There are four essential steps required before trying to break into investment banking which are prerequisite for any successful applicant. and after, there are three main entry routes for investment banking jobs.

Depending on your current situation and geographical location, this will impact the difficulty of each step as well as the opportunities and routes you have available.

PRE-Investment Banking Prep

Step 1. Getting relevant experience

Step 2. Making your Resume / CV bank ready

Step 3. Interview preparation

Step 4. Networking

APPLICATION: Investment Banking Entry Route

Route 1 – Internships

Route 2 – Off-Cycle Internships

Route 3 – Full Time Analyst & Associate Roles

Route 4 – Transitioning from another industry

Investment Banking Entry Requirements

Before we begin our journey into investment banking lets take a step back and look to see if investment banking if even right for you, because unfortunate, investment banking isn’t for everyone.

When investment bankers are looking at prospective candidates we are essentially asking ourselves two essential questions.

The first and more important question is: will I want this candidates to work for me? In order words will this person do a good job?, do they have the right attitude? Does this person have the necessary technical skills to do the job?

The second question is: will I want to spend time next to this person? In other words if I am going to be stuck with this person for 12 hours a day in the office, will I enjoy his/ her company? Will the candidate be fun to conversate with or boring and make me regret hiring this person?

To answer these two questions we look at a 7 different factors during the application stages and interview answers. For a list of these factors see our dedicated article and video on the topic of Investment Banking Requirements

The Investment Banking Recruitment Process

There are two types of recruiting process you will find for bulge bracket banks and elite boutique banks. We can categorise them as the North American or U.S. version and the European version. The main difference between them is the North American version has “Superdays” which are a day of 8 to 12 back-to-back interviews which the Europeans have replaced with assessment centres that test general analytical competence.

If you live in Hong Kong, Australia and some parts of Asia then you will likely follow the American or U.S. style. If you live in the Middle East and some parts of Africa and the UK then you will follow the European method. We are going to discuss both styles in detail.

There are generally three main steps required before you can successfully break into investment banking as an analyst, intern or associate. Once you have completed these steps we will then look at the different entry routs available to you depending on your situation.

Step 1. Getting relevant experience

It is going to be very difficult to get an investment banking internship let alone a full time role without previous experience, how do you get experience?

For those who already have relevant work experience in investment banking, corporate development, private equity, valuation and anything highly related to the skills required for investment banking, skip this step.

For those who need work experience immediately then you will need to implement our emergency work experience program. This is an ultra-easy way to get valuable work experience fast, easily and anywhere.

The idea behind the method is to simply volunteer at a firm (finance related) which dose not get a lot of application. Does this really work? YES! absolutely and it works so well that nearly everyone who has tried it found it easier then expected and manage to land the role they wanted after 3 – 6 months. NOTE* if your volunteering role is not directly related, then leverage this experience to land an internship in investment banking.

Checkout our article on how to get guaranteed work experience fast and a step-by-step guide

Step 2. Making your Resume / CV & Cover letter bank ready

This step should be step number one, but any resume and cover would will work to get emergency work experience. However, when making your resume for investment banks, this requires a different approach.

The first impression of you will be formed by your resume, depending on what is on your resume will dictate if you receive a first round interview or not. So don’t assume a generic template or what your friend or professor says about resume layout is right.

That said, for those with the interview guide then just copy and edit your details on one of the many ready made investment banking resume / CV template.

Now lets take a look at how you should prepare your investment banking resumes /CV. First it should be one page long for analyst ( Yes! One page) associates and experienced analyst can have two pages so long as the second page is a deal sheet. Needless to say about spelling and grammar as well as consistent formatting.

Preparing your resume

You need to have a specific resume for investment banking separate from any other industry you are applying to. In this section we’ll show you how to create a investment banking resume CV and cover letter step by step.

Formatting Your Resume & Cover Letter

Your resume should be perfectly formatted regardless of the industry you are apply into. However, given the importance investment bankers place on formatting, any simple mistakes here will be an immediate red flag and send the candidate strait into the rejection pile.
General formatting rules for investment banking resumes; resumes should be no longer then one page (other industries multiple pages are fine). Candidates with transaction experience can have a second page to list their deal experience only. However, undergraduate and post-graduates should submit their resumes and not their deal sheets.
Investment banking is as boring as it comes, so submitting a fancy and colourful resume / CV tells us one thing that this person has no idea how to prepare documents intended for an audience which is a red flag.
You should aim to stand out from the content of your resume and not how fancy you can make it. Remember you are applying into banking and not a graphics design studio.

Your resumes should be in the follow order;

Education

If you’re a current student, then the first part should be about your education. If you’re already in the workforce, then you can put this section below your work experience.
In this section you should list your undergraduate and post-graduate qualifications, institution name, date of graduation or expected date. You can also include any relevant module, minor(s), major(s), projects and any other certificate or accolades awarded that is relevant.
If you have any relevant course, then list them e.g. advance corporate finance or advance accounting NOT basic or entry level accounting. Only include basic accounting or entry level finance modules if you are from a non-finance major or degree discipline.
If you have a GPA higher than 3.3 or degree classification at and or above 2.1 then include it on your resumes, else it will seem as if you don’t even have a GPA or a degree worthy of the entry requirements. If your grades are bad, still include it, try and explain why you did badly during your interview.
If your GPA is lower then 3.0 or your degree classification is lower then 2.1 then don’t include it because it will automatically disqualify you from even receiving an opportunity to explain why you did badly, unless you are applying online which will have to disclose everything.
Listing grades for MBA candidates is less important since some business schools have a non-grade disclosure policy, which is strange, but they do exist. Plus a lot of the MBA candidate when applying are in mid-year so they only have an expected grade.
Non degree test scores e.g. SAT or GMAT or any other related test scores should also be included here (if you are just a few years out of school)

Work Experience

The work experience should list all of your jobs and internships in reverse chronological order (most recent first). It is important to not leave gaps here as that will be considered as red flags.
Under each of your experience, you should have between three – six bullet point, each bullet consisting of one to three lines of text highlighting your achievements and responsibilities.
Whenever someone says to tailor your resume to the job, a lot of candidates are confused by this concept… so allow me to make this easier to understand.
Whilst highlighting your achievements and responsibilities for each roles you have to make them investment banking related, the goal of your resume is to highlight your investment banking skills and experience to merit a first round interview. By not tailoring your resume you are disqualifying yourself and telling the recruiter I don’t have the skills to be an investment banker.
There are three benefit of making a specific investment banking resume. First, it highlights your investment banking skills and experience. Second, it demonstrates you recognise the skills required to be an investment banker and knowledge about the industry. Third, using investment banking terminology will catch the attention of investment bankers and separate you from the 99% of generic resumes.
When writing about your skill and experience, make sure you include as much experience detail as possible.
For example do not just say you did analysis – elaborate on the kind of analysis? What kind of company were you analysing? What industry? What metric did you use? Where did your assumption come from? What due diligence did you do?
Even when you think you are adding details, go deeper! Do not say you performed a valuation on a company. What was the purpose of the valuation? What methodologies did you use? Did you also build a projection model?
Even if you never built a financial model, perhaps you “reviewed” a financial model. Make sure to use investment banking terminology when explaining everything.

Interest, Achievements and hobbies

At the bottom of a typical resume you will find an “interest and hobby” section. Whatever you do, do not ignore this section because often conversation topics which you can use to build rapport with your interviewer will be from this section.
List interesting and real interest topics and don’t be afraid to be as specific as possible. Don’t just say ” reading fiction novels” name drop the authors and genera of the novels.
If you have won any type of awards, scholarships, notable mentions and regulatory licences then this is where you should place them. Make sure you lead with the most impressive ones first (forget date of achievements)
For a perfect investment banking resume and cover letter template see the investment banking interview guide. See the normal resume template if you already have some work experience and see the non-experience for those without any finance experience.

Step 3. Interview preparation

Whether you are going to a first-round interview or an information session or networking with investment bankers, you have to know how to communicate like a banker and be able to demonstrate technical knowledge you were not taught in school.

Failure to answers technical questions when asked or even behavioural questions is an automatic fail! kiss all of those long hours spent in the library good bye. There are no redo or second chances when applying to a highly competitive field like investment banking. Technical knowledge is what differentiates successful candidates from those that get rejected.

Take a look at our article on Investment Banking Interview questions and answers and see the kind of questions you can expect during your interviews. Alternative, get the our interview and recruitment guide with all of the answers to ace the interviews and stand out as a better candidate from everyone else. Including resume templates, tips and techniques to stand out as the better candidate in the recruitment process.

Your interviews are going to be broken into the following categories of questions and you have to ace them all.

1. Technical question Interview Questions

Accounting – essential accounting treatment and understanding of financial statements
Finance – testing your knowledge on corporate finance
Valuation & Financial modelling – testing your knowledge of valuation and modelling methodologies
M&A – testing your knowledge on M&A market & capital market
LBO – testing your knowledge of LBO models and private equity structures and financing
Economics & Brain teasers – testing your critical thinking and industry awareness

2. Non-technical questions Interview Questions

Behavioural – do you have the right skill set for investment banking?
Motivational – testing your attitude towards work and achieving
“fit” – testing to see how you react under pressure

Step 4. Networking

Networking is essential to breaking into investment banking and often is the determining factor between those that succeed and those that fail! However, almost 90% of candidates approach it the wrong way and for the wrong reasons

Most believe that the only reason for networking is to land a role or an interview without going through the whole application process like everyone else. Now, this does happen maybe 5% of the time, but the 95% of the time you are not going to get anything. Instead what you should be using this time for is to get interview answers, tips and tricks to stand out during the recruitment process, so its hard for anyone to reject you.

In the UK or Europe, the only way to get a first round interview at a bulge bracket bank and elite boutique banks is to apply online and be invited. However, in the US, Asia, Australia and a few more countries, networking can help land a first round interview at some large banks.

In the North American style of recruitment the goal of networking is to be invited to first round interviews, the goal of first round interviews to be invited to second… third and ..etc and the goal of final round interview is to win the job role.

Regardless of why you are networking you should first make the goal of networking to get as much information as you can on the lifestyle and insider knowledge (interview answers) which can use during your interviews to land you the role you want. Alternatively, a complete replacement to all the insider knowledge interview answers… etc – check out the interview and recruitment guide.

You should ideally plan on networking at least 12 – 6 months before the recruitment cycle begins. When starting out, consider your immediate family and friends (embrace nepotism) and slowly expand your reach to school professors and alumni network. Then move on to LinkedIn profiles of bankers from your university before called calling from our database of over 10,000 investment banks in our recruitment guide.

The point is to find an investment banker who is willing to sit down with you and give you advice, answers and insight – when first reaching out you are only out for advice and nothing else.

Again, see the interview guide and specifically the networking section for example emails to send out and topics of conversation as well as what questions you should be asking.

Be prepared to answer some interview style questions when you meet them e.g. “why you are interested in investment banking” and explain any short coming you have about your grades.

If you do not already have work experience, do not reach out asking for advice because the only advice they would give is “get some work experience first”. Go back to step 1.

Now lets move on to the specific routes you can take to land into investment banking

Routes into Investment Banking

Route 1: Summer / Winter Internships

Seeking an internship has effectively become a formal part of the recruitment cycle for candidates serious about getting into investment banking or any career which is competitive. And, for good reasons, almost 50% of full-time analyst and associate cohorts were offered full time returning offers.

As a result of interns becoming Analyst and Associates, the recruitment process (interview questions) for summer internships has now become very similar to full time roles. However, for internships roles there are less interview rounds then full time roles.

Summer internships can expect their interviews to take place generally around January and February of each year, so its important to prepare well before those days.

The obvious goal of doing an internship is to land a full-time role, but the other benefits of an internship is it gives candidates an opportunity to really reflect on whether investment banking is right for them or not.

If you are not able to secure a summer internship on the other hand, don’t worry many candidates still land full time analyst and associate roles without previous summer internships in investment banking.

Although, it does make things a lot more competitive when going up against candidates with a summer internship in banking. This means you are going to have to work harder to ace your interviews and develop more skills to standout and demonstrate your desire to be an investment banker.

This also means you will have to prepare an answer as to why you don’t have a summer internship in investment banking?

Applying for Internships (Only UK & EU applicants)

For those applying from the Europe, UK, and some parts of Asia – what is becoming increasing common are “spring internships” and “winter internships” which are effectively a 2 week program which is design to give you a taste of what working at an investment bank is really like.

These will take place during April – May for spring and December – January for winter internships. Candidates who are successful during their spring internships in standing out and perfuming the little work they are given are often offered a summer internship.

Route 2: Off cycle internships

For those who did not manage to get a summer internship, then another outlet are off cycle internships which are similar to regular internships but they occur during term time.

This is where you can start to see the differences between the American style and the European style of recruitment. Lets, start with the European style for once, to apply for off cycle internships you have two options.

Firstly, industrial placements or long-term internships which can be anything from 6 to 12 months and takes place after the second year and before final year of university.

This type of off cycle internship, although not as competitive as the summer programs since not everyone wants to take a whole year out to do an internship working investment banking hours for half the pay attracts far less applicants and competition. This disincentive opportunity cost creates opportunities for those who really want it.

The second type of off cycle internships are for those who have already graduated and seeking longer term internship programs, these are usually only a 6 months program and are a cross between summer internship and industrial placements because they occur during term time and the pay is weak but the hours are like a full time analyst.

This is ideal for candidates about to embark on a master’s program or simply seeking to try investment banking but do not want to commit to anything after they have graduated. These programs are clearly visible on each bank’s online recruitment platforms.

The American style of off cycle internships, although not generally advertised at all banks – you would have to find them online or more likely network and ask for these roles, also falls into two category.

First, one type are for candidates who have graduated, these off cycle internships roles which can last anywhere from 6 to 12 months or sometimes even longer (as long as the bank can get away with paying someone an interns salary to do an analyst’s role they will).

The second, more exclusive to the American style of recruitment which is a 20 – 30 hour work week internship, where candidates will attend classes and work part time at the bank. This is very stressful and can cause some conflict with your schedule.

This type of internship, admittedly is by far the hardest but will genuinely demonstrate the ability to perform well under pressure by being active at work and school and you must have a deep interest and passion to become an investment banker to embark on this type of work experience.

The easiest route into investment banking

Currently off cycle internships are one of the easiest routes into investment banking because they do not require any psychometric testing or competing against 250,000 other candidates for the same role or going through multiple rounds of interviews (usually).

Although the barrier of entry is low due to less demand, but you are still expected to know how to build financial models and answer technical questions like an analyst because you won’t get the same training as those on the regular internship program.

Off cycle internships can arise at any moment e.g. when someone suddenly leaves or someone gets fired from the bank, and the banks desperately need someone ASAP, they usually go for an off-cycle intern. The goal of this is of course to be given a full-time role.

Route 3: Full time Analyst & Associate Roles

Undergraduate students and post-graduate Masters students will be applying for full time analyst roles. Candidates applying for the associate roles are generally MBA students from a prestigious business school or an analyst with at least two years of experience from one bank applying to a different bank for whatever reason.

As already mentioned, the recruitment style will be very similar to the internships in the local country. The region from where you are applying from will dictate the opportunities and difficulty you will have when applying into investment banking.

Some notable regional difference are Australia with virtually no Associate style of recruitment only analyst, South African and India allows chartered accountants to also apply for analyst and sometimes associate roles (increased competition), Germany and a few western European countries have a strong preference for finance candidates where as the UK and the US is indifferent of candidate’s backgrounds.

European / UK / Middle East / Asia / Africa – Recruitment Style

In the European style of recruitment where candidates can only apply online, this limits the effectiveness of networking, in fact networking to get into a bulge bracket bank or elite boutique bank does not work in the UK or Europe.

Networking for interviews in Europe or the UK is only effective for smaller boutiques which does not have a formal recruitment process.

Almost every bulge bracket bank and elite boutique banks will require candidates to apply online and submit their resume/CV and cover letter along with answering a few motivational and behavioural questions which you can see all the answers from interview & recruitment guide.

Once submitted, candidates will be prompted to complete a numerical, verbal and graphical psychometric test. Depending on the psychometric test results your application will either be seen or not by a member of the HR team.

HR will initially go through your application and out of 100 immediately eliminate 50% for obvious errors and lack of experience, after another 30% for the smallest reasons e.g. bad formatting. 20% of candidates will be invited for a first-round interview or some will have to pass a phone interview before they get invited to the first round interviews at the office.

First round interviews are usually 4 (more or less) back-to-back interviews with analyst and associates at the bank, each interviewer going through your resume with a thin tooth comb and unleashing a torrent of technical questions which you will have to answer correctly.

Those successful will be invited to an assessment centre.

Assessment centres are where candidates will have to complete group tasks, presentation and complete an e-tray of numerical and verbal tests to confirm it was the candidate who did the psychometric screening during the application stage.

Successful candidates will either be given an offer or some will be invited back for a final interview with senior bankers, at this points its just motivational and behavioural questions to see if you’ll be a fit for the group.

On campus recruitment events (OCR)

With the American style of recruitment, almost all of the bulge bracket bank and elite boutique banks will typically come to a select number of undergraduate universities and business schools campuses each year to recruit both analyst and associates.

We’ll refer to school which investment banks target as “target schools” and they typically recruit at an average of 10 – 15 schools and business schools.

The process of on campus recruitment abbreviated as (OCR) usually occurs in the fall, investment banks will come to companies to deliver presentation lighting how great their banks are, and answer any questions from prospects.

Theses events are also a great opportunity for bankers to identify early talent, so later in during September and October they will be the first candidates to be invited for first round interviews on campus.

Bankers will select who received these first-round interview slots which are incredibly competitive. Some university also have a lottery system which will allocate a certain number of under privilege or random candidates to these first round interview slots (not all universities follow this system).

The students selected will have one to two 30 minutes first round interview on campus. Second and final round interviews will be held at the investment bank typically on a Friday or Saturday in what is generally called a “Superday” event.

Banks will normally pay to fly the candidate to the head quarters for a social dinner and the next day have 10 – 12 back to back interviews, each lasting around 30 – 45 minutes. Banks will typically make up their mind as to who will get these offers quickly.

Non-target school

If you are at a university which banks do not actively recruit from then don’t worry, investment banks also take applicants from non-target schools via online application portals and if you are good enough at networking and have connections via family friends to get in front of bankers in your city, you can leverage your network to give you a first round interviews.

Keep in mind that some banks will have a phone or HireVue (Skype like virtual interview) first round interview before you get invited to the head office for final rounds, this is to make up for the lack of on campus first rounds.

At this point you will be competing against candidates from target schools, but you can easily spin this by saying you had to work harder to get to where you are now then those attending a target school so your drive and passion for banking is absolute.

You might have to cast a wider net in terms of banks you apply to, and try to target boutique banks in all industries (see our database for a list of banks).

Once you land a role and get some experience you can leverage that experience to transition into a larger bank, you should ideally view this as a stepping stone if you want to work for larger firms. Make sure you get as much experience working on live deals instead of drafting marketing materials to land deals.

Route 4: Recruiting from other careers

Typically the entry route for investment banking is being recruited directly via undergraduate or business schools.

However, when deal flow is high and the economy is performing well then banks will have to hire by casting a wider net and that means hiring from other disciplines, these are candidates who have already graduated and started working elsewhere but want to transition into investment banking. These candidates tend to come from highly related areas to investment banking e.g. corporate development or corporate law.

Also, candidates from related fields have a far better chance at boutique banks then bulge bracket banks but exceptions do occur.

For candidates not from a related finance field e.g. IT, sales, operations… etc, then it is an incredible upward battle to break in, and one that would most likely require an MBA to break into investment banking.

The best time to look for speculative roles would be during late summer and early fall, just after analyst have been paid their bonuses and some have left for private equity or hedge fund roles.

This creates a whole in the team which the banks needs to fill as soon as possible with anyone that can do the job.

Similarly, the best time to look for associate roles would be at the beginning of the year when bonuses are paid again because some would have just left for their new PE or hedge fund role. Keep in mind that some banks will have a hiring freeze at the end of the year to control budget and reduce hiring cost to inflate their cash balance on their own balance sheet.

Just like non-target candidates in order to get an interview the trick will be to get your resume in front of the right people, and that means bankers and not HR staffs.

Special situations

Now lets talk about leveraging your edge, if you speak a foreign language or have experience in a particular field e.g. medicine then you can use your skill to easily land at an investment banking boutique which specialise just in that field. For example, some cross boarder (international boutique M&A bank) will prefer to hire someone with language skills then someone who might have marginally better grades then someone else.

When junior bankers are fed up with the working hours and role, then tend to either seek out Private Equity roles or Hedge Fund roles. Normally those roles were only available to candidates with previous investment banking experience, but now they are opening up to undergraduates and competing head-to-head with investment banks. Not only do they offer better hours, much MUCH money but its landing into the destination role which normally took 2 / 3 years. Hence, in some come cases, some candidates might actually find it easier to apply to a mid tier PE firm instead of elite investment banks.