Hello all. Inspired by another user's idea a few weeks ago, I've decided to keep notes of my internship in progress this summer and begin to release write-ups of each week as the summer goes on in an effort to give back to the community (and because I enjoy writing). If there is enough interest, I'll continue the series.
IBD Internship Orientation Day
Monday morning arrived in the blink of an eye. Instructions were received ahead of time from HR concerning the logistics of orientation day: what to bring, when to arrive, and how to dress. Several of us met in front of the dorm building bright and early, well ahead of our scheduled arrival times, and set out to meet our makers. Orientation is a no-brainer.
- You come in, meet the HR people coordinating the summer analyst program
- Put on a name tag with your group and/or school listed
- Go through any clearance procedures that need doing if your bank didn't have you do them in advance
- Receive free company stuff and your ID badge
- Meet the other interns
- Listen to bankers deliver motivational and cautionary advice about the experience that lies ahead.
How To Avoid Common Internship Pitfalls
Training week is a relatively straightforward beast and should be treated as such. There are some common pitfalls that you will witness.
- Homework: Your homework or preassigned training by HR may or may not be requested; either way, it’s good to start your summer strong by coming in ready to go, fresh on common finance and accounting material, with all of your bases covered.
- Introductions: Now is a good time to shoot your staffers and assigned mentors an e-mail to introduce yourself if you haven’t already.
- Training: The training itself is marginally useful, but it is important to remember that academic settings (even those coordinated by investment banks themselves!) are not entirely reflective of what you’ll actually be doing once you hit the floor. You will get out of the material what you put in; sit in the first few rows, keep yourself energized, and focus on the instructor. Unfortunately, most of us are not wired to be able to sit through hours and hours of lecturing a day and absorb all of the information efficiently.
Internship Training Week
Monday
- 8:30am: Check-in with HR and have breakfast
- 10:30am: IBD group head welcomes the intern class
- 11:30am: HR summer analyst program managers introduce themselves
- 12:00pm: Lunch break
- 1:00pm: Lectures concerning compliance, expectations, summer logistics
- 4:30pm: Break out into summer groups and meet with intern sponsors
- 5:00pm: Welcome reception
Internship survival tip: Orientation day is all about introductions and first impressions. Your HR program managers will be in attendance, and you should take a few seconds to shake their hands. Equally important is taking the time to meet the other interns around you. I've heard several bankers’ accounts of how they still make it a point to meet up with their intern class colleagues to this day. Make it a point to remember everyone’s name. Not because they’re going to remember yours, but because it elevates you in their eyes when you recount theirs effortlessly at a later date, almost as if they now owe you something as they fumble around their minds’ innermost recesses for a remote clue as to your identity.
Tuesday
- 8:00am: Macroeconomics
- Internship survival tip: The first presentation was an overview of the markets. Your role as an investment banking analyst will not have much to do with the markets. However, you should be keeping up with the headlines. Your role is simply this: know how to get information quickly, compile and present it neatly, defend every last minute and irreverent detail with sources to boot, and get shit done when everything around you is falling apart.
- 10:00am: Technology and IT resources
- Internship survival tip: The presentations on workplace technology, IT support, and the resources at your disposal are arguably the most important knowledge dispensed to you and your peers. Make note of any intern accounts and passwords mentioned, which resource to use in a given scenario, and how to get support for them. Each firm is different, but with all the penny-pinching going around, it’s a good idea to perk your head up a couple centimeters to know when you can and can’t have a book printed and bound or when it’s okay to charge equity research to a cost center. Or where to even get equity research. Or any research for that matter.
- 11:00am: Accounting and financial statement analysis
- Internship survival tip: You should definitely pay attention when accounting and financial statement analysis is covered, but don’t get flustered if and when you zone out. A lot of relevant information is covered, and you’ll probably go back through your training materials during the summer as needed anyway.
- 12:30pm: Lunch
- 1:30pm: Accounting and financial statement analysis continued
- 4:00pm: Financial statement analysis application and examples
- 6:00pm: Accounting and financial statement analysis homework assigned
- Internship survival tip: Homework, or extra practice, is assigned throughout the course and/or at the end of each day. This is your opportunity to begin absorbing these concepts through trial and error. Bankers are there to answer questions and provide tips. My experience from this showed me that often times there is dispute over how to handle certain situations pending on the group. This means that your group specific training will be infinitely more effective once you hit the desk.
Wednesday
- 8:00am: Homework review
- 9:00am: Financial modeling
- Internship survival tip: The financial modeling and valuation portions are important primarily as an introduction to the neurotic banker use of Excel. Listening to the walk through of a DCF and accretion/dilution analysis is marginally useful at best because you won’t learn these until you actually do them yourself. The key takeaways from these lectures are the Excel setup and shortcuts.
- 12:00pm: Lunch break
- 1:00pm: Investment banking analyst position
- 1:30pm: Group positions, responsibilities, and hierarchy
- 2:00pm: Introduction to valuation
- 4:00pm: Trading comparables
- Internship survival tip: The least interesting and most necessary training segments revolve around trading comparables and pitchbook formatting. Listen and take notes as the instructor walks you through spreading comps. There are a few sticking points, including where to locate options and restricted stock (and which to use) as well as adjusting for non-recurring items. Top your work off with a sanity check: literally look at the output and make sure the multiples aren't outrageous without a cause.
- 6:00pm: Modeling homework assigned
Thursday
- 8:00am: Homework review
- 9:00am: DCF
- 12:00pm: Lunch
- 1:00pm: DCF continued
- 4:00pm: Combined application of different valuation methods
- 6:00pm: Valuation homework assigned
Friday
- 8:00am: Homework review
- 9:00am: Equity research
- 10:00am: Research, presentation services, and IB resources
- 12:00pm: Lunch
- 1:00pm: Pitchbooks
- Internship survival tip: Pitchbook formatting is also important. As an intern, you are usually given a few slides to work on and in charge of turning the comments and mark-ups provided by senior bankers. There isn't much you can do to practice: the key takeaways are attention to detail and as many formatting tricks as you can take away from the lesson.
- 4:00pm: Closing
This concludes the simplest week of an investment banking summer internship. Thanks for reading and feel free to ask questions.
The very talented author of this post, moneymogul, is also the author of our updated Finance Internship Guide. Want to read more of his stories? Order the guide now for 80 pages of extremely detailed day-by-day reports from an actual bulge bracket investment banking intern.
Read More About Internships On WSO
- Have You Ever Seen An Intern Quit Early?
- Unpaid Internships: Yes Or No?
- Tips For Getting An Internship In Investment Banking As A Freshman
Throwback Thursday, this was originally posted in 2013
Somewhat different to London.
It's normally: Class > networking > drinking > drinking.
This varies by the training provider. We never had any homework and a lot of time was spent on the fundamental accounting stuff as the class make up was diverse. Macroeconomics? Never.
As a tip, if you think you that you'll struggle to get a lot away from the week considering it isn't enough time to learn how to tie your shoe laces, hit up a first year analyst, find out which provider they use* and ask if you can get access to their work from last year just to go through. I remember some guys just were not getting it during training which slowed it down for everyone else. I didn't really care but you get the obvious asshole who thinks it will cost him an FT offer because we didnt go into detail on the DCF. We spent about 2 hours on a DCF valuation in total and this poor bastard thought he would be disadvantaged because he loved TMT and this could hurt his return offer.
The training week should be one of the most chilled out weeks during the summer before the shit hits the fan. Get to know people in your class and network like a human with business reps during these informal BBQs/dinners, instead of plotting to take over the bank.
*Normally you will receive an email about prework and registering so you should know your training provider.