Investment Banking Recruiting

Mergers and Inquisitions offers a comprehensive set of resources for prospective investment bankers, from recruiting to interviews to closing your offer. Yale also has a great summary of potential questions. All of their resources are greatly helpful (and often entertaining), so we encourage you to read their articles to learn about a) what to do and b) what not to do. Also keep in mind that finance/valuation questions will get more complicated in your second year, so always look to sharpen your technical skills.

Read about what companies want
Take the advice of those who have the inside look to a company. Glassdoor can offer a good starting point when looking at experiences of people working in specific companies. More importantly, talk with second years to get more information! There are some public resources, but take with a grain of salt given the easy by which people can write and upload in the public domain:

Recruiting tips for bankers from a regular recruiter

Don’t be afraid to admit mistakes!
One recruiter, a partner at a niche investment bank, recalls the story of a promising candidate who ruined his own chances because he couldn’t do just that. The interviewee, a great prospect from a top school, was asked to define duration. Though he wasn’t able to do so, his grace under pressure and solid answers to all other questions earned him a “yes” from the partner (and all the other interviewers). However, when he sent his thank you note the next day, he claimed that he woke up in the middle of the night and found that the definition of duration “just came to him” – and answered the question using language that was clearly copied and pasted from a textbook.“One of the hardest parts of being a young MBA,” the partner observed, “is the ability to make a mistake. And I wasn’t willing to work with this guy if he couldn’t do that. Because making a mistake is okay, but if you make a mistake and bury it with lies, things get much, much worse.”