First person from my college to go to front office IB
Guys, I did it.
Secured an internship with a fantastic MM coverage group team for next summer. Couldn’t have done it without this website, so thank you.
After networking with north of 300 people, being blown off by the BB that I was working for while in their WM division, and religiously studying technicals, I am officially the first person from my college to make it into investment banking.
Don’t wanna give up too much personal information for my future boss/coworkers to see but good lord am I happy. 6 months of near constant networking + technicals grinding to get to this point, on top of CFA lv 1 and working, I couldn’t be happier. I’m one of two interns at this firm next summer; according to LinkedIn I beat out candidates from Harvard and other target uni’s (+ there was upwards of 200 other applicants) so I’m super proud of myself. The WSO technicals + excel demos made a world of difference for me!!
The University I go to has zero presence on wall street/“✨high finance✨” , so I’m hoping to set a good reputation for any future students that try to follow my path. Again thank you to all of you on this website, I owe a few of you a drink or two for the info you’ve put on some forums!
Wow, that's quite an achievement! You've really shown that with determination and hard work, you can break into investment banking, even from a non-target school. It's fantastic to hear that the WSO technicals and excel demos were so helpful for you.
Networking with over 300 people is no small feat, and it's clear that your efforts have paid off. It's also impressive that you managed to balance studying for the CFA Level 1 and working at the same time.
You should be incredibly proud of yourself for not only securing an internship but also for being the first person from your college to make it into investment banking. You've set a great example for future students at your university.
Remember, the journey is just beginning. Keep up the hard work, continue learning and growing, and I'm sure you'll do great things in your internship and beyond. And hey, I'll take you up on that drink offer! Cheers to your success!
Sources: Laughed at —> Top BB, A BIG thank you to WSO from a non-target!, A small success story, huge thanks to this forum, From being clueless about IB to Summer Analyst offer: Thank you WSO
Awesome news man!
Love to see it
YES! congrats :-)
Thank you WSO!
Congrats man :). For ~300 networking calls, how many emails were you sending and how did you make the most of those relationships?
For most of these I went through linkedin. Strategy was to connect with 10-30 people a day on linkedin from the same company (or from a few companies if they were smaller firms) then message each of those people until I got someone to agree to have a call with me.
Tried the cold emailing thing but I found that sending either a note with a linkedin connection or connecting then messaging was the best route. Focused on analysts & associates as there’s more of them and I could relate to them more than a 45 y/o director.
My strat after getting in touch with someone was: After having a REALLY good call with an analyst/associate, I’d ask to talk to their VP, who I’d then try to get a referral from to talk to a Director/MD or at least another VP.
Rinsed and repeated this until I got a few recommendations from mid/upper management straight to HR and applied from there. Lots of rejections from HR once they saw my university (this was shocking because according to the actual investment bankers I talked to, they were more than happy with my industry and technical knowledge) so that was my process!
Congratulations, incredible!
Thank you!
Congrats brother!!
Thanks a ton!
Congrats! I did a similar thread not long ago. So happy for you. It's a great feeling - enjoy it.
How long after your AC at JP AM did you hear back? Appreciate it brother
I didn't do one ... check what thread you're on
Thanks I appreciate it!
Congrats.
Btw, when you say you were working in WM at a BB - are you a graduate or was the WM stint also a summer internship?
Asking as I have seen a few internal moves from WM to IBD in certain BBs, seems to be 100% possible
The WM stint was an internship, seemed like the move from WM to IB within that BB was near impossible due to the aforementioned HR issue in one of my other comments. Curious to see how other people are able to pull that off internally
Do you want to say which one it was?
I can definitely say 2 were it happens. Indeed in one of them, I have seen some ppl in MO (not sure if it was BO or MO but sounded like ops) go to top FO roles (with some grind ofc)
Great to hear my guy. Landed an internship in IB at a similar time as you several years back
Thank you!
What recources would you reccomend for techniquals?
For the budget option -
Go to SEC EDGAR, click company filings, download an xlsx of you favorite companies financial reports, then use google/investopedia to learn how to build three statement, DCF, LBO, ROPI, DDM, ROE/ExRet, and comps models.
For the non-budget option -
Purchase the WSO technical, excel, and various modeling courses. Huge value for me and would be for you.
Once you have the material, aim to put like 100 hours in to prep for interviews. (This is about how long from start to finish I took) You’ll gradually start to memorize this stuff and in no time you’ll be able to ace that tech interview
Thank you, this is very detailed. People usually are very generic with their advice so appreciate this. Also, in terms of networking as a non target would you have any templates for emails/linkedin networking and the questions u asked when networking?
Well done on passing the career milestone. note the two best days of your career are the day you start and the day you finish. Enjoy the ride!
Thank you! Hilarious username btw
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