MBA Investment Banking Recruiting Toxicity
Currently recruiting for summer associate from MBA, didn't have a prestigous background so really grateful to be here but people are just so toxic. It feels like a huge internal competition and zero sum game. Our banking club isn't great at supporting this either so it feels like im just navigating this on my own and lack resources compared to perhaps other schools or people who have friends in banking. Any tips or advice?
Came from MBA too and felt like this for me... but for friends at some other programs was drastically different. As they say mileage varies so make sure you know the prep well. Recruiting as sumemr associate is really much easier than summer analyst so take advantage of that well , know your basics of why banking, your story etc. Then make sure to know hte technicals well to especially for EBs. Good luck!
following
everyone wants to place better than their "friends" lol but mutually on the surface everyone is nice
Currently in the same process and it’s brutal. Feels like no matter what answer I give or studying I do I still get dinged.
Curious if anyone has any insight if HR or the teams bother to look at blind applications for SA or only if you networked do they look.
Came from MBA from a corp finance job. Now at a BB. I went through many of the same thoughts and feelings y'all above have expressed and it definetely sucks. Everyone is chummy on the surface but is vying for that better offer and there's simply nothing you can do about that.
I think the advice i'd give would be 1) Network network network, the office starts to develop feelings about people with their names and you want your name to be known so its not completely blind. A bunch of my fellow classmates would keep their networking super lowkey to make me feel like i wasn't behind which sucked.
2) Really practice with your technicals and know your stuff, especially with EBs you're effectively going to manage an analyst who knows quite a bit and is kinda of a hardo so they like to see that you actually have some knowledge. Do the basics which is study the corp finance textbooks and guide but also go beyond and use outside of the guide question banks like marginofalpha which help with more of the "gotcha" questions. best of luck and feel free to add with any other questions!
This is super useful thank you. for networking is it mainly with school alums? For technicals what % questions are like outside of the 400, is it worth spending time into digging deep to make sure that you are well versed on the "gotcha" questions or better to be more personable and just know the basics?
Depends on EB or BB, it used to be that when i was recruiting maybe 85-90% are in the guides and now i'd say for BB shifting to like 70% and for EBs closer to 55-60%. Just too hard to differentiate candidates if everyone is getting everything correctly...
That's why i recommend everyone i mentor to make sure to use question banks like marginofalpha to go beyond the guides: you really don't know what you don't know... and you don't want to be realizing this in the middle of an interview haha
Name and shame the school, because I assure you not all are that way. When at a multi-school recruiting events, I noticed that some kids from other schools would be complete douches in crop circles. Commandeering someone and asking repeat follow up questions so no one else could speak, boxing people out from joining conversations, interrupting to pivot convos away from your question etc. Caught me off guard because it was really not the norm on my campus.
friends tell me booth haha at kellogg right now and seems okay ish
Interestingly enough, this is exactly why I didn't include my own school which could have tipped the scales. I went to Booth and felt the opposite, that the IB club chairs spent a lot of time and effort to reduce friction among the class. This involved explicit guidance on not commandeering crop circles and playing well as a team, and the easiest way to get cut involved being sharp elbowed with your own classmates.
That being said, in any program with 100+ kids looking to do banking, you'll have some sharks. But from my perspective it felt heavily disincentivized and I was quite close and collaborative with quite a few members of my class. That's why it felt so jarring at events with other schools when I found kids unabashedly being dicks to others candidates.
Exactly, some associates tell me that they loved their class recruiting together and helping each other while others said their classes were all super snakey
Love the player, hate the games
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