Looking to see if anyone has gathered data on known or personal applications before success to IB?
I am receiving a lot of mixed reviews from people and trying to gather a bit more input. I have heard some people tell me that they must have submitted 300 applications before getting a job, while others suggested they did 10 or less.
I know background points mean a lot, so any details you have to offer are absolutely welcomed
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I did about 130 applications over two recruiting cycles, with 0 networking (Europe). During the first one I only got an interview from an unknown boutique, possibly because my cv and cover letters were not polished enough. I did great in the interview but ended up not accepting the offer. After the second round of applications I got 3 interviews at a EB, BB and MM shops. Received offers from EB/BB so I didn't attend the superday from the MM.
Background: 4/4 GPA from a european target, two internships but no prior experience in IB
@Milton Spritzman
It sounds like you landed your role in IB immediately after graduation, correct?
Nope, I was still a MSc student at the time
I started networking pretty early and got a very good feel for where I wanted to go and most importantly, who wanted me.
Out of 10 applications, 7 invited me to first rounds, I got 3 superdays, and one offer.
Hope this helps
Was this for an internship?
The people applying to 300+ places and only getting interviews late in the process have not networked enough or at all. Not to say you shouldn't apply to every opening you see, but just blind applying everywhere with no networking is equivalent to throwing your resume in a black hole.
If you network heavily, you should have ~5-10 banks where you feel you have people pulling for you, great connections, idea of their recruiting timeline, and maybe another 5-10 where you have some people but not as great connections. Those are by far your most likely. The other 200 applications where you put your resume in but didn't contact anyone are like a 0.1% chance of ever hearing back, given how long all of those applications take your time is better spent getting another 1 or 2 banks onto your strong connections list.
What if you are roughly 4 years graduated from undergrad, started a career in corporate finance and want to make the jump to IB?
From what I read, it is quite the long shot. But I'd rather shoot than think about how I could have for the rest of my life. The networking piece feels pretty difficult from my seat right now. I welcome any advice or comments
What kind of corporate finance? Corp dev is a lot different from FP&A
Think M7 MBA is the best option if you're willing to take that jump - with prior finance experience you will have an excellent shot at most groups/banks. But unless you're in a directly adjacent role, corp fin directly to IB is a fairly hard move to make. Options without MBA are internal transfer to corp dev, and try for IB from there (usually the other way around, but should be doable) OR try to network into a regional/LMM boutique and move up from there.
Typical non-target student. Applied 25+ firms at BB/EB/MM. landed an interview at my top choice, and got an offer there.
Well done, that is encouraging to hear.
I am hoping to hear a success story from someone who made it to IB from a lateral move. The theme I am picking up is that you just had to land IB out of school
Non-target for summer internship:
I wanted to do IB in SF and I probably applied to ~15 firms, networked hard at 5 (went out and visited), got first rounds at 4 (only 1 was a place I networked hard at), got super days at 2 (both places I didn’t network with), got an offer and accepted it before I heard back from the other firm.
While I am at a non-target we place really well into banking and have a strong pipeline specifically into SF. I also did a remote internship based in Menlo Park and was able to leverage that network.
If a firm runs a school specific processes at your school, I would apply to every single one of those as those will give you the best chance of landing an offer.
My advice would be to network at the firms you want to be at and then for the rest just spray and pray and apply to every opportunity that comes up.
Thank you, this is very insightful and I have been keeping a record of all the responses, including this one.
The non-target talent seems to really hustle, which has got to have value.
My own personal situation is a bit different since I graduated and took a role in Corporate Finance immediately. It was great, until it wasn't and then I discovered IB through some new friends I made who happened to be in IB roles. Turns out, that is really what I wanted to do! The problem is that IB seems to be 95% reserved for people who figured out they wanted to do IB when they were 20 or younger...
Networking yields a higher response rate, but the spray and pray method has been my volume approach.
Are your friends willing to help you? seems like that would be a big boost in trying to break in.
Non target, non diversity.Applied to 10 or so banks - some BB's, some boutiques.3.9/4 gpa, had equity research at boutique experience freshman year, VC internship sophomore year year, and boutique banking experience sophomore summer.Got invited to 4 first rounds, 4 super days, 2 waitlists, 1 offer, 1 rejection. All were BB's. (GS, Barclays, BofA, and JPM)Accepted the offer and then got off both waitlists lol.
Will add that I would’ve applied to more banks, but I knew my technicals cold and was pretty confident in my interviewing ability. As soon as I got one invite, I felt confident it would work out (which is probably pretty naive, but it thankfully worked out).
Semi-target, nondiversity. ~3.9 GPA, finance club leadership position, LMM PE internship lined up for summer 2022, and past search fund internship
13-15 applications: 3 EB, 3 BB, the rest large buyside firms or MM IB
Gugg/GHL RX first round (was unprepared, got destroyed), 1 large growth equity firm first round, HireVues for GS and BofA. Got an offer at an EB. Got rejected from GS and Gugg/GHL but withdrew BofA after EB offer.
I networked hard at 2-3 banks and spoke with practically no one else. Ran the process lazily in that regard but prepped hard for both behaviorals and technicals. Didn't get a single MM interview, presumably because I networked with no one
Semi Target, non div, 3.7 GPA. Corporate Finance internship at Fortune 500 company this summer.
Applied to roughly 10 BB and EB’s. Networked at 6. First rounds at 5. 3 superdays.
Received offer from BB before a SD at an EB was set to happen and accepted immediately.
Target, 3.9 GPA, internships all in tech, non-diversity
Applied to maybe 60 places across IB/HF/PE/S&T. Can confirm with above that applying to something you have no connections with is like throwing your resume into a black hole. At the end of the day here is how things went:
IB: maybe 50 apps - 12 first rounds - 4 superdays - 2 offers, 1 each of EB & BB
- subpoint here being that I accepted my IB offer before 6 of my first rounds so it was more like 6 -> 4 -> 2. Also both offers I got I had strong strong backing from people I networked with.
S&T/HF/PE: ~10 apps (only applied to groups with cool people I met while networking) -> 7 first rounds, [a lot of intermediate rounds], 5 superdays/final rounds, 4 offers
I had this exact same question A LOT while recruiting so I wanted to detail my experience for the thread, but one thing I learned is that it doesn't really make any difference what the total apps are. Almost every one of my superdays or even offers were with multiple people in the firm who were pulling for me (either directly told me or made it heavily implied). The other 40 or so applications were me panicking late at night after hearing about other peoples' offers and spamming to banks I had literally 0 shot at. I honestly think that my best spent time was talking to the people I actually enjoyed meeting (one of my IB offers remembered me 4 months later after a phone call) instead of spamming out emails. Quality far far far outweighs quantity in this industry. If you have any questions I'd be happy to try to answer them.
Can I DM you?
It takes dozens to even hundreds of applications and interviews. That is normal, and that is the world we live in.
Never give up. You only need one offer
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