Can't sleep before superday

You should probably speak to a therapist because you might suffer from anxiety. It’s completely normal to be nervous for an interview but to get to the point of rescheduling a superday because you couldn’t sleep is too much. Get professional help and it should probably help.

I think you're psyching yourself out too much. I've dealt with the same. The one thing I can recommend is that the next time this happens just power through it. You'll be surprised how well your body can cope on very little sleep for 1 night, plus the adrenaline of the interview will keep you going.

You're psyching yourself out by thinking you won't able to perform on no sleep - however having had gone through it before, you can tell yourself EVEN if you don't fall asleep that night, you'll still be able to crush it in the morning. This will allow you to relax, and most likely fall asleep.

Lateral recruiting is way more chill literally nobody cares as long as you have deal experience

There will be events or meetings like these throughout your life. The first thing you have to do is to commit to the meeting. Then you prepare yourself for the meeting. This should be a routine you do throughout life. Most of life is all about just showing up. You obviously have the skills to get the interview, so someone believes in you, you just have to show up and answer questions that you know the answer to and exhibit positive body language etc. 

Knowing what you have to do to prepare definitely is a part of 'making it' and you're going to have to interview again sometime. Maybe the night before you have a salt bath and then a glass of wine or something. And melatonin works for some. 

You will encounter many times in your life where you have a period to sleep and you must sleep in this period. Learn this skill to sleep in the windows that you can. Even if you're just laying in bed and you can't go to sleep, focus on relaxation and breathing. Knowing what thermostat temperature to sleep in is helpful as well - the colder the better (for the mind). 

Just pop a melatonin pill to sleep early for these occasions, not that hard bro. 

Edibles help for me.

you'd rather kys? well there's a kid out there that would give anything to get this interview that you have. You don't deserve this at all.

I used to not sleep before every major interview. I would end up getting about 3 hours per night pre-interview. Couple thoughts: 

1. You need to tough it out and get used to interviewing on little sleep. This will likely happen to you many times in the future, and it is unacceptable to cancel the day of. This will likely result in an immediate ding unless you lie about a major emergency (not recommended at all). If it is for most competitive finance roles, you will be expected to work on little sleep, so you need to be able to function on little sleep. 

2. This will get better, eventually. As I made it further in my career, I was able to sleep more and more before interviews. At this point, I can easily get 6-7 hours before the interview. 

3. This is likely the result of high anxiety. Getting a work out in, a quick meditation session, and keeping yourself busy the day before the interview will all help. 

4. Do not over compensate and drink a ton of coffee. This will make you come off jumpy and wired. It is better to come off as slightly exhausted than as extremely jittery. 

5. Take your time with your interview questions. When you are sleep deprived, you arent exactly firing on all cylinders. Therefore it is beneficial to take a couple extra seconds to formulate your thoughts before responding to any question you havent specifically prepared for. This will not result in a ding or any negative feedback, thinking things through is important. 

I'd happily take the under on whatever you think your lifetime earnings will be if you really tried to reschedule a super day because you weren't able to sleep well lol

Gone to many superdays with lack of sleep (once even with no sleep and the superday was 6 hours as well). You’ll find that, in the moment, your adrenaline will kick in and you’ll do just fine.

Just be yourself and if you can’t sleep, fuck it. Just go into it without any. You never know what will happen and I believe that stressing over not having any sleep on top of the interviews, will be double fucking you.

Thanks for the reply, realised I am being a massive pussy. I should've gone and won't make this mistake again. Cheers

Some good suggestions above. I'd reiterate the comment on melatonin - I've found that to be a great way to ease yourself into sleep without needing to lean on more powerful drugs.

Judging from your post, I'm assuming you're still in undergrad and going through the recruiting process for the first time, which is definitely a nerve-wracking experience. Moreover, it sounds like you also are working through some ongoing anxiety issues. As someone who has struggled immensely with panic disorder and GAD throughout my life, I empathize with the sleepless nights before super days. I'm dropping in a few tips that helped me below - note that you should prob also see a therapist if this is a reoccurring event.

1) Reframing how you view interviewing. In undergrad, I had this idea that I had to be completely flawless in all of my interviews and that every opportunity was the best shot I had to break into finance. For some people, adding that pressure and having a perfectionist mentality can help them perform, but that "do or die" mindset created unnecessary stress for me. The fact is, you were qualified enough to get a super day today so you'll likely get another comparable opportunity in the near future. That's not to say that you should not prepare or slack off ahead of the big day, but know that there will be more opportunities to perform in the future if this one doesn't go according to plan. 

2) This ties directly to the first point, but try to avoid binary or extreme thinking (i.e., if I don't get this position, I'm throwing away the best opportunity of my life; I have to get this position, etc.). That type of mindset is useful in the weeks leading up to the interview, as it pushes you to study hard and prepare as best you can. However, the night before my interviews, I'd try to tell myself that this was just another great rep, and that win or lose, I'd gain valuable interviewing skills as a result of going through the process. 

3) Don't be afraid of looking stupid. Probably the biggest source of my anxiety was showing up to an interview and not having an answer (e.g. staring blankly after being asked a technical, not delivering my "story" confidently, etc.). I found using the phrase "I don't know, but here's how I would approach it..." to be super helpful for weaseling out of some of those situations. It made me feel confident that I wouldn't be trapped in an "I don't know" answer, and that I'd have flexibility to improvise an answer. I'm not saying lie or make shit up in these situations, but know that many candidates will blunder technicals or say stupid shit, and ultimately the interviewer will go back to his/her desk, chuckle about it, and then forget that you ever existed in a week.

4) Care less about sleep. This one sounds pretty stupid, but ironically I found that acknowledging that I didn't need sleep before an interview actually helped me sleep more. For context, in my junior year I had 3 or 4 final round interviews for a variety of internship positions and ended up staying awake the whole night. I spent the days leading up to those interviews stressing so much about not getting enough sleep and then proceeded to spend each night awake with adrenaline pumping. I was convinced that I'd fall asleep during the interview, among other catastrophizing thoughts. After getting an offer from 2 of those sleepless final rounds, I realized that I didn't need sleep to function properly. Yes, it's nice to have a full 8 hours, but you can still perform well after not sleeping. Go to bed with the mindset that you can perform with or without a full night's rest.

Finally, know that there are many paths you can take which will lead you to your end goal. Don't let the BB/EB > MF PE > HBS career expectation that this forum sometimes promotes create unnecessary pressure.  There's immense pressure to break into finance immediately out of undergrad, but ultimately you can always go through lateral recruiting, business school, etc. to get to your desired position. There are also lots of great finance gigs out there outside of BB/EB IB, you just need to be creative with how you look for opportunities.

Disclaimer: this is all coming from someone who completely bombed IB recruiting. I was waitlisted or rejected from every super day I had, and thought I was completely fucked when recruiting wrapped up in my junior year. After substantial networking/pounding on doors, I ended up at a small hedge fund in NYC for a year, and recently lateraled to a PE shop as a tenured analyst. Still very early in my career and it certainly has not gone according to plan, but I continue to firmly believe that things will work out over the long term with a) good work ethic / persistence and b) a little bit of luck. Mental health disorders are a pain in the ass but being more open about these things would make Wall Street and corporate America much more approachable for those of us who struggle.

Best of luck OP - hope the next one goes better for you.

You've gotten good tips and seem like you're taking advice but FYI for anyone who finds this thread down the road... rescheduling a superday is almost always equivalent to canceling.

banks rarely have tons of superdays planned out / spots are very competitive and can't just move you to the next one. Once in a blue moon they might take pity and move you, but absolutely do not reschedule a superday if you want any chance of getting the offer

Like another person said you can see a therapist, but the same thing happened to me too before several SDs, so I don't think it's that big of a deal to not be able to sleep when your life kind of hinges on you getting that offer (or at least you think it does). After the first two times I took melatonin and slept much before my usual time of sleep to get up fresh. I didn't reschedule any SDs though because it is what it is. I recommend complete silence, yellow tint on the phone, keeping the curtains closed well and a little cooler room than normal along with lots of blanket (heavy blanket helps me sleep better). Also, if you are like me and drink lots of coffee, try to not drink 5-6 hours before sleeping on an anxiety filled night and no more than 4 shots of espresso the day before (5 regularly is bad). I have also had an interview where I took melatonin to sleep before the interview (I only had 2 hours to sleep because I was doing an internship and my supervisor had a deadline coming up so we had to stay up all night to finish that work) and it was really bad. I was rejected and my interviewer's feedback was that I wasn't focused enough. So, be careful with melatonin too because it will make things worse if you don't fall asleep.

Probably too late to help you, but maybe in future try L-theanine (don't cheap out and end up with a potentially racemic mix, buy the proper stuff) and melatonin like others have said (take small doses only so you don't f-up your real cycle). Neither will cause addictions and both are pretty mild. Else therapy.

Also everyone gets nerves, you just show up and do your best. Pretty sure I used to have a few hours of sleep only for a couple of superdays as an undergrad.