Am I asking to be grilled with technicals?

What's going on everyone,

So I'm a sophomore at a non-target that has decent placement on the street. I'm really into IB and hope to intern at a BB for my junior summer (I know I'm unique). My resume lacks solid leadership experience currently and the only thing I have on there is being the treasurer for BBQ club at my school haha.

This next semester I want to get some more serious leadership stints and have several ideas. There's no strictly valuation and modeling club at my school and considering that's what I'm into, I'm really thinking about starting one. My question I guess is this: would having founder and high leadership role of a club all about modeling and valuations just be asking to be killed with technical questions in ib interviews? I've heard stories of people putting way to much Wall Street Prep training courses on there resume and getting absolutely destroyed in interviews. Was wondering if this was kind of similar?

Also, I want to volunteer with some sort of charity or organization that works with kids. I like working with kids anyway and figured I could use it to show leadership as well. Any thoughts on this idea?

Looking for someone whose been through the IB process to help out a little.

Cheers

10 Comments
 
Best Response

From my experience, when I was at a BB and we were combing through resumes, we didn't really put any premium on WSP courses. Yes, some candidates would dedicate 4-5 lines for everything they learned and this could call for a more technical questions, but honestly, you will likely get technical questions anyway during an ib interview which usually involves meeting 10-15 ppl across different levels at each firm.

Here's the way I look at, you will impress them more if you're able to thoughtfully answer technical questions without bragging/claiming to be astute with technicals. It can hurt you more, if you have it listed on your resume and can't answer basic questions that are not verbatim from sort of technical guide. Ppl will be able to pick up on it very quickly.

To conclude, upside is small while the downside is high. Perhaps dedicate a single line at the bottom of your resume that you took WSP, or in your cover letter - not more.

 

It's in the NYC area. Decent placement in the fact that if you want it, you can go out and get it (great location).

I intern right now at a small WM firm in manhattan currently and while I think it's cool, it's definitely just being used to get relevant finance experience.

I've been cold calling and emailing. Haven't done so much BB networking (a few calls) as I should have but have been sending out hundreds of cold emails to boutique/middle market investment banks for the summer. Have a few leads I can follow up on now.

Thanks for the advice, always good to be reminded how much I need to network.

 

perfect, slowly start meeting bankers in person, as that makes the connection that much deeper, dont cold call/email 100s cuz you're in NYC. every month plan on hitting up 20 more people, whether IB/PE/HF/VC/consulting, corp fin... you're a sophomore, explore IF you want to...otherwise gun for 20 guys in IB every time. different banks~diversify your networking portfolio lol

 

^ Just to second what zeroblued said.

Start reaching out to people now. Since you know what you want to do, go after it. I didn't decide that I wanted to be in IB before it was too late for summer internships last year. Now I have been on the phone with 1-2 people everyday for the last 3 months trying to build a network and learn about the industry.

If I had known I wanted to be in this industry a year ago, my network would be larger, more personal, and have taken less work - all while opening up more opportunities that it has. For non-targets, this is the only way we get interviews. (My school places ~5 people into MM IB and ~1 into BB every year. I have spoke with most of them, and none got any interviews where they had not networked.)

 

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