Will I get dinged in IB interviews for being colorblind?

Currently applying for IB internships and afraid I’m going to get dinged for being colorblind. I know that bankers do a lot of formattjng pitch decks in powerpoint and I don’t want to be a poor performer if for example someone tells me to make a text box navy blue as opposed to black.

Should I consider getting eye surgery to better position myself for a summer analyst offer or will they be forgiving of my disability?

21 Comments
 

Whoa, eye surgery may be a bit much. I feel technical understanding, critical thinking, and personability are more important than color vision. Although formatting may be difficult, being a knowledgable and high level candidate should be enough.

But who knows, I don’t have an opinion on whether you could be dinged.

 

The desk I interned has a manger who is colorblind and I don’t think it ever really mattered? He was a manager so he obviously made it through analyst years.

Also when it comes to banking, from what I’ve experienced, banks have standardized RGB codes you’re supposed to use for it to be presentable to a client with the right company hues anyways, so when creating a deck you can always just use the guide the bank provides as a cross check.

 

The colors on excel and powerpoint all have codes, so you should be fine. Also, the paint formatting tool can help you with this problem too.

Btw, getting eye surgery for this seems WAY too much of an overcorrection for something that shouldn't pose too much of an issue if you do get into IB.

 

Solid question, I usually didn't discuss my color blindness and leveraged color codes, eye drop tool, and preset templates (I'd make a color pallet for the PPT, have it in the margins of the Master, and use eye drop tool when making new objects). I think that's actually a "best practices" thing, but when I did it at new firms they seemed very happy I "professionalized" the process (ha!).

Now I just mention it as a joke, like "do you really want a colorblind person making those slide?"

2020 Update: recounting my experiences in PE and sharing thoughts on recent deals at https://leverup.substack.com
 

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made new unrelated account - dont reply or message as i never use it. 
 

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