Thoughts and tips on how to speak like an investment banker.

I have networked with a bunch of investment bankers via phone call and coffee chats and asked some of them this question. Many of them( junior analysts) told me there is basically not such a thing. People speak in different ways.

Do people in investment banks have some common way of delivering their speeches or just way of speaking? Like most commonly used phrases or words.

Like when do you hear a person speak and come up with “oh god this dude must work in finance or investment banks?” Or just how you observe your MDs and VPs are speaking?

Feel it important in breaking into further career paths in IBD, probs not junior life.

33 Comments
 

holy fuck dude, first things first - you might want to start spelling out full works instead of typing out comments on a keyboard with the same syntax that my +65 y/o dad uses to text. so probably want to filter out all the "u"s and "cuz"s and maybe capitalize those "I"s every once in a while....

 

If someone asks me this shit i am instantly going to ding that person

 
Most Helpful

I am a mentor and a VP on the buyside, I have a large number of investment bankers in my network, some of them my mentees. 

The harsh truth is that you are asking the wrong question.

You can only speak like a good investment banker if you are a good investment banker. Or you are very good at acting - but that doesn't get you very far if you are not a good investment banker. 

If there are terms/phrases/jargons that you don't understand, find someone who will be nice enough to explain that concept to you. 

Beyond that, general public speaking skills apply - speak with clearly, logically, and with confidence. 

I would also advise you to stop asking this question on a networking call as it gives the impression that you are looking for shortcuts.

Instead, ask them what they wished they knew on their first day?

 

give a bunch of random guidance on what you want, then as other people opine, start changing your ideas a bit (very quickly), but use a lot of "I think we could add this" or "might be interesting if we did this type of analysis, but Im not sure, could be a little too rich, what do you think Jim, hmmm, actually thats tough".

then say something like  "you guys got this all written down right and tracking what we need to do, pretty clear right? yeah..ok I have to drop..."

this is elite banker speaking (srs)

 
[Comment removed by mod team]
 

Seldom on this forum do you see someone with as little chance of ever becoming an investment banker as OP


OP: any person you have asked this question to would have immediately written you off. The fact you can’t understand / didn’t foresee this is a major issue

 

Just talk like you have 10M in bank account and you’re so busy getting on a flight to meet with a CEO about a 3-billion-dollar transaction.

Like this: “Excuse me, I have to interrupt you because I don’t have the 15 seconds to hear your full sentence, because I’m catching a flight to meet with that new hot start-up CEO and discuss the multi-billion deal”

 

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