How to Break Into Investment Banking
If you want to get into investment banking, you need to get 3 simple steps right: gain access to recruiting channels, win recruiters’ attention with your resume or CV, and ace your interviews. If you haven’t been able to get into the field thus far, you’re probably doing one of these wrong.
First, let’s discuss access. “Recruiting channels” refer to banks’ presentations on school campuses, talking to headhunters, or going through school alumni or other referrals from professionals you know.
Unless you’re going to a top school, you’re going to have a tough time winning access – because banks only target around 10-20 top schools for most of their recruiting efforts, nearly ignoring everyone else.
If you’re not at one of these schools, you’ll have to cold-call, network with alumni, and go through informational interviews until you break into the industry – it’s not an easy ride.
If you go this route, make a list of all local boutiques and small firms in your region, and don’t give up until you’ve called all of them – and then move onto alumni, referrals from friends, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other means.
Once you have some sort of access to recruiters or bankers at these firms who will actually pay attention to you, you need a winning resume / CV to actually stand out and get interviews.
Keep your resume short and concise (1 page or less unless you are 40+ years old), and focus your attention on the top 2 or 3 experiences that make you stand out – as a student, these would be your internships or best leadership activities, and as a professional these might be jobs you’ve had over the past 5-10 years.
Focus as much as possible on results and specificity, using numbers wherever it’s possible to do so – and try to structure your experience in terms of specific transactions, clients, or projects rather than just having generic summary sentences.
Once you’ve got the resume down, move on to your interview skills. The absolute most important part of interviews is getting your “story” right – why you want to be an investment banker, and why now.
Go in chronological order, and connect your experiences to explain why you need to be in investment banker more than anyone else they talk to that day – other questions are also relevant, but 90% of the interview hinges on your story.
These days, you also need to have a solid handle on finance and accounting questions, so brush up on your knowledge by reading books and interview guides. But focus on crafting a solid story above all else.
That’s all you need to know to begin breaking into investment banking – good luck!