I-Banking Interview soon - Advise pls like, experience, interview, industry, business

Palantir

Hi all,
I'm in my 2nd year in a support role (ops) at a top tier i-bank. I now scored an opportunity to interview for a position as a first year analyst in i-banking (in either an industry vertical or M&A, all TBD). I graduated from a avg. joe accredited undergrad. business program in dec 08, and am a L3 candidate. All my full time previous work experience is Ops at this bank.

My questions are:

1. What will the IB interview be like? Pls provide sample questions, etc.

2. What do I want to stress in this interview / what qualities are they looking for)?

3. How should I feel about completing 2 years at the bank (although in ops) and then starting off as a 1st yr analyst all over again in IB?

4. Are the 1st 2 years really as brutal as they say? Pls provide details.

5. It's a 2 year program - what would my prospects be after completing 2 years of IB experience at top tier ibank?

Too many questions for one post I know, thanks for any help you can provide!

Analti_Calte

1. Interviews vary between person to person and bank to bank, generally you will go through multiple rounds, round 1 will be either over the phone ore in person, they want to know that you know what I-banking is, sounds stupid but some people apply and have no idea what investment bankers do. They want to know that you know the 3 methods of valuation; DCF (discounted cash flow), Precedent Transactions (companies similar to your clients that recently sold) and multiples (P/E, Price/Sales million of other metrics). The questions could be endless, whats WACC? explain the yield curve, anything and everything is fair game. Your CFA should help here, they make us memorize tons of minute equations and concepts related to finance.

2. Explain why i-banking now as opposed to when you graduated? DId you not like ops? why do you want to be a banker? Stress that you are a hard worker EXAMPLES concrete ones, they will push you on this at times. Know your @#$%& about the markets, if you say you keep up, you better be ready to talk about them. Basically ibankers look for lil B***es in analysts, you'll be doing pitch books and spreadsheets, and during this time bonuses aren't that large. You will sacrifice a lot in your personal life for at least a couple of years.

3. If you didn't like it, and want a career change then don't beat yourself up over it. Do not think that operational side at an i-bank and ibanking are the same thing, you are very much a career changer despite being at the same company. Figure out what your end game is, do not go into bankign simply because you think you will be rich, most analysts get fired after 2 years since their stint is up, a few get called back to a 3rd year of torture and even fewer get a straight promotion to associate, having said that most people look to do 2 years and get out.

4. Yes, what sort of details do you want? The markets don't sleep, neither does money. Your managing director cares about his paycheck which is dependent on meeting with clients and promising things at times at ridiculous deadlines and you will constantly find yourself doing work that is either not used or overlooked. Point is if you are an analyst particularly a 1st year, expect to work at least 1 day in the weekend and generally pull in 60-80 hours a week, it can get crazier if a big deal is going on, so be prepared and know that this is something you would be willing to handle, most people kid themselves and are just miserable for no reason.

5. Popular choice is Private Equity and Hedge Funds although I will say these paths are not guaranteed, and joining some no name PE firm wont do as much for your career as you think. Hedge Funds sound glamorous, but even they are running dry these days.

I would suggest you do a lot more research on what it takes to get into investment banking and particularly emphasize the lifestyle change you would endure. Anyone who tells you its a glamorous position is lying to you. Best of Luck.

PalacioHill

Yea banking is not all glamorous as you might be imagining. The entry analysts are usually put through very tough work loads. In some firms for banking, you may literally learn nothing. I have friends who did it. Generally associates get to do actual modeling. Analysts usu. put together pitchbooks, powerpoints, marketing material, make photocopies and the work is not glamorous at all.

As the poster above said, they can work you hard then toss you away after the 2 years. I worked at a top tier bank and seen what operations do, it's night and day. A lot of people burn out.

Yes your bonus at the end might look great. But you also worked double the hours. Divide that per hour, and you'll realize you were working more for less.

It's not for everyone, and far less job security. You always need ops or back office to do reporting and check cash payments. But when business dries up, economy goes down, and transactions stop flowing, bankers are on the front lines of being cut. At least in trading you can make money up or down.

A lot of think about.

bpdulog

I recently interviewed for an IB position, and what bruin and iteracom said are bang on. I think I did poorly in the interview because I sounded too enthusiastic about the work. They pretty much said it was **** work and if I expected to learn anything besides how to make powerpoints I was setting myself up for disappointment. So emphasize that you know its a lot of grunt work.

Valores

cpham, just curious what firm did you interview with?

skycfa

National Bank Financial. They are a Canadian bank, not as well known as the big 5 but really strong in Quebec. Why?

bkballa

just wondering. usually the bulge bracket firms have people more dedicated to grunt work. boutique's usually are more picky and want people with more technical skills.

Windjam

it's funny though. I talked to my friends in banking and they practically all said firms have such high requirements for getting the job, but the actual job itself is so much easier and really doesn't take any genius to do.

mar350

yeah, I was just wondering the same thing. I'm pretty sure I could have made some pretty sweet PowerPoints back in high school.

Supply and demand I guess...