Prepping for an MBA Career switch into IB

Hello! I am interested in making a move to IB during my MBA (interning summer of '19), and I had a few questions on what I should be doing now to prepare. First here is a bit on my background:

  • I did my undergrad in electrical engineering
  • I have been working in technology consulting
  • I will be going to Wharton for my MBA

My questions are:

  1. I have only recently discovered an interest in finance, and I am trying to decide what type of work I want to do within banking. Do you have any recommendations on things I could read to learn more about what different groups would be like so I can be more focused during recruiting?
  2. Are there any other books I should read to make myself more fluent on finance in general? (I just started Investment Banking by Rosenbaum and Pearl)
  3. Are there any practical skills I should start working on now? Any recommendations on sources to improve my excel skills?
  4. Anything else I should think about/work on in the coming 6 months before recruiting?
 
  1. MI has good overviews of different groups within IB
  2. rosenbaum is good, make sure you get one of the fit interview guides (through your school or elsewhere)
  3. macabacus.com/learn (this is in addition to rosenbaum). for excel you can get the BIWS course
  4. make sure you know what you're getting into. IB is not for everyone. talk to alums from your school who made the switch
 
  1. That Mergers and Inquisitions breakdown of IB groups was incredibly helpful, thanks!

  2. I'll check the career resources site for that and be sure to give it a read through.

  3. And I just got my class email set up, so I'll definitely start scheduling calls with alumni. And that's a big reason I want to make sure I'm ready for my internship, and I have a chance to see what it's like for a short summer stint. In your experience does the internship give an accurate account of the real job?

 
Best Response

Don’t really need to be an excel or accounting monster for summer associate interviews. You should probably look more at coverage instead of product groups given limited finance knowledge / skills (and tbh it’s better long term). Your former clients can give you some decent background to claim why you are interested in some industry group (eg telecom clients + EE background maybe you want to be at TMT). Talk with groups of interest, don’t be awkward and you are more than likely to end up at a top/middle tier BB or decent EB out of Wharton.

 

Thanks! One follow up I have, on the topic of BB vs EB, is would I be better served by starting at a BB? From what I've read they tend to provide more training opportunities, which sounds like something I could really benefit from--but is the training difference that substantial and would it make as big of an impact as I'm imagining?

 

Most banks will have similar training programs that will be 5-7 weeks long (for full-time, for the summer it will only be 1 week), no matter if it is a BB or boutique. The exception that I can think of is Greenhill, which has very minimal/no formal training. The other EBs (Moelis, Lazard, Evercore, Guggenheim, etc.) should have the standard 5-7 weeks. There are other smaller/MM banks that obviously wouldn't have a formal training program either, but coming from Wharton you should not be targeting these firms anyways.

The main decision between BB vs. EB should come down to fit/culture and type of work that you want to do (M&A, capital markets, restructuring, generalist vs. product/coverage, etc.).

 

Wharton will of course have structured IB programming and resources to ensure you won't be caught flat-footed at any stage of the recruiting process. That said, I may also recommend getting your hands on a set of CFA Lvl I and/or II books from Schweser. Specifically, the books dedicated to accounting and corporate finance would be a great primer for you. Additionally, get up to speed with what has broadly been happening in markets -- a good resource could be something like JPM's Guide to the Markets (updated quarterly) and accompanying commentary. It will be important for you to develop some talking points to have ready when prompted about prevailing market conditions in interviews. Best of luck!

 

NP -- just saw above regarding reaching out to alumni. I would caution against doing that at this point unless it is a personal connection. Much of what you hope to learn about specific groups will be accomplished during the formal recruiting process (e.g., networking sessions, informational interviews, etc.). As such, most alums will defer to speak with you until then and some hardos may even be annoyed at you reaching out too early.

 

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