Investment Banking Recruiting Secrets of the Top 1%

One of the more advanced technical topics that can come up during interviews is the concept of accretion dilution. This is essentially one of the key metrics that bankers look at anytime they’re working on a M&A transaction. It’s not the only thing that matters in determining whether it’s a good deal, but it is something that shareholders care about. But how do you calculate accretion dilution? Wh...

Our client Tyler started at a community college and transferred to a non-target school, after which he graduated into a role at a small valuation firm. After a year there, he realized he wanted to lateral into investment banking. As a father of a 3-year-old, he didn’t have the ability to quit his job and going the traditional MBA route. So instead, Tyler joined WSMM and accomplished the same thing...

Private equity internships are one of the most relevant internships you can do to give your resume a boost for investment banking. If you’ve done one already, congrats! Chances are you probably got to work on 1-2 LBO deals during your internship. But now comes the hard part - how do you talk about that deal experience during the interview? What kind of questions will your interviewer grill you wit...

Our client Bowen studied at a target school but hadn’t joined any of his school’s professional orgs or investment banking clubs. He felt like he was unsure how to secure the job he wanted. After hearing about how other students from his school broke into banking through WSMM, he was convinced this was a viable path for him too. Hear how he landed three different offers before eventually accepting...

Usually we advise our students to network with bankers so that they can get referrals to interviews. But the other benefit is that you can glean talking points from your networking conversations for your actual interview answers. For example - when you’re answering “why are you interested in our bank” - it’s always good to weave in positive things that current employees have said about the bank. B...

Excel is one of the most important skills you can have as a junior investment banker. In fact, you’ll probably spend more than 50% of your time on the job in Excel. So what do you do when an interviewer asks you how good your Excel skills are? Especially if you’re not exactly an Excel whiz? The key is to strike a balance between being humble, but not too humble. What does that mean exactly though?...

One of our students recently got asked “what about investment banking as a job makes you nervous?” during an interview. He wasn’t sure how to answer the question. The most obvious answer is the hours, but that’s a tricky one that needs to be handled carefully. After all, you don’t want to come across as someone who’s lazy or can’t handle the hours. But what else can you say for this question? I ac...

Our client Alex came to us from a non-target school during senior year, after failing to secure a junior summer internship in investment banking and working in a middle office role. After we helped him improve his interviewing skills, he went on to secure a full-time offer from a private equity firm. Hear him talk about the challenges he had to overcome along the way, and how you can do the same t...

A lot of people want to start their career in investment banking just so that they can break into private equity. After all, having investment banking experience has been a prerequisite for private equity for a very long time. However, some bigger PE firms are starting to hire PE analysts directly out of undergrad, so it is possible to skip investment banking altogether now. What are the differenc...

Have you ever tried to write a cover letter, or tried to prepare your answer for “why do you want to work for our firm” … but you don’t know what to say because you haven’t networked with anyone from the firm yet? If so, you’re not alone. In fact, a lot of students find themselves in this situation. While networking ahead of time is ideal, sometimes it’s just not possible. So what can you do to ge...

Our client Dominique joined WSMM at the beginning of junior year. Despite already being a part of another career mentoring program (SEO), she found WSMM's program to be much more helpful. Hear her talk about how she was able to become one of only three students from her non-target school to break into investment banking, and how she did it without the help of any friends or family in investment ba...

If you just started a new internship and haven’t done that much yet, but you have applications coming up where you want to include this new experience on your resume… what should you do? This happens more often than you think, especially with how often investment banks recruit nowadays. The key is to strike a balance between being vague enough so that what you’re saying on the resume is accurate,...

Our client Sandalina was a community college transfer who wanted to break into investment banking. Despite many people telling her that it would be impossible, it wasn't her personality to give up easily. Hear how she learned what she needed from WSMM in the shortest amount of time possible, and ultimately became one of four students to receive an offer from her bank out of over 400 applicants. Bo...

A student recently asked me if he should stay longer at his internship, because he’s been promised some new responsibilities if he stays on. There are a lot of factors that go into this decision, but ultimately it’s a tradeoff between what the incremental learning you’ll get by staying, versus the opportunity cost of being able to add a new internship experience onto your resume instead. Plus - de...

Our client Travis came to us in late February of senior year, three months before graduation. He was a community college transfer at a non-target school, did not have a junior summer internship or much relevant internship experience, and only had a 3.3 GPA. Hear him talk about how he overcame all of these obstacles to break into a local boutique investment bank. Book a Virtual Coffee Chat with an...

This is a bit of a different topic today, as one of my students who’s currently working in growth equity recently asked me what it was like when I transitioned from investment banking and private equity to working at a tech startup instead. I think that both are very attractive fields to start your career in, and some of you might even been debating between the two. As always, there are some pros...

If you just wrapped up your summer internship and are currently interviewing with another firm, chances are very good that your interviewers is going to ask you about the details of your performance review. Knowing how to answer this question is important - because you need to strike a balance between giving an honest and fair assessment, without saying anything that will be overly detrimental to...

Our client George originally wanted to get into consulting before switching to investment banking. With no relevant experience, he tried his best to recruit. Things were looking bleak... until he found Wall Street Mastermind in July. Fast forward two months, George has secured an offer from Barclays just a month into his junior year. Hear him talk about the difference between information and trans...

Now that summer internships have ended, many of you are currently going through interviews for full-time recruiting. One of the most important things to prepare for when it comes to full-time interviews is walking through any deals or projects you worked on over the summer. But how much detail do you have to go into? And what kind of follow up questions should you expect? Hear my mock interview wi...

Our client Edgar recently received an offer from an upper middle market investment bank despite missing the accelerated recruiting timeline during sophomore year, only having a 3.4 GPA, and eventually having to work in corporate banking for his summer internship first. Hear Edgar talk about his journey and how he was able to pull this off against the odds. Make sure you check this interview out to...

A lot of students wonder what they should do when they don’t get any financial modeling experience at their internships. After all, that’s what your interviewers want to hear about when you talk about what you’ve worked on, right? What do you do if you just don’t have much or any financial modeling responsibilities at all though? Hear me coach a student on what to do in this situation, which happe...

Those of you who have been following me for awhile know how much I’m against doing financial modeling courses when prepping for summer internship interviews. But recently, a student of mine asked if the same still applies for full-time recruiting. Given a lot of summer internships are wrapping up and a lot of you are about to recruit for full-time positions, I thought this was a timely topic. Hear...

Our client Steve came to us at the beginning of junior year, after having failed a couple of superday interviews on his own. He was referred to us by our client Bradley after seeing how much better Bradley did during with recruiting. Despite coming to us quite late for help, hear Steve talk about how he was ultimately able to secure a middle market offer that ended up being a phenomenal fit with h...

Did you know that when you are answering interview questions, it’s actually possible to lead the interview in the direction that you want them to go in? The benefit of doing this is that you can almost steer them into asking you the questions that you want to be asked, which results in less curveball questions and you giving better answers that you’ve already prepared ahead of time. But this is mo...

In an acquisition, cost of capital is one of the most important assumptions that go into determining whether the deal is favorable or not. Cost of cash is the cheapest, followed by cost of debt, and then cost of equity (most expensive). But when it’s a private equity firm that’s the buyer in the deal, they actually prefer using debt over cash in all of their transactions. Why is that? Hear me expl...