Diversity Recruiting: Your Secret Weapon for Breaking Into Investment Banking?

“Can you tell me exactly what I have to do to get into finance?

There must be a combination of grades, certifications, internships, and activities that will guarantee me a spot at Goldman Sachs, right?

Give me the magic bullet solution for breaking in!”

Ah, another day, another email.

And if you don’t believe that questions like this come in all the time, just take a look at some of the articles here that have hundreds of comments asking for similar answers.

Sometimes I’m tempted to say, “Yes, just pass all 4 levels of the CFA and you are guaranteed to become an investment banker,” but I can’t always bring myself to have that much fun.

The truth is that there isn’t a magic bullet for getting into the industry.

Or is there?

Diversity recruiting may just be the best, most “secretive” way to get into the industry that you’ve been ignoring up until now.

So read on to learn how you can use it, what to do if you’re not “diverse,” and just how effective it was for a reader who won a bulge bracket internship offer and who’s sharing her story here.

Investment Banking: Pakistan Edition

OK, I’ll admit it upfront: while this site has featured lots of interviews from readers in “hot” emerging markets such as China and India, I haven’t gotten too many requests for Pakistan.

But this is such a good interview and has such specific information that I wanted to publish it anyway.

Plus, the interviewee has been a long-time reader of M&I and captured the personality of the site very well. So let’s get started and learn all about banking, PE, recruiting, and the lifestyle in an emerging market that might be completely off your radar.

How to Prepare for Investment Banking Summer Internship Recruiting

While I’ve written lots of summer internship tutorials, most of them focus on what to do once you’re actually working, or how to prepare for the internship.

Even back in the dark ages (in Internet time, 2-3 years ago) one of the most asked questions here was “OK, but how do I get a summer internship in the first place?”

And since then I’ve gotten many more questions on the timing for summer internship recruiting, how it’s different from full-time recruiting, what to focus on, and what happens when – so let’s get to it.