What I Learned From Recruiting for SA 27 EB IB and MF

Hey everyone!

Now that 2027 summer recruiting wrapped up, I wanted to spend some time to reflect on my journey and write a comprehensive post on what I've learned to help others avoid common pitfalls and navigate the process more effectively. Luckily, I landed offers that I'm really grateful for, but the road wasn't always smooth. I'll break this post down to 3 parts that broadly encompass the recruiting cycle: work experience, networking, and interview prep.

1) Work Experience 

Fundamentally, I think the best prep for recruiting is building a solid understanding of what investment banking, private equity, and related finance roles really entail. That means looking for early exposure to businesses and learning how finance professionals actually think about companies. Typical freshman year internships might include working at a search fund, in corporate dev, or at a boutique investment bank.

From my experience, working with a search fund is particularly valuable because it really forces you to think critically about evaluating companies and perform real diligence - skills that IMO are fairly directly transferable. That said, if you're at a target school with a decent GPA, don't stress too hard about prestige in your early internships. Instead, you should really prioritize experiences that genuinely help you understand business fundamentals and strategic thinking - in general I think if you're at a target with a decent GPA, your lack of prestigious work experiences isn't what is going to hold you back at all. In my PE interviews, I would actually use a lot of the logic/reasoning in terms of how to think about business that I learned working with a search funder.

For HFs, the things they look for are really a bit different -  a lot of them don't even look for prior experience in finance (maybe w exception of Citadel which seems to be very focused on you having done quite a lot of hardcore pitches. The opposite would be DESCO which has like summer analysts that have hardly done much in finance). With that said, HF positions are few and far between, and as good of seats as they are, don't optimize for them because you can really luck out of the process. Banking and PE interviews are generally far more standardized.

2) Networking

Okay first let me put it out there that everybody sucks at the first call. It genuinely sucked for me. Networking can feel overwhelming in general, but I think there are some straightforward steps to make it more manageable. 

First, be deliberate about your geographical focus. Most banks only let you recruit for one office, whether that's SF, Houston, or NYC, so decide early and strategically (e.g., if you want to do tech it likely makes sense to target SF) and I would say don't waste too much time talking to like 3 analysts in both the SF and NY office (they typically run separate processes).

Second, when reaching out to bankers, keep emails short and to the point (no need to tell them your love for banking/finance, just mention maybe something in common and then jump to asking them politely for their time). If you're from a target school, alumni usually respond pretty well, provided your message is authentic and doesn't come off as overly formal/desperate. Remember, bankers are honestly only like 2-3 years older than you and often just want a casual conversation to break up their day; they're not expecting you to impress them dramatically.

Think of networking conversations as meeting a friendly senior rather than going to a job interview and that your goal is to make an actual connection by discussing common interests, clubs, or even minor personal details e.g. same hometown/highschool/ethnicity. This was something that I definitely got wrong at the start - I always expected myself to really try to use the opportunity to impress them but that was completely the wrong approach. If you're from a target, and have had a couple finance internships, you're good - no need to flex the work you've done at all/how knowledgeable you are. Just be personable and stay curious.

In these conversations, try keep a semi casual but excited tone, show curiosity without sounding like you’re reading off a script. Networking is all about being likable and showing enough interest that they'll actually remember your name in a good light. Also, they usually won't drill you on technical questions - if they do, no biggy but depending on when you actually network (esp as you do it closer to the interviews) they might start asking some technicals. I had this once done by PJT… but not a typical situation in my opinion.

3) Interview Prep

I would say that interview prep needs the most structured approach. First, it really is a very manageable work load even as someone coming from a STEM background with no prior coursework in finance. You should break it down just like how the various prep resources guides do it (in terms of like core sections to understand).

For technical prep, I recommend thoroughly studying the five breaking Into WSO guides. Work through all the questions by yourself and really understand the underlying concepts well. Many people say that you need to know the guides like the back of your hand but I don't even think that’s the case. I think my technicals are definitely on the stronger side but even I would not know every single bit - there are some obscure parts in terms of what would get tested on (e.g., DTLs/finance leases for example, but if you do apply to like say Qatalyst for example be prepared to answer these haha), but your understanding should be robust enough to confidently talk about the topics and apply them off the rip during interviews.

At the beginning, you'll probably struggle to work through the problems and think that there’s no end to covering everything-  then you'll realize slowly that it’s actually quite manageable - just make sure to start early (I know this will go in one ear and out the other for most people but ACTUALLY start early. For all the current freshman out there, start NOW) with at least two months of like consistent reading and practice (treat it like a class) and your brain will slowly soak it all up and you'll be a technicals legend by no time.

The next step is understanding the concepts is not enough - I REALLY RECOMMEND PRACTICING. This may be the single most important aspect because we've all had that moment where we understand what's going on in the class but walk into the exam and are like what was that? The best way to do well in interviews is to literally have seen similar questions beforehand. We aren't geniuses doing crazy things out here, we're simply applying rules and observations to similar situations that we've seen before so PRACTICE. 

I think there's a couple steps to this, one is doing all the problems in the various prep resources guide (not only the 400, but the ones that are specific to each topic too), then what worked best for me was doing two things: reading through my recruiting club’s question bank.

I’m part of the recruiting club on campus and we have tons of learning materials, but they’re all pretty disconnected and thrown together ad hoc in our drive. I found it a lot more helpful to actually read through the old questions our alum put into our tracker, but even that didn’t really have that many up to date questions. 

If you’ve already gone through your club’s question bank, or if your club doesn’t have one, I really recommend using online prep platforms instead to test the limits of your understanding well before your interviews. They're a lot more comprehensive and have questions from a bunch of different target schools. They're sorted by bank specific questions that have been asked in past rounds and seem to be updated fairly frequently (e.g., I did my EVR super day and had like half of the questions repeated that I saw on the platform) - hate the game not the player. Some of the technicals in here are extremely hard, so I'd say that once you have these down, you are totally good to go - stop focusing on technicals and work on telling your story and being personable.

Lastly, be sure to carefully track recruiting timelines. There are a lot of expensive tracking services out there but they’re not really necessary. Instead, use free alternatives like the Bristol Tracker that are literally just as good. Staying organized with timelines and deadlines is critical since early applicants usually have a significant advantage (I’d recommend at minimum applying day-of applications opening for every bank). 

Hopefully this post is helpful for everyone - would appreciate a banana if it has been useful!

For transparency, I'm a non diversity candidate at a target that ultimately landed offers at MF PE, BB and EB IB. Saying this only to establish a bit of credibility and say that it honestly seemed to have worked out in my favor and that reflecting on my journey I think these are the largest factors/ways I would have approached it if I had hindsight.

Good luck with everyone that is still recruiting and hopefully this post can be helpful for all future recruiting classes! If anyone needs any help, I now have more time on my hands so feel free to drop a comment and I'll try to be helpful in anyway and DM you.

TLDR:

1. Don't stress too much, just find applicable experiences that teach you about finance

2. Stay personable rather than trying to impress all the time

3. Study WSO guides thoroughly, use your club’s question bank for firm specific interview questions, and use recruiting trackers to keep up to date with apps.