Investment Banking Discussion Thread - Page 12

He said that or offering to work for like nothing just to get some experience on my resume. I didn't want to get an MBA until having a few years under my belt first, though if I can't find something in the next couple months I probably will start looking towards that route. I think MSF would be pretty pointless and I'd have about the same options as I do now. I'm also increasingly considering the CFA.

I have another call lined up with a PM at a distressed debt hedge fund next week and the guy that's hooking me up with all these contacts is still in the process of recommending me for an analyst program at his (BB) firm.

Also have to try to get into contact with the MD here that someone was trying to get me in touch with last week. Balls are rolling I guess.

Keep pushing, man. I feel stuck and I'm just an undergrad senior.

PS - I also am not a fan of the business school route without prior work experience. If anything, do an unpaid internship at a boutique.

At the same time as you are pushing for front office jobs, broaden your search to include:

- corp dev
- accounting
- risk
- finance departments
- investment advising
- structuring
- research

The last three are front office jobs.

That does not make your advice any less valid.

If you want to be un-downsizable and forever in high demand, get into IB compliance. Now that's (with risk) the growth areas in IB...

yep.

This is totally true. Treat every informational meeting as an interview. Know your stuff and be prepared to answer questions. Always make sure to ask for other contacts before your meeting is over.

This is how you get the interview that will get you an offer.

Sounds super-boring though. If you want to go into a less risky profession with less chance of layoffs, go into law. Oh wait.

If you haven't already, build your own model. Start with a plain, three statement operating model. See if you can get it all to flow and balance. This is harder the first time than you might imagine. No matter what you've read in the Vault guide or wherever, you can't possibly attain as deep an understanding of basic financial accounting as you will by throwing yourself into the weeds. This will matter when you do land an interview--everybody with half a brain and the slightest initiative will have already memorized the Vault guide, but relatively few will be able to demonstrate a legitimate understanding of the concepts.

If you are feeling ambitious, move on to doing a DCF and LBO. I would not bother trying a merger model. It will likely be wrong and you won't want to get too deep into it during interviews, anyway.

I think the WSO and M&I technical question guides are awesome. The WSO one is plainly superior to Vault--better questions and better, clearer explanations. M&I is good if you want to go deeper.

As for books, I highly recommend Accounting for M&A, Equity, and Credit Analysts, by James Morris. It's probably too advanced and granular for your immediate purposes, but it is an excellent reference for when you are building a model and can't figure out how to treat NOLs or OID.

The Rosenbaum/Pearl book is a good, basic primer on what investment bankers do, but it isn't a very good technical reference.

I was planning on getting through these three books some more then actually doing this. Would this be something you would present in an interview or put on your resume ("Independently studied valuation modeling and created samples that can be provided upon request" or something like that)?

I was also going to go through the BIWS courses but TBH they're pretty expensive and I'm worried if I get through these books I'll already know most of the content.

Do you know where I can find examples of these online anywhere?

Seems like a pretty good place to start, though. I got through about 1/5 of it in a single reading so it's obviously basic but it's a good start. I'll definitely check out your recommendation, though. Thanks for the tips!

What's your experience in this field?

Just be careful what you say. Earlier in my career I had someone stop me as soon as I mentioned DCF, had me draw a model on a whiteboard while he berated me with technical questions - some of which I was far too inexperienced to answer. It was probably the single best interview experience I ever received - interviews after that seemed like cake. If you plan on doing this know the model in and out and memorize the common formulas - which is the easy part. I was fine drawing it out and writing out the formulas, but anyone with experience will be able to distinguish between this type of knowledge and real deal knowledge as soon as they dig a bit deeper - so just don't misrepresent yourself and you'll be good.

J/W but are you transitioning from school or from another career? I read your OP and it is from school so you are graduating or have graduated.

I say network and self-study like crazy in order to land an entry position into one of the specialties you're interested in. MBA I would hold off on unless you're the type thinking you can learn and network among older classmates who mostly have experience under their belt. TBH, I think it will be fairly difficult for your to break through given your description of "mediocre grades and school". So, network a lot beforehand to make up the gap. Take an internship as a last viable option and think of it as building experience and thickening your skin for the real work.

I ended up in the latter and am currently working under a PWM firm now. Someone mentioned compliance work and I would love to trade places with our compliance and back office. To put things in perspective, I lasted 6 months interning, 3 month then 3 month with a stipend. It was hell in hindsight after the first 3 months.

FWIW, if you are interested in becoming a CFA I work with one everyday. Prepare for a lot of reading and communication with fund managers, their internals/externals, and essentially bridging a relationship. Beside that you will be analyzing and preparing a lot of reviews utilizing software from 3rd-party websites and Excel. Perhaps other firms have more sophisticated software and connections so YMMV. Of course, you'll need to pass all 3 levels of the CFA first, which will take an additional minimum of 3 years.

I graduated in 2010.

No, I would not put that on your resume. However, if you take a training course, you should definitely include it. It will show interest.

Just realize, as suited mentions, that you will be taken to task during an interview. Be prepared to answer questions about anything you claim you can do. So don't bite off more than you can chew.

You take the course to prove your interest and initiative, as well as to learn the material. A lot of banks use Wall Street Training (http://www.wallst-training.com/). The Asian instructor has become a well-loved character amongst analysts.

I don't understand what you mean by examples. Perhaps you can get a preview through Google--but ultimately, you'll need to buy in.

I'm an M&A banker.

Then you have been studying and learning more about IB during your past-time? Kudos to you

FWIW, I hear in the long run of things an MBA will definitely help you move more and position yourself than a CFA. I think I remember reading that a MBA will usually be promoted to manager/partner positions over a CFA. Probably common knowledge here but worth repeating if you are still considering that Kellogg's program at this point.

I would consider the fact that these days it is near impossible to land an associate gig out of business school without previous analyst experience. Maybe that will change in a couple of years when the economy picks up and the investment banking world begins to make sense again, but who can say? As of the moment, I'd be very wary of pursuing an MBA in order to get into banking. This applies even to the top schools. Analyst programs everywhere are shrinking.