My Freshman Year Investment Banking Recruitment Checklist

December 30, 2024

I thought I was early to the game discovering what investment banking was ~2wk into freshman year, but boy way I wrong.

In the info session for our school’s intro to m&a org, I was surprised to learn of how insanely early the recruitment process starts, with interviews happening over a year in advance for post-junior year internships at the top firms.

Hearing them talk about the months of networking and countless hours of technical prep that goes into it made it seem like an uphill battle, but I decided I was up for the challenge.

I knew the ivy league kids I’d be competing against had a big head start, since most had been stacking their resumes with internships, modeling certifications and a whole lot more before even getting to college.

To catch these kids, the director of our academy told us that freshmen should have three tiers of priorities to maximize chances of landing a junior year gig at an elite firm.

Tier 1 Priorities

Maximize GPA by Organizing Schedule

Every bank has a hard GPA cutoff.

Most top firms won’t even look at your resume if you’re under a 3.8.

They will consider how tough your school / major(s) are, but only if your resume makes it past the initial filter.

Here's how I scheduled courses the first three semesters to put the 4.0 on autopilot.

  • 15 Credits / Semester Freshman Year

  • 12 Credits / Semester Sophomore Year

  • 3 Credits / Summer & Winter Term

  • Easy Gen-Eds (Besides Entry Level Finance & Accounting Classes)

This lighter load lets you focus on resume building (part-time internships & extracurriculars) which is 10x more important than burning energy on a class bankers don’t care about.

I was lucky and landed a corporate development internship freshman year through a family friend.

The real-world experience you get in something like this is unmatched when it comes to what bankers value most on a resume.

I was able to write stellar bullet points about my exposure to the m&a process, talking about how I “evaluated potential acquisition opportunities”, “constructed target lists” and “performed various industry research to aid the company’s expansion strategy”, all of which bankers loved to ask about during interviews.

That served me well, but I wish I would’ve known about search funds at the time.

Search funds are perfect for underclassmen without connections and couldn’t be more relevant for banking / private equity. This article explains exactly how to land one.

Tier 2 Priorities

Networking

Freshman year is too early to have calls with real bankers.

However, it’s crucial to start building relationships with seniors on campus who just finished up their banking internships.

They will be full-time analysts next year when you become a sophomore, so planting these seeds early will give you an extreme edge.

I did in-person coffee chats with all ~25 seniors my freshman year.

Here were the steps I followed to reach out and start to form these relationships.

Step 1: Use LinkedIn to find seniors that just did banking or private equity internship

Step 2: Find personal email address (look on executive board pages of campus clubs if they hold position) or resort to school email if unable to find

Step 3: Send personalized cold email with resume attached asking if they’d be open to meet up

Step 4: Create 30min calendar invite

Step 5: Prepare short list of questions

Note: Chats should be conversational with the next question always coming up naturally based on something they said in their previous remark. However, you should still spend some time researching their background and have a few thoughtful questions prepared.

Here are examples of questions I asked.

  • How’d you first learn about banking and what made you realize it was a good fit?

  • Besides [Our School’s Intro to M&A Org], what else helped you prepare for the recruitment process and build the resume / skillset needed to succeed in interviews?

  • What made you choose [Insert Firm] when interviewing sophomore year and how did you enjoy the structure of their internship? Have you decided whether or not you’ll be returning full-time and if so, do you see yourself there in the long term?

Step 6: Show up 20min early. Secure table and send email on same chain letting them know what you’re wearing so they can find you

Step 7: Have notepad out and jot down bullet points on advice

Step 8: Send thank-you email within a day

Step 9: Reach back out every few months to catch up

Interview Prep

Technical

There are six main BIWS (Breaking Into Wall Street) guides, each ~100pg long.

Topics Include:

  • Basic Corporate Finance

  • Accounting

  • Enterprise Value / Equity Value

  • DCF & Other Valuation Methodologies

  • Leveraged Buyouts

  • Merger Models

90% of interview questions will be on the first four, so don’t dive into LBOs & merger models as a freshman.

I read through the beginning “content” sections of these guides once or twice and then quizzed myself on the example questions & answers in the back over and over and over.

There’s also a BIWS “400 Question” guide that’s less comprehensive. I went through that after completing the full-length subject guides.

Everyone that’s recruited has PDF copies of the main guides. Ask an upperclassmen to send you them.

This website from a banking org at U-Mich has the 400Q guide and a bunch of other great resources like PPT decks they made for each topic and lists of crowdsourced questions from real interviews.

Behavioral

The same few behaviorals are asked over and over in banking interviews and you need to have a meticulously crafted response to each.

Acing these is 60% articulation and 40% content. Each should follow a cohesive narrative.

Freshman year, I rehearsed my go-to stories in my bedroom at home and then scheduled at least one mock with upperclassmen per week to make sure I was getting my reps in.

Tier 3 Priorities

Reading the News

Everyone tells you to “keep up with the markets” but never really mentions how.

Nobody has time to read the WSJ from cover to cover every morning, so I turned to a couple newsletters to keep a pulse on business news.

  • Morning Brew (linked here)

  • Term Sheet (linked here)

I’d skim each for ~5min every morning.

Morning brew is great for general business news and term sheet helps you stay up to date with the latest deals.

As a freshman, I also breezed through the WSJ once or twice a week to find a few articles relevant to m&a and would do a deeper dive, fully reading a couple of those.

You should have free access to the WSJ through your school (check at this link).

Excel Certification

Adding a modeling course to your resume will look good, but there’s no rush compared to the other stuff above.

I did Adventis (linked here) over winter break but know there are a couple other respectable ones as well.

Start Chipping Away

If you can get into a consistent routine of making progress towards each bucket, you should be in good shape come showtime sophomore year.

Start with high priority basics like planning out your courses and securing an internship, as these move the needle the most.

Best of luck and happy recruiting my friends.

 

Cheers🥂

Jack