IBD recruiting tips I wish I had known freshmen year

I have been following WSO since my freshmen year, and I believe it has contributed largely to my success. I was lucky enough to have found this site early on, and to have had mentors in IBD that guided me through the process.

A few weeks ago, I finished my recruiting process. I received 6 BB offers and signed an offer with a top industry group at a BB. I cannot express how excited I am, but more so how thankful I am. I thought the least I could do is try to give back with a list of what I have learned.

First, Your GPA matters - but not that much.
The best thing you can do for yourself as a freshmen/sophomore is keep your grades up. This is not to say that you have to have a 3.8+ GPA to get IBD. That's not at all the case. In fact, I don't think there is much of a difference between a 3.7, 3.8, or 3.9. But, it does matter and it matters more than you would think. Two extreme cases: I have one first who interned at a decent boutique is sophomore year, ran 2 finance organizations at my school, and networked more than most people I know. Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, kid also had a 3.0. Got a few interviews through networking (albeit, not top places) but ended up at his random sophomore boutique for SA. Second friend, guy who knows NOTHING about banking. Wanted to do consulting and was recruiting with all the consulting firms. Decent resume but nothing finance specific, showed no interest in banking at all. He applied to banks for the hell of it. Has a 4.0 double major, and got more interviews than most people I know. He's working for Bain now, but point is his GPA helped him a lot with interviews. These are extremes, most successful people were high GPA and had also done everything else. This is not to say that a low GPA will hurt you or that a 4.0 guarantees you anything, just saying that along with doing everything else right - the point is, keep your GPA high. It will pay off with getting interviews.

Second, Set up your "story" early.
If you know you want to do investment banking as a freshmen/sophomore, consider yourself lucky. You can strategically position yourself to have a "story" that makes a ton of sense. Do PWM/anything you can get freshmen year, and fight for a small no-name boutique sophomore year. Call people, email people, ask friends, parents, etc. I interned at a boutique my sophomore summer, and it made a world of a difference. I got over 20 interviews and at least 50% of my first rounds consisted of me talking about my experience. Knowing this, it was also a lot easier to prepare. I go to a semi-target/regional target in a city where there's a total of like 5 banks. There are no excuses.

Third, NETWORK - but do it right!
I was the epitome of networking gone wrong my freshmen/sophomore year. I focused too much on an "end result", I contacted people that had no "connection" with me, and I wasn't genuinely interested in hearing people's story. Honestly, I still find networking awkward and I was lucky enough to go to a school where we have good OCR, so it wasn't a requirement for me.
With this said, I think the BEST thing that I did (and what everyone should do) is the following:
1) Meet a contact at an event (information session, career fair, dinner, whatever), and follow up with them via email. Keep it short, maybe ask a question.
2) Contact them once again during recruiting season, tell them you are applying to their firm and want to chat for 30 minutes. I had close to a 100% reply rate, and talked to over a dozen people on the phone.
3) Email them after you submit your resume, thank them for the talk and let them know you applied and you're excited to keep learning about the group.
This works. It worked for me and it worked for everyone else I knew who did it. Granted, this is for people who have OCR.

Furthermore, some of the best networking I did was with seniors/people going FT. They were the most helpful, the most honest, and gave me the best sense of the firm's culture. I also asked every senior I spoke to to refer me to first years they knew/people who graduated last year/etc. It was really easy to contact people when I could send a quick email saying "hey such and such mentioned you work at JPM, I'm interviewing with your group and was wondering if you had 30 min to chat?". The best networking I did was also after I had interviews but before my first rounds. I had some seniors who literally remembered specific technical questions they had been asked. Unbelievably helpful.

Fourth, If you don't work for it - it won't happen.
Obviously there are exceptions to this. Unless you have high up connections though (in which case, you don't need to even be reading this), you have to work hard to get a top offer. I interned every summer as well as during the school year, maintained a 3.9 in a quantitative major, read every guide out there, truly UNDERSTOOD finance concepts, talked to a million people, watched every BIWS video, Pm'ed people on WSO, and a thousand other things. If you work hard and truly deserve it, it will happen for you. And it is worth it. Getting my offer was top 5 best moments of my life. Maybe a little dramatic, but it feels fantastic to achieve something you have tried so hard to get.

Anyway, a little long but I hope this helped. I will add on if I can think of anything else. Feel free to shoot me any questions, literally just went through all of this and willing to help out if possible.

 
jack.daniels:
This is great advice. What were some mistakes that you made/things you did wrong?

Like I said, I was networking for the wrong reasons and that shows. My junior year, when I finally understood networking, I also understood banking and had actual questions to ask, rather than questions just for the sake of asking questions. I developed relationships and following up seemed organic, rather than forced. I think this is something that has a lot to do with personality, but will be perfected with practice. My point was, be genuine and people will like you.

 

Thanks so much for sharing this.

By having "actual" questions to ask rather than just asking questions just for the sake of asking questions, what do you mean? I mean, you can only ask so many questions about banking right?

Unless you mean questions directed at the professionals

 
Best Response
Dreamgazing:
Thanks so much for sharing this.

By having "actual" questions to ask rather than just asking questions just for the sake of asking questions, what do you mean? I mean, you can only ask so many questions about banking right?

Unless you mean questions directed at the professionals

Yes and no. When I first tried networking, I would get on the phone and read a list of pre-set questions and didn't really have any follow-ups to their responses. I wasn't asking questions I actually wanted answered, I was asking questions to claim that I had "networked". This didn't do anything for me. In fact, I can think of a few situations where I think it hurt me. My junior year, I focused on networking with people I had met (most of which alumni) and along with the banking-related questions, I found that it helped to ask them about themselves. This is easiest if they went to your school, but I also asked about what got them interested in banking, why they picked this specific industry group, what their plans in the next few years was, if they liked the city they lived in, etc. It felt much more like a conversation and much less like an informational interview. Also did this during interviews. I had one superday with 8 rounds. One of the rounds was 3 analysts that came in and did not ask me a single question. They literally walked in the room and said "so what do you want to know". I found that both in networking and when interviewing, you are a million times more likable and it is a million times less awkward if you focus predominantly on getting to know the person, and then throw in a few banking-related questions if conversation starts to slow.

 

Appreciate the content, but I can't imagine this advice will be helpful to many people on here. You said GPA doesn't matter but you had a 3.9, you majored in something STEM, had lots of relevant experience, and went to a target school where the banks recruited OCR- that is a tiny sliver of the WSO community. That said, congrats on your offers and glad it worked out.

 

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