Investment Banking Recruitment Tips & Articles
Recruiting is one of the key topics covered on Mergers & Inquisitions, so below you’ll find all of the recruiting-related articles on the site, sorted by category.
The 4 topics at the top – networking, resumes, interviews, and the recruiting mindset – are the most important, so you should start there.
Networking
- How to Break Out of “Harold & Kumar” Mode and Use Investment Banking Information Sessions to Break Into the Industry
- How to Dominate Your Investment Banking Sell Day
- How to Get Noticed When Networking – Without Becoming a Nuisance: 3 Real-Life Success Stories
- How to Network Like a Ninja in London and Break Into Finance with Low Grades and a Non-Target School on Your CV
- How to Network Like Jason Bourne, When to Throw In the Towel, Moving to Different Groups, and More Networking Ninja Tactics
- How to Network When Everyone You Know Has Been Fired: 7 Strategies to Embrace
- How to Network Your Way Into Finance as a Female – Without Getting Hit On or Getting In Your Own Way
- How to Network Your Way Into Investment Banking in 5 Simple Steps
- How to Prepare for Investment Banking Summer Internship Recruiting
- How to Turn Cold Calls Warm, Follow-Up and Avoid Awkward Alumni Conversations
- How to Use Investment Banking Informational Interviews to Break In
- Investment Banking Networking: How to Break In
- Investment Banking: Canada Edition
- My Own, Personal Networking Blunders and What You Can Learn from Them
- Networking Into Investment Banking: It’s A Marathon, Not A Sprint
- Recruiting in a Down Market, Part 3: How to Go from Networking Newbie to Networking Ninja
- The Complete Guide to Cold Calling Your Way Into Investment Banking
- Weekend Trips: The Best Way to Break Into Investment Banking?
- Why You Can’t Network Your Way Into Investment Banking – and What to Do About It
Resumes
- 3 Reasons Why Your Investment Banking Cover Letter is Making You Look Like a Fool and What to Do About It
- Copy This Experienced Investment Banker Resume Template to Break In As an Associate
- Copy This Investment Banker Resume Template to Get Into KKR (Or At Least, Something Almost as Good)
- Copy This Investment Banking Resume Template to Break In (If You’re a University Student)
- Five Ways To Make Your Resume Sink Faster Than The Titanic
- How Investment Bankers Read Your Resume
- How to Prepare for Investment Banking Summer Internship Recruiting
- How To Write An Investment Banking Resume
- How to Write an Investment Banking Resume When You Have No Real Work Experience
- Private Equity Resumes
- The Investment Banking Cover Letter Template You’ve Been Waiting For
- The Perfect Sales & Trading Resume Template?
Interviews
- 3 More Mistakes to Avoid When Answering the Most Important Interview Question
- Do You Make These Critical Mistakes When Answering the Most Important Investment Banking Interview Question?
- From Top Chef to Top Bank: How to Break Into Investment Banking in Canada
- How Investment Banking Interviews Have Changed in Recent Years – and How You Should Prepare
- How to Ace Your Private Equity Interviews
- How to Answer the “Greatest Weakness” Question in Interviews Without Getting Dinged
- How to Answer the “Why Our Bank?” Question in Investment Banking Interviews, Assessment Centers, and More
- How To Close Your Investment Banking Offers
- How to Dominate Your Industry-Specific Interviews: Real Estate, Energy, FIG, and More
- How to Fail Your Interviews by Not Knowing 2 Crucial Words
- How to Prepare for Investment Banking Summer Internship Recruiting
- How to Tell Your “Story” in Investment Banking Interviews in 5 Simple Steps
- Investment Banking Interview Ju-Jutsu: How to Spin Your Weaknesses Into Strengths and Answer the Tough Questions
- Investment Banking Recruiting in the UK: All About Competency Questions, Assessment Centers and More
- No Matter How Badly You Fail Your Investment Banking Interviews, You Can’t Do Worse Than This
- Private Equity Case Studies in 3,017 Words
- Sales & Trading Interview Domination, Part 2: Markets, Brainteasers, and Mental Math
- Sales & Trading Interviews, Part 1: How to Dominate the “Fit” Questions
- Summer Internship vs. Full-Time Investment Banking Interviews
- Superday Zen: Why Less Is More When It Comes to Interview Preparation
- The 3 Most Important Questions You Need to Ace Your Interviews and the 1 You’re Probably Getting Wrong
- The Investment Banking Interview Selection Process
- The Investment Banking Interview: Superday Guide
- Why Investment Banking?
- Why Private Equity?
- Why You Can’t Conquer Your Investment Banking Interviews – And What to Do About It
- Why You Didn’t Land an Offer in Your Final Round Interviews at Morgan Stanley
- Why You Weren’t Selected for That Interview at JP Morgan
- “Unattractive, Poorly Dressed Applicants Need Not Apply”: Got Cultural Fit?
Recruiting Mindset
- 5 Lessons Rocky Can Teach You About Getting Into Investment Banking
- Age and Investment Banking: How Old Is Too Old to Break In?
- Degrees and Certifications: Got CFA + JD + MBA + MD?
- EMEA Recruitment, Part 2: How to Dominate Your Assessment Centers and Land Investment Banking Offers
- How to Apply the 80/20 Rule to Your Recruiting Efforts and Get Into Investment Banking with 1/10 the Effort
- How to Break All the Rules and Hustle Your Way Into Anything – Jobs, Networking with CEOs, and Yes, Even Free Financial Modeling Courses
- How to Navigate the EMEA Recruitment Maze and Land Investment Banking Offers in Europe and Beyond – Part 1
- How to Spin and BS Your Way to Success in Investment Banking
- Investment Banking Competitions: The Best Way to Make Up for Average Grades and No Work Experience?
- No, You Can’t Have It All: Why Finance Does Not Guarantee You $10 Million and Your Own Beach in Thailand
- Plight of the Polar Bear: How NOT to Find a New Finance Job After You’re Laid Off
- Stuff Investment Bankers Don’t Like: The CFA, Your Activities, Your Ph.D., and More
- The Myth of the Career Path
- The Secret Experiment I Just Performed On You – and Why You (Still) Shouldn’t Overestimate the Competition
- Warning: Don’t Give Up on Getting Into Finance Or You Might Miss… a Free Trip Around the World?
- Which Language Should You Learn to Break Into Investment Banking?
- Why Not Even a Boutique Investment Bank Will Hire You – And What to Do About It
- Your 6-Month Step-by-Step Game Plan to Finance Interview Prep, Part 1: What to Do in the Months Leading Up to Interview Season
- Your 6-Month Step-by-Step Game Plan to Finance Interview Prep, Part 2: What to Do in the 2 Weeks Leading Up to Interviews… and the Week After
Recruiting in a Down Market
- 10 Questions I Can Answer About the Future of Investment Banking
- 5 Mistakes to Avoid in a Market Meltdown
- 5 Ways To Boost Your Recruiting Chances In A Tough Hiring Market
- Damn, It Does NOT Feel Good To Be A Banker: Investment Banking Apocalypse
- No, Don’t Go Back to School, Become a Ski Bum or Even Think About Chinese Gold Farming: Why You Shouldn’t Time the Market
- Recruiting in a Down Market, Part 1: The State of the Market
- Recruiting in a Down Market, Part 2: Moving from “Check the Box” Recruiting to Actual Recruiting
- Recruiting in a Down Market, Part 3: How to Go from Networking Newbie to Networking Ninja
- Recruiting in a Down Market, Part 4: How to Weigh Your “Plan B” Options and Ensure That You Don’t End Up with “Plan Z” Instead
- Recruiting in a Down Market, Part 5: How to Avoid Desperation and Shooting Yourself in the Foot, and How to Deliver a Convincing Recruiting Performance
- Why You Should Stop Reading BusinessWeek and Start Using Common Sense Instead: What the Mainstream Media is Missing About Recession Recruiting
Case Studies & Interviews with Readers Who Broke In
- Breaking Back Into Finance: How to Resurrect a Career in Fund Management When You’re Stuck in a Dead-End Job
- Breaking Into Investment Funds in Eastern Europe: How to Get Screwed on Your Bonus and Then Leave for Ethical Reasons
- Diversity Recruiting: Your Secret Weapon for Breaking Into Investment Banking?
- From Big 4 Restructuring to Investment Banking: How to Make the Leap
- From International Student at Non-Target School to Bulge Bracket Investment Banking: How to Beat the Odds and Break In
- From London to the Middle East: How to Break Into Investment Banking in Dubai
- From Middle-Office Operations to Front-Office Sales & Trading: How One Reader Made the Leap and How You Can Do It Too
- From Non-Target and No Finance Experience to 2 Full-Time Bulge Bracket Investment Banking Offers
- From Non-Target School and Unpaid Wealth Management Internship to Full-Time Bulge Bracket Investment Banking Offer: How to Make the Leap
- From Nuclear Submarines to Investment Banking: How to Make the Leap from the Military to Finance
- From Physics Major with Low A-Levels and No Finance Experience in the UK to Investment Banking… in India
- From Sales & Trading to Investment Banking: How to Hop Over the Fence
- From the Back Office to Front Office Private Equity: How to Make the Leap
- From the Military to Sales & Trading: How to Defy the Odds and Land a Full-Time Bulge Bracket Offer from a Non-Target School
- From Visa-Less Foreigner in the UK to the FICC Trading Desk at a Top Bulge Bracket Bank: How to Make the Leap
- How to Break Into Asset Management in Germany – from a Part-Time, Non-Target, Distance Learning MBA Program
- How to Break Into Corporate Development as an Engineer with No Finance Experience
- How to Break Into Finance with a Low GPA, No Finance Experience, and Without Going to a Top School: 4 Mistakes to Avoid and 3 Strategies to Embrace
- How to Break Into Investment Banking as a Career-Changer in a Part-Time, Non-Target MBA Program
- How to Break Into Investment Banking as an Engineer With No Finance Background: Case Study
- How to Break Into Investment Banking at the Associate Level from a Part-Time / Evening / Weekend MBA Program
- How to Break Into Investment Banking If You Have a 3.0 GPA, Graduated from an Unknown School, and Only Recently Learned English
- How to Break Into Private Equity Right Out of Undergraduate with No Investment Banking or Private Equity Internships
- How to Defy the Odds and Break Into Private Equity in China as a Foreigner – Even as Everyone Else is Getting Deported
- How to Defy the Odds and Create Your Own Investment Banking Job
- How to Do Everything Wrong and Still Land an MBA-Level Investment Banking Internship
- How to Get Fired from Your Equity Research Job in Dubai by… Opening a Library in Pakistan
- How to Get Into Investment Banking from an Unknown State School with No Finance Background: Case Study
- Investment Banking in India: How to Break In Even If You’ve Been Out of School for 5+ Years and You Don’t Have a Finance Background
- Investment Banking Recruiting in Europe: London vs. Frankfurt vs. Milan
- Investment Banking… from Vancouver to Korea to Everywhere In Between
- Revealed: The True Story of How I Got Into Investment Banking and What You Can Learn From It
- Why You Can’t Get an Investment Banking or Private Equity Job via Recruiters – And What to Do About It
Career Transitions
- Breaking and Entering Into Investment Banking As an Accountant
- From Analyst to Associate and Beyond: How to Get Promoted In Investment Banking
- From Big 4 Restructuring to Investment Banking: How to Make the Leap
- From Liberal Arts to Finance: Shakespeare with Swag, or Mission: Impossible?
- How to Break Into Finance as a Consultant
- How to Break Into Finance as a Lawyer
- How to Break Into Investment Banking as an Engineer
- How to Break Into Investment Banking as an Engineer With No Finance Background: Case Study
- Lateral Hiring 101: How to Look Before You Leap, and Then How to Make the Leap
- Lateraling To Another Investment Bank? Look Before You Leap
Preparing for Work
- How to Dominate Your Investment Banking Sell Day
- How to Pick Your Group as an Investment Banking Summer Analyst
- How to Prepare for Your Full-Time Investment Banking Job
- How to Prepare for Your Investment Banking Summer Internship (If You Haven’t Already Started)
- It’s Not Rocket Science: Why You Should Stop Learning Partial Differential Equations If You Want to Break Into Investment Banking
- The Jack Bauer Guide to Investment Banking Success: 11 Reasons Why Watching 24 is Better Preparation Than Financial Modeling Classes
- What Should You Pick For Your Major?
- What’s In a Pitch Book?
- Why You Shouldn’t Start Your Investment Banking Job Early
- You Just Got a Full-Time Investment Banking Offer – Now, What Do You Do Before You Start?
“Plan B” Options
- Bear Stearns Episode 2: The Shareholders Strike Back
- Can You Renege On Your Investment Banking Job Offer Without Being Blacklisted for Life?
- If You Can’t Get a Paid Finance Internship or Job, Should You Offer to Work for Free?
- If You Don’t Get Into Investment Banking, Should You Become a Ski Bum Instead?
- If You’re Not Confident You Can Get Into Investment Banking, Should You Apply to Master’s Programs to Hedge Yourself?
- The Incoming Analyst Conundrum: What To Do If You Get Transferred
- What If You Don’t Get a Return Offer From Your Investment Banking Summer Internship?
- What Should I Do With My Bear Stearns Investment Banking Offer?
- You Didn’t Get Any Full-Time Investment Banking Offers. Now What Do You Do?
- You Didn’t Get Any Investment Banking Summer Internship Offers. Now What Do You Do?
