Investment Banking Recruiting Secrets of the Top 1%

The discounted cash flow ("DCF") is one of the most commonly tested topics during investment banking technical interviews. However, gone are the days where you can just memorize the formula for the DCF and expect to get by. Pretty much anyone can do that at this point, that's just the bare minimum... What is becoming more common is for the interviewer to grill you about the assumptions you used in...

If you go to a target school, investment banks often come on campus to hold info sessions. Will attending these events boost your chances of getting an interview? Or are they a complete waste of time? With the outrageous banker to student ratio at these events, is it even possible to stand out and make an impression? Listen to this podcast to find out how to use info sessions to your advantage and...

Our client Vivian joined WSMM during her freshman summer, after struggling to formulate her behavioral answers and learn the technical concepts on her own. Coming from a non-target state school, she knew that she had to get a head start if she wanted to break into investment banking. Hear her talk about what WSMM did to help her break into Bank of America's sophomore investment banking summer inte...

Recruiting for investment banking can be overwhelming if you don't have a set strategy. With apps opening earlier and earlier, time is of the essence and how you prioritize what you spend time on can ultimately determine if end up with a job offer. Keeping your grades up? Networking? Getting more relevant internships? Doing case competitions? Focusing on interview prep? Which of these tasks are th...

You finally received an investment banking job offer - congrats! The only problem is, it's an "exploding offer" and you've been given a very short deadline to accept the offer. If this offer is not from a bank that is your top choice, and you're still waiting to hear from other banks, what can you do? Is it possible to accelerate your other interview processes? Can you accept this current offer an...

Our client Noah is from a non target school and came to Wall Street Mastermind in January of sophomore year. Prior to joining our program, he had big dreams of working for a top tier bulge bracket bank, but struggled with landing interviews so much that he considered doing PWM as a backup option. Hear him talk about how he overcame seemingly impossible odds to get an offer from a top group at Morg...

Today, more buyside firms like Bridgewater Associates, Millenium, Ares, and Blackstone are starting to open their apps for summer analysts, competing with banks for young talent and recruiting them early. Although still very limited, there are increasingly more options to go straight to the buyside and skip investment banking altogether. As apps open, should you focus on recruiting for investment...

Our client Amit joined WSMM during the summer after freshman year because he was serious about getting into investment banking and wanted the most efficient and successful way of doing it. Prior to WSMM, he did a lot of research on the recruiting process and realised that it is extremely competitive. Coming from a semi-target school, he knew he had to step up his game to find a process where all h...

Elite boutique investment banks have become the toughest investment banks to get offers from. This is partially because they are just as prestigious as bulge bracket banks and oftentimes come with even better pay and exit opportunities. But the other reason is because they're known to ask much tougher questions during their technical interviews. If you want to land a top offer from elite boutiques...

If you recruit for headquarters locations like New York City and London, usually you won't know what group you'll get placed in until after you accept the offer and have gone through the group placement process (this does not apply to regional offices). Group placement is important because it can have a huge impact on your experience as an analyst and also on your exit opportunities later on. Peop...

Our client Bryant was an international student from Korea who became interested in banking after serving his military duty. Hear him explain why the help he got from WSMM was more useful than the advice he received from upperclassmen. We also discussed the difference in IB recruiting between the US and Asia, given he got offers from both Evercore NYC and Morgan Stanley Hong Kong. Book a Virtual Co...

One of the trickier questions to answer during interviews is talking about a deal that you've been following. Typically, we recommend talking about M&A deals over capital raises, because it gives you more interesting talking points that you can bring up. The key to answering these questions is being able to explain the strategic rationale for doing the deal, from both the buyer and seller's point...

If you want to get more interviews, networking is going to be the most important part of the recruiting process. But networking is not just having a single conversation with a banker and then moving onto the next. You have to learn to nurture the relationship over a longer period of time so that it doesn’t feel transactional to the banker. But how can you go back to networking contacts that you’ve...

Our client Matthew went a top target school and had multiple relevant finance experiences on his resume. He considered joining WSMM freshman year but passed initially because he thought he could break into a top tier bank by himself. After failing the superdays for three different bulge bracket banks’ sophomore programs, he decided to join WSMM to learn a more effective and efficient way of prepar...

Our client Isaac initially planned on pursuing a career in accounting. By the time he realized that he actually wanted to go into investment banking, it was already halfway through sophomore year. Knowing he was late to the game, he joined WSMM to give himself the best chance at beating out his competition. Hear him talk about the difference between WSMM and other career programs like SEO, and how...

Our client Jared started working with WSMM during his sophomore spring. His original approach of reading interview guides from upperclassmen wasn't clicking for him, so he decided to get help. Hear him talk about how he was able to secure 15 different interviews (with over half of them that barely asked any questions from the popular guides), and why he ultimately chose Bain Capital over Citi. Boo...

Our client Cameron had dreams of working in NYC. Unfortunately, UT Austin was only a target school for the Houston office but a non-target for NYC (only ~1 in 10 students from the school end up in the NYC office). Hear how Cameron overcame these odds to receive offers from both Moelis and Rothschild in NYC, in addition to Citi in Houston. Also hear about the difference between WSMM and the feeder...

Oftentimes, you’ll find yourself in a situation where you’ll have to add a new internship to your resume, even though you just started (or are about to start) and you haven’t really done any real work yet. This need arises mainly because investment banks are recruiting earlier and earlier, and oftentimes that creates more urgency to add your “incoming” experiences onto your resume as soon as possi...

When it comes to resume building, how do you know whether you need to go out and get another relevant internship or not? Or sometimes, if it comes down to staying at your existing internship longer versus getting a new internship, which is the better move? This is a question that students commonly have, but the answer is actually more straightforward than you think. Hear me explain the simple crit...

Our client Daniel first spoke to us early on during sophomore year, but wasn't ready to commit to our program. About a year later, he came back to get our help after struggling to secure any offers on his own. Despite not leaving us a lot of time, we eventually helped him land a great offer at one of the top niche-specific banks, where he beat out 200+ other candidates. Hear him talk about his com...

For most people, just getting ANY offer in investment banking is the goal. But for others, merely getting an offer is just the minimum acceptable outcome. What they want instead, is to be at the best bank possible. So say you only end up at a middle market bank for your summer internship. What can you do to leverage that internship into a full-time offer at a bulge bracket or elite boutique bank?...

In our experience, a lot of students struggle with answering “why our bank” if they’re interviewing with a middle market investment bank. After all, the middle market bank often wasn’t their first choice, but they also can’t just say “oh it’s because I didn’t get into a bulge bracket or elite boutique bank.” So what makes a good answer when it comes to answering “why this middle market bank”? The...

Our client Brandon is living proof that it's possible to break into investment banking after college without getting an MBA. He landed two offers from boutique investment banks after less than a year at a Big 4 accounting firm. Not only did he leave a job that was making him completely miserable, he also doubled his salary! Hear him talk about how he was able to take a non-traditional path into in...

If you ever interview with the technology group of an investment bank, or perhaps a buyside firm that invests in technology companies, you’ll probably need to know how SaaS companies works. For those who aren’t familiar, “SaaS” stands for “software as a service” and refers to software companies that charge their customers using a recurring subscription model (as opposed to a one-time upfront fee)....

Our client Claire originally thought she wanted to pursue investment banking, but after networking with various industry professionals and being mentored by an equity research analyst for five weeks, she realized that her true interest was in equity research. Hear how she was able to apply what she learned in WSMM to land her dream equity research position at Citi. She also shares some advice on t...