London SA Interviews

Try to read the vernimmen too it really helped me a lot (I have an engineering background and only had introductory courses to accounting when it comes to finance), Make sure they know you've never had finance courses at your university and that you learned everything by yourself, it only shows how motivated you are ... Try to understand DCF/LBO, transaction & market comparables, how the financial statements communicate, and most of all I think read financial news to know what's happeneing out there, on which deals banks you're interviewing with work, major deals that have taken place this year, or going to take place soon, the stakes behind them, etc. I'm going to apply for the 2015 Summer Internships myself and that's what I'm doing for preparation so yeah, hope it works out for you! Best of Luck

@UKUndergrad - I wouldn't reach out tbh. I would just prep as much as you can (Vault guides, BIWS etc) so you nail the technicals and fit questions. The max the bankers are going to say in terms of interview prep is consult Vault etc guides. Reaching out early to them will make no difference if you suck during interviews (the fact that you got an interview form your application must mean they think you are good enough). However, if you get help from several people in the firm, and then get rejected it may reflect badly. Jut focus on perfecting your interviewing technique and GL.

You study economics you will be fine with no finance background BUT thats no excuse to be under prepped on technicals/accounting basics.

And lol if you think they look for 'nice guys' ;)

Acquiring the knowledge that you need for ib interviews is really NOT hard.

Technical: -know the WSO technical guide cold -read IB - Rosenbaum -take a look at the vault guide

Fit: -know why you want to work in IB and why you want to work for that bank, your strengths/weaknesses and the other usuals. -know 3-5 stories that can reflect leadership/drive/influence and spin them to the question.

Bonus: be able to talk in depth about some recent deals that the bank which is interviewing you has done. This is actually really a must since they ask it regularly and it can make or break your interview.

Out of curiosity is this for Laz or GHL? If you don't want to publish online for identity reasons would you mind PMing me? Unfortunately I think it's too late now to reach out to Alumni, this would be the sort of issue where you need to have already established a relationship with 2-3 staff in the firm to ask. If you check out Glassdoor and the company databse on WSO you should be able to get a good gauge of the difficulty of questions you'll be asked.

dunno man seeing what other people are thinking, id say depends on your personality and IQ and EQ obviously

it is a joke to say that there is such thing as a norm or a rule what to do in some situation.. safe way would be not to do anything and just follow the process and show up everywhere early and use standard templates for everything. however, if i picked that road i would have gotten nowhere... i would hit some mediocre targets in life. that stuff just doesnt fit my mentality, or the mentality of people that i call my (best) friends

emailing people even like just 1 day before the trip to the interview has worked wonderfully for me. it is, of course, usually better to do it earlier. some people wont reply on time and will email you later etc., some of them will meet you that same day, etc., depends on the situation

if someone from my uni (or even random person) emailed me i would love to help him if i feel that the person is hungry and has enough humility to appreciate my assistance. i hate nothing more than people with retarded generic fake questions, structured (case interview-like) approach to normal things in life, etc. but if they are young i would give them honest advice

being original and yourself is what goes a long way in my books

To echo Incapable chimp would this int. be for Laz or Greenhill? (Could you PM me). I know that the questions the two ask can vary considerably. I'm aware of a few other boutiques which are open at the moment, as well as the questions they tend to ask, but you would need to be specific.

Hugeth