Submitted from a Portfolio Pint Contributor:
I had a very tough time when it came to interviews: I didn’t come from an Ivy League school, I had no relevant investment banking background, and I had no connections to Wall Street. When I was interviewing at banks, I remember thinking, as soon as I get a job I’m going to join the interview team…and that’s exactly what I did! Later on I joined forces with other bulge-bracket investment bankers and helped create the Portfolio Pint Investment Banking Interview Guide: This is everything you need to know from A to Z. I hate to advertise when trying to help colleagues out but if you’re not at the top of your game you can forget breaking into banking.
The start of the year begins with internship recruiting. This is divided up between “core” and “non-core” recruitment (I participated in both when I was a banker). There were roughly 8 core schools. Since I was not a “core” alumnus, the bank let me pick any school I wanted (I chose UNC). The bank then goes to each of the core schools’ career showcase and interviews college candidates on campus. The bank typically chose about 30 to attend Super Day in NYC. Out of those about 5 kids at each school got internship offers.
For the “non-core” this is done via the bank website. But I’ll be truthful here–99% of the candidates chosen had internal referrals, which basically means somebody at the bank (can be analyst, associate, anybody), sent in a quick referral to HR, nearly guaranteeing a first round interview. Out of 2,000+ resumes on the website, referrals would chop that down to roughly 500. The interview team (me) would then dial that down to 200 resumes. Each interviewer would then be assigned 7 candidates whom they would choose for phone interviews (my packet includes phone interview cheat sheets). Out of those 7 I would have to pick 1 to make it to Super Day in NYC. About 28 non-core candidates make it to Super Day and roughly 7 get an internship offer.
A typical internship class will have 50-60 interns, and 95% will receive full-time jobs.
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