I’ve refined myself and my approach. I spent a couple of months practicing everything, coming up with solid answers, and doing whatever it took to succeed. After that I sent out hundreds of cold emails and got on the phone with whoever I could to get my name out there again.
Landed the offer from a top BB
I’ve been through the interview process with 15-20 firms, I had superdays with 9 of them, got 2 offers, and just accepted an internship with a top BB next summer. I finally made it, and it was all worth it.
Thank you WSO for your support + abundance of resources. If I didn’t have access to this website then I’m positive I wouldn’t have made it. Keep your heads up monkeys; the world can be ruthless but you’ll break in if you keep pushing forward.
Don't know where the MS comes from. Congrats and enjoy the ride! Hard work pays off
That was my thought too; takes a special kind of asshat to go out of your way to throw MS for “inaccurate” at some random kid who shared his recruiting experience and thanked the WSO community for their help. Somebody must’ve pissed in their Cheerios that morning 😂
Thanks man! I did 2 interviews --> superdays with random places (top REPE/HF/VC shops) but the rest were major banks that you'd definitely recognize.
My first honest piece of advice would be to create a SICK resume. I got into 3-4 processes by just dropping my resume, but had a hard time converting to superdays because I didn't really have a personal "why XYZ bank?". Your resume will be one of the first things anyone forms their impression from, so it's important to have that locked down so you can be taken seriously.
My second piece of advice would be to just be yourself. I never actually spoke with many senior people -- I can remember one or two directors I spoke with, but the majority of seniors I talked to were in superdays. It probably would've helped me get a job sooner if I had some BSD MD on my side but I knew the risk could outweigh the reward. If I were you then I would definitely make sure you keep the conversations SHORT though (=15 mins) because everyone is busy and long conversations means later nights for them.
For networking, try to be relaxed. Ask about their job + their interests + insight on things, but come off as professional. I got into a top EB process by talking to one guy about basketball but with some other people I could only talk about banking and it was a dry conversation. You need to feel it out -- some people really just want to relax for the 15 minute call you have because they're getting slammed, whereas others just want to screen you to decide if you're worth their time. Sometimes they're really just having a bad day and you're annoying them by taking up time (which you typically can't help).
I always had 5-6 thoughtful questions written down that I could fall back on, but then went with the flow of the conversation by just having a conversation. Started every conversation with small talk, then quickly told them I didn't want to take up too much of their time, said I'd love to share some background and hear about theirs, then asked if I could ask a couple of questions. I think it was really the small talk that decided how well the conversation went/if they felt confident referring me.
Great advice. How do you typically start small talk? Is there a line/topic that you always start with or does it vary scenario to scenario? Can you give an example?
I'd just ask them how their day was going or if they had any cool weekend plans typically. You definitely have to feel it out. Sometimes when they told me their story they'd mention they worked with a sports marketing company or that they started out studying computer science or something. If they said something that sounded really cool then I'd ask them more questions about their background, kept it really light.
The person I talked to about the NBA played basketball in college or something, so I asked who his favorite team was and it flowed from there. The LAST thing an analyst wants is for you to grill them on how to land an internship at their firm. You need to figure out certain things from the conversation, like what Evercore wants in an analyst or what the culture is like at RBC, but you need to ask the questions in a typical conversational way without it being an interrogation.
Interviews were different though, for the record. In interviews you need to come off as conversational but realize that you very much need to come off as more professional.
Am i the only one that draws parallels to the UK and realises this is impossible here?
Took you less than a year to get a job on Wall Street and change the course of your life together.
US WSO is ridiculous
Networking does not work, so if you are not in the right schools (targets or semi-targets) you are shit out of luck since you can't clutch it with networking. And I mean like you can be the valedictorian at a top tier school in your country, if it is not on the HR list you will not pass the first screening (exaggerating a bit but you get the point). Also HR is heavily involved in the process which obviously leads to chaos and shit outcomes for everybody involved because when do they ever add value?
I get the point to try to make it meritocratic and less nepotic with no networking policies, online tests, automatic hireviews, and so on, but people just create burner accounts to cheat on tests and get hireview questions and in the end the rich kids with connections still make it, it just jacks up the volatility for all other candidates (lower correlation between placement and drive/ability) by making you unable to steer the outcome.
Overall it is one giant luckfest for a worse pay and worse exit opportunities. I can't wait to get the fuck out of here (MBA or internal mobility) or die trying.
Thanks! I'd reach out to anyone you have something in common with and hope for the best. I reached out to the small amount of alumni we had in banks, people who played a sport I played in high school, people that were in niche clubs that were similar to what I liked, etc. At one point I even reached out to people who went to college/high school near my hometown, figuring that we'd have something in common. It was VERY hit or miss, but if you send out 100 requests and have a 10% hit rate then that's 10 people who you get on the phone with.
I typically reached out through linkedin because it was just much easier to me. Many bankers say to not do this but honestly I had like a 50% hit rate for people who gladly accepted my messages and let me call them. Even if you only have a 10% chance, that's 10 people out of 100 that you can get on the phone. Given that each Linkedin message is ~300 characters from a "personal note" you learn to be brief, and you can easily send out 20+ messages in an hour after you've selected people to contact.
Thanks! For technicals I read the 400 question guide, the deeper BIWS guides, the WSO guides, I started reading Moyer’s distressed debt + the houlihan lokey RX case (in case I recruited for any RX banks, which was early on), investopedia for financial concepts I needed a better grasp on, and I watched some YouTube videos. I also looked on the WSO company database to find questions that people had reported to make sure I understood how to do everything.
Ironically, I was unprepared for EB interviews early on since they went so early (and they’re known to be extremely technical) and I was over prepared for BB interviews later since they’re highly behavioral.
I’d honestly recommend practicing and reading literally whatever you could. I also used the WSO networking guides and googled other resources on networking properly, along with finding allies early on who helped me understand the proper ways to network.