by Girl Banker 

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Totally swamped? Don’t know how to cope with your current work load never mind making investment bank internship applications? Well, as important as getting top grades is, getting a job is just as important. In fact, I recently had a similar work load problem. I signed up to do an online course on building informational apps and I simply couldn’t fit it in.

The solution? An hour a day!

As busy as I am, I decided that I could dedicate an hour every day to the cause as it was important enough. By sticking to that commitment I have managed to finish the course within two weeks. You can do the same for your job applications.

You don’t have to do everything in one go. 

Split the investment banking application process into one-hour batches and spread it over the next three or four weeks. I personally wouldn’t wait until the Christmas holidays to make applications because some banks are reading applications as they come through and not only inviting people for interviews but making internship offers. This means the pool of internships available is shrinking every week. Here is how you can organise yourself:

1.      The first application is the most crucial, it sets the trend for the rest. I wouldn’t submit an application for the first week to ten days. Week one is ‘research week’. You need to figure out:

• How the investment bank recruitment process works
• What your primary qualities are and how your experiences validate these qualities
• How to answer questions in such a way that you get job interviews
• Importantly, which banks to apply to (you can start at girlbanker.com/banks)
  

At this point, I am of course going to do like any self-respecting author and plug my book, To Become an Investment Banker (spare yourself the reading and get the audiobook). It contains all the above and much more! The audio book is just over 9 hours long.

2.      Research done, it’s time to log onto investment bank sites and draft your first answers. In order to get access to the questions, you’ll need to enter some personal details into an online application form.

Enter whatever details you need to give to gain access to the application form, then copy and paste the questions into a word processor. Do this for two or three banks.

3.      Draft some answers. Read through your answers. Ensure all claims are validated with a relevant example.

4.      Get an independent opinion on your application form. If you can’t afford professional help get a friend to do it. If your friend’s feedback is very brief or overly complimentary get another friend to check your answers.

Keep in mind that friends can find it hard to give constructive feedback. I had one guy send me one if his friend’s cover letters and ask what I thought of it. I thought it was rubbish, he did too but he didn’t know how to tell his friend so he just left it at that!

5.      When you are happy with one application, send it off. Getting happy with the first application will probably take 5 to 6 one-hour slots.

6.      Move on to application two. This will take 3 to 4 one-hour slots. Once you have the hang of it and there is sufficient overlap between questions you will get it done even faster.

An hour a day is all you need to get all your applications done in 3 to 4 weeks. Get on with it!

Get ahead of the competition, increase your chances of getting an investment banking job with your own copy of To Become an Investment Banker; like Girl Banker on Facebook or subscribe to get chapter 1 for FREE. 

by Girl Banker

Listen to the iTunes podcast instead. 

At junior levels all banks want just one thing: someone with the right attitude. They will train you to ensure you have the technical skills but underlying all that they want a go-getter, someone who is hungry to excel. That is the fundamental requirement.

In addition to having the right attitude, they look for:

• Someone who has some technical knowledge or appears to have the ability to learn quickly
• Personable people who will work well with others (‘team players’)
• Charismatic people with a presence especially for advisory or sales roles
• Self-starters i.e. people with initiative

Investment banks vet their applicants with extreme care. The majority of their hiring needs are satisfied through their annual recruitment of new graduates.

The vast majority of new hires are recruited after completing an eight to twelve week internship the year before they embark on full time employment. Many universities don’t emphasize this point hard enough: if you want to become an investment banker, do an internship a year before you graduate. 

That said, a résumé/CV looks more interesting if you have a variety of different experiences: one solid banking internship plus two or three other out-of-the-box experiences (charity work, other industry or business experience) will do much more for you than three banking internships. 

Get ahead of the competition, increase your chances of getting an investment banking job with your own copy of To Become an Investment Banker; subscribe to get chapter 1 for FREE.

by Girl Banker

Listen to the iTunes podcast instead.

This is a very popular question amongst students who want to become investment bankers. The process is very similar across different investment banks and works as follows:

1. An internship application is submitted, usually using a standardized online form (rather than your own stylized résumé/CV).

2. Once your application has been accepted, the interview(s) you are invited to will normally entail all of the following:

• An aptitude test online or on paper
  
• A case study and/or brainteasers
  
• A competency based interview
  
• A technical interview
  

3. Accepted to intern in the summer.

4. After the summer internship, you receive a hire letter or a letter stating that you will not be offered a full-time position.

The proportion of interns offered full-time contracts varies from year to year and from bank to bank; it is never 100%. Usually banks will recruit a few more people from outside the summer program but at the moment many are not doing this; banks are selecting the best summer interns and that's it, so getting an internship is critical to becoming an investment banker. 

If you’ve interned but have not secured a full-time job, you will have a better chance of securing an alternative entry-level position than if you hadn’t interned at all, so do not despair. Some banks may not have filled all of their positions from the internship program and will look to fill in those roles with people like you. 

Get ahead of the competition, increase your chances of getting an investment banking job with your own copy of To Become an Investment Banker; subscribe to get chapter 1 for FREE.

By Girl Banker

Listen to the iTunes podcast instead.

If you are trying to become an investment banker, there are two routes you should look at if you are still in university and three routes if you are already a couple or years or more into your career.

1. Use your university’s careers service. 

Investment banks may visit your university specifically to recruit the best scholars. If you are at a top-end university they may even have a unique recruitment program/process for your institution that you can use.

Even if you graduated ages ago, call up your university to check if they have resources that might help you in your job search. I recently discovered that the university of Cambridge offers lifetime help and support to alumni, I had no idea. I am sure this is not unique to my university.

2. Apply directly via the bank’s website. 

Your university careers service won’t have knowledge on every single investment bank. It is definitely worth exploring the careers section of banks independently and applying more widely to increase your chances of becoming an investment banker. Use girlbanker.com/banks for quick links.

3. Call up some headhunters

If you have work experience that investment banks would find valuable above the entry level, you can use headhunters. If you're young and haven't started your career yet, this route is mostly closed to you.

In a recession, headhunters' books will also be thin but the very best ones will still have access to new positions especially at the senior level. Call them up and get your resume/CV in front of them.

Whichever method you use, network proactively. Get to know people connected to the industry and learn as much as you can from each.

Get ahead of the competition, increase your chances of getting an investment banking job with your own copy of To Become an Investment Banker; subscribe to get chapter 1 for FREE.

by Girl Banker

Listen to the iTunes podcast instead.

Your resume/CV is the first opportunity that you get to market yourself. 

Through your CV the recruiter decides whether or not to interview you and indeed, whether they 'like' you or not. You want everything about your resume/CV to say, I'm the person for this job, hire me! Here are some pointers to help you get noticed:

1. Avoid information overkill
Try to keep it to one page but two pages is okay if there is a lot of white space. All important information should be on the first page; if page one is unimpressive the recruiter will not waste any time by going to page 2.

2. Bold the important facts so that they stand out
Some people only skim read. If you bold your key selling points then they won't miss them.

3. Stick to short bullet points
The maximum length of any bullet point should be two lines, ideally. It stops the reader from getting bored. Don't use a narrative style, write in short punchy sentences.

4. Don't make any grammatical or spelling errors - not even one. Such mistakes say:

• I am lazy
  
• I have poor attention to detail
  
• I'm not not client-ready
  
• I can't work independently
  
• I'm a poor quality hire
  

5. Only include facts that make you relevant to the job at hand
A resume / CV is a snapshot of your qualifications for a specific job. You don't need to include:

• Interests or hobbies, unless they directly add to your value as a new hire
  
• Previous salaries
  
• Reasons for leaving former jobs
  

6. Don't mass produce your resume / CV
Unless you are applying for identical roles in different companies, you should not send identical resumes/ CVs out. Customise them according to what you are applying for. 

If you're applying to a TMT Team in IBD mention things that highlight your tech knowledge. Can you build apps and websites? Which web building languages do you use? Although you won't be doing any of this stuff it shows you are plugged in to the psyche of the tech world. If you are applying to a Healthcare team that tech knowledge is going to look misplaced so you'd include less of it.

7. Lacking relevant work experience? Focus on your skills. 
Even if you have never worked before, whatever life experiences you have, there will be some transferable skills. Organisational skills developed as result of being the eldest of five children? Experience dealing with difficult situations as a result of being the Head of House at school? Mental perseverance developed from being a top athlete or musician at school and having to train for crazy hours when most of your friends were chilling and having a laugh.

8. Don't hide anything
Make sure to have dates clearly displayed so it doesn't seem as though you're hiding career gaps.

9. Don't lie or exaggerate achievements 
Investment banks do background checks on all CVs, especially if you are an experienced hire so they will find out anything that is not true.

10. Get a second opinion
Even if you cannot afford professional help a friend will be able to point out typos that you might have missed and other irrelevant detail. Try to ask a friend that has some experience with looking for jobs as they'll know a little more about what employers are looking for. If you can afford it, getting an independent investment banking coach/mentor will help to place you ahead of the competition. 

Here is an example of a good resume / CV, it's the actual CV I used to move from IBD to Derivative Sales without any changes. It's not 100% perfect but I purposefully haven't changed it because I wanted to use a real CV that got a real job.

Increase your chances of getting an investment banking job: get your copy of To Become an Investment Banker; subscribe to get chapter 1 for FREE.

by Girl Banker 

Listen to the iTunes podcast instead.
 
These are the eight things that will get you a job in investment banking. I believe having seven out of these eight helped me get into Goldman Sachs as a newbie analyst.

1.      Gain knowledge

Read the news! At first you might feel like it’s a waste of time especially if you’re not interviewing yet but as time passes you’ll realize that some knowledge just sticks.

Without a shadow of doubt, if you spend 20-30 minutes per day on financial press, your overall knowledge and feel for the industry will start to become well-rounded.

2.      Come top of the Class or Course

If you came top in any class or course - highlight it, it means you’re smart; smart = hard working (normally).

In my second year in university, I came 5th in the Econometrics paper – you best believe that I brought that up interviews. Econometrics is hard and to come 5th out of about 150 people in a University of Cambridge class is the sort stuff interviewers are going to remember afterwards.

3.      Be an Achiever - prizes, awards and scholarships

Even if you’re not top of a class, any major prizes, awards and scholarships must be revealed when the opportunity arises.

This sort of stuff shows that you are an achiever, bankers love to work with and be associated with high performers.

4.      Be a Team Captain

If you are captain of any sporting teams - don't forget to bring it up; out of any other credentials you might have, this shows you are popular and hence personable the most. Especially at the secondary school level, to be awarded the role of captain you need to be liked by the teacher and the people you will be in charge of.

5.      High/school or College Start-up

If you have ever started a business, especially if it did well - mention it; starting a business or anything else shows that you have initiative and superior time-management skills.

6.      Be the Linguist

If you can speak several useful languages mention it; it’s impressive and it means you can be presented to a wide variety of clients.

One time a VP of mine went to talk to someone and when he came back it wasn't the project we were working on at the forefront of his mind, he said, “Tiana is amazing, I was at her desk for 30 minutes and in that time four different people came to her desk with problems and she spoke to all of them in different languages”. She was fluent in Spanish, French, Portuguese and English.

7.      Network and Get Contacts

Look for events related to investment banking. If there aren’t any or enough at your own university make friends with people at nearby universities that can invite you to their banking events.

8.      Get some work experience

I have left this until last because many people applying to banking for the first time frequently do not have any work experience; sometimes they feel as though their work experience isn’t relevant. Mention whatever experience you have anyway even if it's a newspaper-round, there are likely some transferable skills e.g. a newspaper-round requires you to get up earlier and be more organised than your friends.

The most crucial work experience is an internship the year before you graduate. Why then? Because if you impress the bank they will offer you a job that starts the moment you graduate. This means you can go back to your last year of university with peace of mind. You’ll be secure in the knowledge that there’s a job waiting for you at the end and you can just focus on your studies.

Hope this helps!
Peace and chicken grease,
Heather

Increase your chances of getting an investment banking job: get your copy of To Become an Investment Banker; subscribe to get chapter 1 for FREE.

by Girl Banker 

Listen to the iTunes podcast instead.

This post is related to, The most effective 10-step strategy for cold calling an investment banker. However, this post is concerned only with the actual phone call not the research and data gathering.

1. Sound upbeat 
A monotonous voice will bore the person you are calling and they'll want to get you off the phone as soon as possible.

2. Work on your high-pitched voice
If you have a high-pitched voice practice talking at a lower tone. High-pitched voices are generally perceived to be irritating.

3. Before you hit the dial button, practice
You can either do this yourself using the voice recorder on your phone or with a friend/family/professional coach. Video isn't necessary because only your voice matters in this case.

4. State your name.

5. State where you got the person's details if possible
If you can say how you came to know of the person, that is very useful for building rapport. I found your details on LinkedIn is not a good line, you'll sound like a stalker. However, if you found details on the company's website, say so. 

6. Mention a mutual contact, it will help to keep them on the phone longer
Check your LinkedIn profile to see if you do have a mutual connection. If so, call the person you know and ask them for permission to mention your name in the phone call.

7. State what you need help with.
If you have done decent research on the person you might have found out interesting things about them, think about how you can spin their experiences to make yourself sound like a knowledgeable person on their industry and their job function and why you would be a good addition to the team or bank.

8. Get a promise.
Before you get off that phone try to get some kind of a promise e.g. permission to call again, a promise that they will forward your CV to someone and, highly unlikely - but an agreement to meet or be interviewed. If you're not getting anywhere say something like: you sound very busy, I am so sorry to have called you at an inconvenient time, can I call you back at a better time? If they say, yes, ask when. Get the person's email if you do not already have it!

9. Follow up. 
If you failed to get anywhere on the first call, see what a second call might unveil. A third call is also okay but if that doesn't prove successful, that's where you need to stop. People in banking know each other and if you're branded a stalker it's not going to bode well for your job hunt. 

Happy job hunting.

Increase your chances of getting an investment banking job: buy To Become an Investment Banker; get chapter 1 for FREE.

Increase your chances of getting an investment banking job: get your copy of To Become an Investment Banker; subscribe to get chapter 1 for FREE.

by Girl Banker 

Listen to the iTunes podcast instead.

If you haven't reached the penultimate year of university, you don't really need the information below. Get a copy of To Become an Investment Banker and follow the path that has been outlined in there. 

If you have graduated, are near graduation or indeed, well into another career, you might need to search more aggressively to get your foot in the door.

1. Decide which investment banks to target

If you don't know which banks you want to focus on, have a look at the top 50 banks. GirlBanker.com/Banks has a lot of links that take you directly to the recruitment pages of the top 50 investment banks. The biggest banks provide a lot of information so any basic queries you might have will be answered on their website.

2. LinkedIn

Lots of people voluntarily put their resumes/CVs onto LinkedIn. Before LinkedIn was publicly listed in 2011, you could get all manner of information; but because they now need to make money for their shareholders, some information is withheld from basic account users. They only show enough to entice you to upgrade to fee-paying status.

If you have some generic questions about jobs at the company search for:
"Investment Bank" + "Human Resources"
"Investment Bank" + "Human Capital Management"
"Investment Bank" + "Recruitment"

Terms like investment banking division (IBD), or capital markets will not get you very far. Any big bank will have a huge IBD or capital markets department so you need to be a lot more specific than this. You should have a pretty clear idea of what teams you are interested in.

Examples of good searches for team members:
"Investment Bank" + "FX Sales"
"Investment Bank" + "Derivative Sales"
"Investment Bank" + "Credit Trading"
"Investment Bank" + "TMT"
"Investment Bank" + "Leveraged Finance"
"Investment Bank" + "Healthcare"

Normally, this only yields a name but not an email address.

That said, read through the person's details and you might find their email included in their job summary. This is especially true for people that are actively trying to fill a role at the firm.

What information can you get on LinkedIn?

• The full name of 2nd level connections i.e. they know someone you know. 
  
• The first name and last initial of 3rd level connections i.e. you know someone who knows someone they know. 
  
• After that, it will only say "LinkedIn Member"
  

What do you do if the name is partly hidden?
If you are completely unconnected to the industry you might find LinkedIn a little useless. Here are two workarounds:

a) Over time, as you attend networking events make sure you add people you meet to your LinkedIn profile. I only joined LinkedIn in 2011 for the sole reason of building up a network and data access. I actively added people I know to my network and that allows me to see more information.  
b) Take whatever information you find to Google.

3. Google

You can repeat the above searches on Google. In addition, 

a) Search for phone numbers: you're unlikely to get a direct number so just look for a reception number;

b) Search for emails: it's easy if the person has a basic name. Most investment bank emails follow the format firstname.lastname@bank.com. Some investment banks have abbreviated emails i.e. @gs.com not @goldmansachs.com. Google what you think the email might be then email your contact. If the email you deduce is correct, it won't bounce back.

c) Search the web for any information available on the person: to get a better picture of who the person is. It gives you more to talk about when you call/write.

What do you do once you have a name, department and some basic details?

4. Call or write

You can call via reception. Seriously, if you call the reception at most banks and ask to be connected to "So and So" they will put you straight through!

I would say email is better than a physical letter in this case. Most people in an investment bank are extremely busy. Helping someone get a job doesn't yield anything for them (usually); any mail received will quickly be forgotten about and it will not be actioned. 

A letter followed by an email or a phone call might be more memorable. If you have a very creative idea in terms of how to wow them with a physical letter - do it! 

Increase your chances of getting an investment banking job: get your copy of To Become an Investment Banker; subscribe to get chapter 1 for FREE.

by Girl Banker

Listen to the iTunes podcast instead.

This is the one question that everyone wants answered. Investment bankers' compensation is made up for two parts - base pay and a bonus. 

• Base pay is usually relatively uniform across the firm for people of that level. 
• The bonus varies according to how hard you work and of course how great an ass licker you are! Some people really know how to work the system. 

Base pay is very transparent so let's start with that:

What about VPs and MDs?
Base pay for VPs and MDs doesn't rise hugely above the levels you see in the above table. Their compensation varies a lot more because of their bonus.

Which banks pay the most?
American banks tend to pay more than UK banks. UK banks tend to pay more than European banks. This is partly because big American banks make more but it's also cultural. The American dream is a capitalist one: make as much money as you can. Making money is synonymous with hard work in America. 

As you move towards the UK strong socialist ideals start coming into play. This is even more true for the rest of Europe. 

So what about the bonus?
Bonuses are very variable especially during a recession. The bonus is more fixed at junior levels with larger differences between people at more senior levels. Bonuses can range from 0% to several hundred percent of base pay. 

Some websites will try to correlate pay with years in the industry but this is one industry where tenure matters very little. I have seen Associates earning much more than VPs because they are adding more to the bottom line. That's how it works. Whether you're an MD or a department head is of little consequence compared to how much your department or team earned for the bank.

What does the structure of bonuses mean for you? 

• Don’t spend it until you get it. 
  

What does the structure of bonuses mean for your bank?

• In challenging years, they can cut costs significantly by chopping the bonus pool.
  
• In profitable years, they can share the success with their most valuable asset: the people. 

Increase your chances of getting an investment banking job: get your copy of To Become an Investment Banker; subscribe to get chapter 1 for FREE.

by Girl Banker

Listen to the iTunes podcast instead.

As an eager banker-wannabe whenever I heard the term "back-office" I imagined a category of overworked and underpaid workers toiling away in a windowless room at the back of a building! Personally, I find the term a little derogatory.

In banking, the terms: back, middle and front office refer to how closely connected you are to the money train.

Front office
Front office workers make the money. Their actions lead directly to more or less money being added to the bottom line of the bank. Front office workers will earn the highest bonuses because they essentially make the money and as such expect a higher cut. 

In theory, the more money you earn for the bank, the higher your expected bonus is. In a recession, bonus expectations will be lower overall but front office workers will still expect more than those further down the chain.

Front office does not have to be client-facing e.g. traders usually do not see clients but if you are client-facing you will need to look smart and dress well for meetings. If you hate suits, this is not the best job for you!

Front office includes: 

• Salespeople in the capital markets
• Traders in the capital markets
• Corporate finance bankers 

Although analysts and associates in corporate finance don't have a budget to meet, they would also be categorised as front office because the modelling and presentation work they do leads to the loss or gain of a deal.

Middle office
Middle office workers are an integral part of making money. They directly support a deal but their actions have to be instigated by a front-office worker. A middle office worker cannot as a result of their own actions increase bank profits.

Middle office includes: 

• Legal (they make sure legal documents with external parties are optimally structured)
• Compliance (make sure you're on the right side of complaince law e.g. following chinese wall requirements)
• Research (if it's provided to clients free of charge is a middle office function)

Back office
Back office includes any process-orientated roles. An efficient back office is vital because if clients don't get statements and confirmations on time they will hate your bank and could, on that basis, exclude your bank from deals. 

How can back office impact front office deals?
Imagine you work on a company's small corporate finance team; you have ten bank relationships to manage. One bank consistently sends statements late. The statements frequently have errors and you have to call many times to get issues sorted - if it can be helped you're going to avoid doing business with that bank, aren't you?

Back office includes: 

• Confirmation teams (they confirm transactions with clients, send out regular statements e.g. regarding the current value of a booked deal)
• Presentations teams (they make presentations look pretty or consistent with the bank's style)
• Print & Production teams (they print off client presentations)

So there you have it. When you're applying for jobs it can be a little challenging to decipher whether a role is front-office or not. This is especially true if you're applying off-cycle to a bank that has both a retail bank and an investment bank. 

Use the above guidelines to help you decide how close you are to the money train. You want to get as close as possible.

Increase your chances of getting an investment banking job: get your copy of To Become an Investment Banker; subscribe to get chapter 1 for FREE.