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How to Get an Investment Banking Internship

If you want to know how to get an investment banking internship, it’s simple: Start very, very early and have a great “Plan B” if something goes wrong. The IB internship recruiting timeline is now so insane that even mainstream news sources like the Wall Street Journal are writing about it (“The Race Is On […]
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Public Service Announcement: Please Stop Using ChatGPT for Email

Normally on this site, I write about a mix of careers, sectors within finance, financial modeling topics, and current events. This week, though, I am posting a public service announcement. Please stop using ChatGPT for email – or learn to use it correctly so you don’t write horrible emails that sink your career. Over the […]
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Investment Banking Target Schools: Lists by Region and What to Do If You’re Not at One

One topic that I’ve never fully explained on this site is the investment banking target school. There are countless references to “target schools” in the articles and interviews, and we assume everyone understands the term. But that’s not always the case, and it gets confusing because target schools differ by region (U.S. vs. Europe vs. […]
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Investment Banking Weekend Trips: Pathway to Interviews, or an Outdated Recruiting Strategy?

A long time ago, the investment banking weekend trip was a rite of passage. You would schedule a few days in a major financial center, such as New York, London, or Hong Kong, and you’d aim to meet a dozen or two bankers in that short period. Ideally, you would have spoken with these bankers […]
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Investment Banking Information Sessions: A Way to Stand Out as a Human in a Virtual World, or a Complete Waste of Time?

Some people like to complain about networking in general, but if there’s a specific part of networking that almost everyone likes to complain about, it’s investment banking information sessions. In these sessions, employers such as large banks visit university and business school campuses to present their firms and let students speak with bankers. There’s a […]
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The Off-Cycle Investment Banking Internship: The Best Side Door into the Industry?

As investment banking recruitment has moved up earlier – especially in the U.S. – many students “miss” the process or start too late to have a good chance. And in other regions, timing differences for degrees and gap years mean that not everyone can complete internships in the traditional time frame. Finally, work experience expectations […]
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Cold Calling Investment Banks: When to Do It, and How to Succeed

A few years ago, I was drawn into a Twitter fight. A South African investment banker was tweeting about how a university student had interrupted him by cold calling to ask about internships in the middle of the day – while he was handling a client emergency. Another student on Twitter then saw this banker’s […]
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How to Cold Email for an Internship: Investment Banking Cold Email Templates and Guide

If you want to learn how to cold email for an internship, you’ll have to answer a key question first: is it even worthwhile to try? If you poke around online, you’ll see many negative comments from people who have emailed dozens of professionals and gotten poor results. Negative outcomes are certainly possible, but if […]
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The Investment Banking Informational Interview: The Full Guide

If you put together a “top 10” list of events that cause panic, confusion, and last-minute questions, the investment banking informational interview might be near the top of that list. It’s one of the main strategies in investment banking networking, and done well, the informational interview can significantly improve your chances of winning internship and […]
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Investment Banking Networking: The Definitive Guide

It’s tough to find a topic that spawns more cynicism, skepticism, and outright hatred on the Internet than investment banking networking. Depending on the source, networking is either the most essential part of the job search… …or a giant waste of time in which students spend countless hours attending information sessions standing around crowded bankers, […]
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How to Fix Your Broken LinkedIn Profile and Create One That Makes Recruiters Come to You

Have you noticed that most “goals” end in failure? There are a few reasons for that: They tend to be vague (“I want to get in shape!”). They require too much work – no, you can’t work 70-80 hours per week and also spend 20 hours per week on a new hobby. They are based on willpower rather […]
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Investment Banking Spring Weeks: The Single Best Way to Break Into the Finance Industry in the UK?

One of the scariest emails I receive starts like this: “I’m a middle school / elementary school student, and I really want to do investment banking….” First off, no, you do NOT want to do investment banking if you’re 10 years old, sorry. You haven’t even hit puberty yet, so how could you possibly be […]
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From Private Equity Internship to Bulge Bracket Investment Banking: How to Cold Email Like a Pro and Win the Offer

  You would think that after many years of covering networking tactics across hundreds of articles, videos, and even a full-fledged course on networking, there would be nothing left to say about it. But you’d be wrong. I was skeptical when our interviewee today contacted me and offered to share the story of how he […]
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