How to Get an Investment Banking Job
You need to do 3 things right to get into investment banking: win access to recruiters, get their attention with your CV / resume, and ace your interviews. If you’ve been failing so far, you’re doing one of these wrong.
First, let’s discuss access. “Recruiting channels” refer to banks’ presentations on school campuses, talking to headhunters, or going through school alumni or other referrals from professionals you know.
This is super-important and many people never realize how recruiting really works: banks target a VERY limited set of institutions – around 10 to 20 so-called “target schools” – and focus their recruiting efforts there, nearly ignoring everything else.
So you’ll have to rely on networking via referrals, informational interviews, and cold-calling, if you’re not at one of these elite institutions – making it significantly harder to break in.
To start doing this, begin by contacting alumni and getting referrals from friends and searching on social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook. Make a list of all local firms in your region and call every single one of them.
Once you have some sort of access to recruiters or bankers at these firms who will actually pay attention to you, you need a winning resume / CV to actually stand out and get interviews.
In general, keep your resume short – 1 page or less for 90% of candidates – and focus your attention on the top 2 or 3 experiences that “sell” you rather than making a laundry list of unrelated jobs. As a student, focus on internships or clubs; as a professional, think about year jobs over the past 5-10 years.
Focus on the results you achieved, and what you did specifically – using numbers wherever you can do so. Structure what you did and make it look like you worked with specific clients or projects rather than just random day-to-day tasks.
With your resume perfected, you need to sharpen your interview skills. Focus on your “story” – what you say when they ask you to walk them through your resume, especially on the “why investment banking” and “why now” part.
Make sure you tell your story in chronological order, and explain how each experience made you more and more interested in investment banking. 90% of the interview comes down to your story.
You need to have a good grasp of technical questions on finance and accounting as well, but you can learn those by reading a book or an interview guide – spend the bulk of your time on your story.
That should get you started with your dreams of breaking into investment banking – good luck!
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