Careers-in-Investment-Banking.

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Welcome to a comprehensive web site on investment banking careers. Investment
Banks help companies and governments issue securities, help investors purchase
securities, manage financial assets, trade securities and provide financial advice. The top
investment banks including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are said to
be in the bulge bracket.

Other investment banks are regionally oriented or situated in the middle market
(e.g. Piper Jaffray). Others are small, specialized firms called boutiques which might be
oriented toward an industry vertical, bond-trading, M&A advisory, technical analysis or
program trading. Firms have lots of different areas and groups within them. In most
firms, there is sales and trading which works with owners of securities, investment
banking which works with issuers of securities (firms and governments) and capital
markets which goes in between the other two.

Why Does This Matter So Much?

Three reasons:
1. Your story sets the tone for the entire interview, and a poor first impression is
impossible to overcome.
2. Interviewers often make offer / no offer decisions subconsciously within the first 2-3
minutes, based 100% on your story.
3. It’s easier to fix your “story” than to “fix” your lack of finance/accounting knowledge.
We’re talking hours vs. weeks.
What Is This “Story” Business?
It’s your answer to the “Walk me through your resume / CV” or the “Tell me about
yourself” question that you get at the beginning of every interview.
Sometimes it’s phrased differently and sometimes it’s not always the first thing they ask, but the
idea is always the same:
Who are you and why are you here?
So How Do You Tell Your “Story”?
You structure it around these 5 points:
1. The “Beginning”
2. Your Finance “Spark”
3. Your Growing Interest
4. Why You’re Here Today
5. Your Future
The “Beginning”
You want to start your story… at the beginning! Sorry, this is not a Quentin Tarantino film and
even if Pulp Fiction is your favorite movie you still can’t jump around chronologically.
There are 3 good places to start your story:
1. Where You’re From / Where You Grew Up
2. Where You Went to University
3. Where You Went to Business School
#1 is good if you’re still an undergraduate, #2 is better for the MBA level or beyond, and #3 is
better if you’re way beyond that (which should be almost no one reading this, but hey, just to be
complete…).
Don’t dwell on this part if it’s not particularly interesting or relevant – but you do need
to mention it because every story needs a beginning.
Your Finance “Spark”
Depending on when you got interested in finance, this one might be combined with your
“Beginning” – e.g. if you started day trading when you were 12, then you would combine them.
Otherwise, make this a separate point and be as specific as possible.
Ideas for finance “sparks”:
 Information Sessions / Case Competitions / Activities / Clubs
 Specific People You Met Through Networking / Classes / Activities
 Any Investing / Trading of Your Own You’ve Done
 Family Businesses / Learning About It From Other Family Members
 Summer / Other Special Programs
Specificity is key.
“I was in an investing competition and had fun.”
Eh.
“I was in this investing competition, did some in-depth research on the pharmaceutical industry
and recommended investing in Pfizer – their stock later rose by 50% and our team won 1st
place.”
Ok, I like the sound of this.
If you don’t have a specific event, person, or activity it’s not the end of the world – but look
through your resume and figure out what you can spin into sounding like the real reason you got
interested.
Your Growing Interest
Here’s where you explain how each of your internships, full-time jobs, or activities led you in the
direction of investment banking.
You need to logically connect each one and go in chronological order to avoid “story fail.”
Two important points here:
1. With each experience, you want to mention something that you
liked andsomething that could use improvement.
2. If you have a complicated history of career changes, resist the urge to go into detail on
everything – keep it to 2-3 “hops” at the most.
So let’s say you’re a university student who’s looking for an investment banking summer
internship right now.
You started out working on-campus, then you worked in marketing at a local company, and this
past summer you did private wealth management at a bulge bracket bank.
You might say something like this:
1. “I started out with just the usual on-campus work, which I did well at, but I wanted to do
something more relevant to my major and get some experience in the real world…”
2. “So I went to [Name of Local Company] and did marketing there for the summer. I did
well, liked the business aspect, and helped improve their online marketing campaigns by 20%
over 2 months but I also wanted to do something that was more quantitative and closer to
finance…”
3. “So the next summer I did private wealth management at [Bank Name] and analyzed
clients’ portfolios and made investment recommendations. I enjoyed the investing aspect and
the analysis a lot more – but I wanted to work with clients on a larger scale…”
And then you would lead directly into why you’re here today (see the next point).
This is just a sketch of what you might say – since your story should be 2-3 minutes long,
you will have to go into more detail on each point or you’ll run out of stuff to say.
Why You’re Here Today
Luckily you don’t have to be a philosopher to tell this part of your story – you just need to
be very explicit with what you say.
Yes – you should actually say, “I’m here interviewing today because…” and spell it out in
clear terms.
An interview is not the time for subtlety or subterfuge. It’s time to sell yourself with everything
you’ve got.
You need to answer 2 questions with this one:
1. Why this bank / group specifically?
2. Why now?
If you’re a student, #2 is easy: you need an internship / full-time job. If you’re already working
full-time, talk about how you’ve achieved a lot but feel you’ve reached your limits and that your
talents would be better put to use in banking.
#1 is easy to answer if you have a background that matches the group you’re interviewing with
(e.g. tech/healthcare background going to those respective groups): you want to combine your
expertise with finance.
If you’re coming in with more of a finance background, talk about the advantages that this
bank / group presents over other places you’ve worked at – whether that’s the type of companies
you work with, the culture, the people, the added responsibility, or anything else.
Your Future
This one is closely linked to the previous point about Why You’re Here Today, but you need to
add something at the end that shows:
Your Background + Investment Banking = Future Success
Popular “future plans” include being an investor or advisor to companies in a particular industry
or region, or working with a certain team at a bank.
Two points:
1. If you’re interviewing for Analyst-level positions, you don’t need to have concrete
plans – just some idea of what you want to do.
2. At the Associate level you need to show more commitment and say you’re here
for the long-term because they don’t want people to jump ship to PE after a year.
So What Do You Do Now That You Know How to Tell Your “Story”?
Go through your resume and all your previous experience and figure out what you’re going to say
for each of these 5 points:
1. The “Beginning” – Where You’re From? University? Business School?
2. Your Finance “Spark” – Person? Event? Club? Program?
3. Your Growing Interest – Which 2-3 Jobs/Internships/Activities Will You Mention?
4. Why You’re Here Today – Why This Bank, and Why Now?
5. Your Future – What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?
Make a quick 5 bullet point outline, then practice your story with a friend or anyone you know in
the industry.
Aim for 2-3 minutes – 2 minutes if you speak quickly (like I do in all my videos) or 3 minutes if
you speak more slowly.
Whatever you do, do not memorize it word-for-word or try to script out everything.
And then go forth, conquer your interviews, and land investment banking offers.

Finance spark: Specificity is key, set apart

Business finance,

Summer program

People

Make it sound memorable

Growing interest: chronological order, start from earliest experience, logically

connected; moving closer to finance and investment banking

Marketing, business development; but do something more quantitiative

More analysis, larger scale

Here: today

Keep it to 2-3 mindset/career changes

Why you are here today?

I am interviewing here today, at this bank, because

Why this group, why this bank

Why now: student, find a job

Why banking? Background

Tech, healthcare; something more business related

How does past relate to future; how does it fit to your future

How does it related to your future?

Given it some thought, how banking is going to get me there

How this bank is going to lead

Investor in this industry, finance, etc, advisor to a company

Resume go through it

2-4 internships; what did I like, what did I want to change, how did it move me closer to
investment banking?

Finance/business related

Make a brief outline, and practice telling your story to different people; don’t memorize
word for word

2-3 minutes