Investment Banking Recruiting Secrets of the Top 1%

Most of you know that EBITDA is a proxy for cash flow. However, for some companies, it’s actually possible to have positive free cash flow when their EBITDA is negative. Can you guess how that might be? Hear me coach a student on this somewhat tricky technical question that gets asked. Book a Virtual Coffee Chat with an Upperclassmen Who Secured an Offer: wallstmastermind.com/apply?utm_source=podc...

Our client Jared is a student from a small non-target liberal arts school that has barely sent any alumni to Wall Street in recent years. Despite these odds, Jared learned how to network from WSMM and ended up speaking with 350 bankers during his recruiting process. Hear how he was able to get selected for interviews with 10 firms, move on to multiple superdays, and eventually secure an offer from...

Changes in operating working capital is one of the most important variables when calculating the free cash flow of a business. However, it’s a relatively difficult concept to grasp and explain, especially for someone who has never run an actual business before. They key to explaining this is understanding when an event is a USE of cash versus a SOURCE of cash. Hear me coach my student on how to ex...

When calculating the equity value of a business, you want to make sure you’re using the fully diluted share count, not just the basic share count. But how do you calculate the fully diluted share count? What are the different types of dilutive securities you have to take into account? And how does each type of dilutive security differ when it comes to calculating the dilution? Hear me coach a stud...

In this session, we give Ximena feedback on the next set of behavioral questions, including why she's interested in a particular coverage group within investment banking. We also focus on all the resume related questions, such as why she chose her school and major, as well as walking through the most relevant internship experiences she's had to date, which are her search fund internships. Book a V...

What are the most common technical topics that get asked about in interviews? This question is especially important if you’re behind on your interview prep and you don’t have time to learn everything. In case you didn’t know, some topics actually do show up a lot more than others. You want to try to prioritize those topics first in your studying. Watch me answer this question for one of my student...

One of the most common questions I get asked is “Sam, do I have to network first before I apply to a firm, or can I apply first and then network?” This question comes up because oftentimes, students get caught off guard by how early the recruiting process is starting, and haven’t done any networking yet up to that point. So does the order of which you do first really matter? Hear me explain this t...

Our client Chan was a liberal arts student who didn’t have much of a finance background. He thought he had a solid shot at breaking into investment banking, but joined WSMM sophomore year because he didn’t want to just break in -- he wanted to break into the best groups at the best banks. Hear how he was able to do exactly that within just 4 months of joining the program, ultimately receiving an o...

Sometimes students get confused about the difference between the “front office” roles at an investment bank versus the “middle office” or “back office” roles. Other times, they know there’s a difference, but are wondering if it’s possible to lateral from a middle or back office role to a front office role. If you don’t know the answer to the above questions, it’s important that you learn it so tha...

Our client Pavan studied at a small non-target school called Case Western. He realised that he wanted to get into banking towards the end of freshman year, but couldn’t get any interviews. During senior year, after realizing his own strategies weren’t working and that time was running out, he joined WSMM. Hear how he was able to secure an offer at an elite boutique despite his extremely late start...

When you do a discounted cash flow, you can get a wide range of outcomes. Depending on what you assume for your revenue growth rate, margin assumptions, and other factors like working capital and capex, your valuation could be much higher or lower. So how do you know if the valuation range you arrive at is at least in the correct ballpark? Hear me coach my student through how this is done. Book a...

Aside from “tell me about yourself”, “why investment banking”, and “why our bank”, the next most likely question you’ll get during interviews is “walk me through this internship experience on your resume”. In other words, you need to know how to discuss every single experience you have listed on your resume (because you never know which one the interviewer will ask about)… And you need to do it in...

In this session, we discuss the importance of diversity programs and strategize on how Ximena can take advantage of these additional recruiting channels as a Latina student. We also game plan on all the things she needs to start doing in order to be prepared for the diversity recruiting process. Book a Virtual Coffee Chat with an Upperclassmen Who Secured an Offer: wallstmastermind.com/apply?utm_s...

To really understand whether a business is doing well, you need to first figure out what KPIs to look at. “KPI” stands for “key performance indicators” and these are usually leading indicators that will help you forecast your revenue and expenses ahead of time. This is a more advanced topic but it can come up in interviews, especially if you get a case study question. Hear me coaching one of my st...

A lot of times students take on internships to get more relevant experience, only to find that they are not getting much in terms of real responsibilities. This is problematic because the student then has trouble writing about the internship on their resume… And even if they make up some fake bullet points, they get exposed during the interview when they can’t speak to the internship intelligently...

In this session we review the initial draft of Ximena's networking contact log, strategize on which banks she wants to target, and how to set goals for how many bankers she should reach out to throughout her networking process. We also discuss who she should target to get better conversion rates for the amount of effort she's putting in. Book a Virtual Coffee Chat with an Upperclassmen Who Secured...

A common situational question that bankers like to ask is “tell me about a time when you had to manage tight deadlines.” They want to see how you would behave in a high pressure environment that requires you to juggle multiple competing responsibilities at once. But how do you answer these questions well besides just saying things like “work harder” or “sleep less”? Are there mental frameworks you...

Should you spend time networking with someone who works at a bank you’re interested in, but doesn’t work in the investment banking division? Can someone who works in, say, private wealth management, refer you for a job in the investment banking division? The answer is it depends. Listen to this podcast where we discuss how you should be allocating your networking time and effort to get the best re...

Our client Jenn is a sophomore who has already secured her junior summer offer at PJT Partners (as of mid-April). Hear how she went from being someone with no finance experience and didn't know how to get her foot in the door, to getting offers for sophomore summer internships with two global banks, followed by her junior summer internship offer - all just within 3.5 months of joining WSMM. Book a...

Most students focus the majority of their networking efforts on bankers at the analyst level. This is primarily because junior bankers are generally more accessible, and it’s also easier to build rapport with someone who’s closer in age. But is this enough? Or should you be trying to network with senior bankers as well? Hear this podcast where we discuss whether it’s important to network with seni...

Most of the time, you will have bankers that you networked with months before having to submit your applications. After all, you can’t wait until the last minute to do all of your networking, there simply isn’t enough time. But how do you reconnect with these bankers if it’s been awhile? And how will they even remember who you are? Hear this podcast to learn how to do this and improve your referra...

Our client Luke is a sophomore who just received a junior summer internship offer from Evercore. He attends a non-target school where just two students graduate into investment banking each year. Hear him talk about how he overcame this obstacle of coming from a non-target school to get an interview from every bank he applied to, before eventually breaking into one of the top elite boutiques on Wa...

Did you know that some industry groups actually have different technical questions that they ask during interviews? This means that you have some extra studying to do if you are interviewing for these groups. You certainly don’t want to spend time studying for questions you don’t need to know… but you also don’t want to be blindsided during the interview. Listen to this podcast and find out which...

One of my students recently asked me if it would be OK for him to stop networking with a certain bank, because he had already been networking with multiple people at the firm for awhile. Given the limited amount of time you have to network, how do you know when you’ve done enough? I walked him through the two main objectives you must achieve during your networking processes. Once you’ve accomplish...

In this session, we introduce Ximena, who is the first student to go through our ELEVATE Scholarship Program where we help high potential students break into investment banking with a full scholarship to our program. We talk about her background a little bit, and then spend most of the session taking a fine comb through her resume. Check out the difference in her resume before she started working...