“I recently had a LinkedIn audit call with Arnau as part of my WSO Academy program, and it was one of the most practical and useful sessions I've had so far. I came in thinking my profile was in decent shape. I left with a clear picture of how recruiters and bankers actually see it, and a concrete list of changes that will make it work much harder for me.
Some background: I'm moving from corporate finance into investment banking, corporate banking, and private equity. I have an MBA in Corporate Finance, a PMP, and several years of finance and project management experience. Making that kind of move depends heavily on how you present your story, and LinkedIn is often the first place a recruiter or analyst sees it. That's why this session mattered so much to me.
From the first few minutes, Arnau was well prepared, direct, and focused on what actually moves the needle. He didn't just give generic tips like "add a professional photo." He went through my profile section by section and explained why each piece matters to someone in finance who's quickly scanning candidates. His feedback was honest without being discouraging, which I really appreciated. He pointed out where my profile was underselling my experience and where it wasn't clearly showing that I'm aiming for banking and PE.
What stood out most was how he helped me think about positioning. My background covers corporate finance, project management, hospitality, and real estate, and it can be hard to make that read as one clear story. Arnau helped me connect those experiences to the skills banks look for: financial analysis, modeling, managing budgets and capital, and working with senior stakeholders. He showed me how small changes to my headline, About section, and experience bullets can make that story obvious within seconds.
The session was also very actionable. I didn't leave with vague ideas. I left with a short list of specific edits I can make right away. That matters a lot when you're job hunting and every week counts. He also shared advice on using LinkedIn more actively, such as engaging with the right people and content, so the profile supports my networking instead of just sitting there.
I also want to recognize the overall WSO Academy experience. Between the modeling bootcamp, the company research work, the mentorship, and sessions like this one, the program has given me structure and support during a career transition that can otherwise feel isolating. This call was a good example of what makes WSO different: the people coaching you understand the industry you're trying to break into and give feedback that reflects how hiring really works.
If you're a WSO member and haven't booked a LinkedIn audit yet, I'd strongly recommend it. It's a short time commitment, and the return is significant. Your LinkedIn profile is often your first impression, and having an experienced set of eyes on it is worth it.
Thank you, Arnau, for your time, honesty, and practical guidance. I'm excited to put the changes in place and keep building toward my goal of breaking into investment banking.”
Daily duties - very group specific and more or less changes everyday
Finance and modeling training - it's more or less your standard Training the Street. You will cover basic Financial Statement Analysis, DCF and Trading / Transaction Comparables. To be frank, it will not be anything groundbreaking but basic blocking and tackling. Use training as an opportunity to network and make friends - this will be helpful during the summer both to have fun and for work. Anything meaningful from a valuation / accounting standpoint will happen on the desk.
Anyone who worked as a SA at a BB in IBD?
You most likely won't get the chance to model anything, unless your group runs extremely lean deal teams
I worked as a SA at a top-tier BB in IBD
lol i like how Beny23 ignored your response
I did not ignore it! I would like to get input from as many people who worked as SAs as possible. Thanks for input evergumptious and jjcannon!
Do the BBs give out some booklets/materials on valuation and modeling? Or is it all online/classes?
Most BBs have a one-week live training session with Training the Street or something similar. Mostly just to bring the liberal arts folks up to speed on accounting / some light valuation work.
As for duties, you'll start out by doing mostly asinine tasks like making PIBs, doing profiles and (once you build a bit of trust) spreading comps. Over time, if you prove yourself worthy and smart, you might get involved in some lighter modeling for some of your projects. At my bank, by the end of the summer, I was staffed as the sole analyst on a live sell-side project while the normal analyst was out-of-town. It involved pretty significant financial modeling and actually talking to the corporate development team at our client. However, I'd say that's exceedingly rare. Regardless, if you prove yourself, you'll get to do some interesting work by the end of the summer.
I worked in two BBs in Europe as SA and got to be in two different >€1bn transactions. You get to do all kind of consensus, industry benchmarking (both timnes I was at an industry team) and trading comps...For specific companies I did the operating models and the full valuation. Mine was a specific situation as by the end of the second internship I had been working a year and a half in the industry and knew more than most first years. Anyway you should expect trading comps, consensus and all kinds of benchmark + doing and sending markups and dependind on the logistics, printing and binding..
UBS has their 2012 SA IBD training slides online . It's not all of it, but enough to give you an idea. I don't have the link on my phone. Try google if not pm me and I can send it when get to computer
Resuming my two interships in a list would go like this:
On the excel side
I suggest you learn as fast as you can to use Factset and Bloomberg on the job. If anything I would try to be as fast as possible in excel, but buying modelling packages looks worthless to me.
Hope that helped
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