Investment Banking Super Days for Summer Internships

My first interview ever was with Goldman during final exam week in the fall of my junior year. Less than 48 hours notice. I feel your pain. Preparing for an IB interview is like studying for a final. Best advice is to interview as much as possible and you will get a feel for IB interviews. There's a ton of resources online that can help you prepare. Definitely use them.

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Coming from a non-finance background, I thought they would take it easy on the technical questions and focus more on why I wanted to do I-Banking, but there was no let up

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No offense, but you should have known how competitive these interviews are. People study their asses off just for these interviews. They don't give a shite "why" you want to get into IB, they have 100's of kids who would break your arm for this job.

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Why would they take it easy on you? They want the best for the summer to then potentially hire after.

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I should clarify something here. I should probably have worded that better. I didn't mean take it easy in the sense that they should have asked me easy questions, I meant that I assumed the line of questioning would be different. I come a non-traditional background with long work experience in two very diverse industries. When I spoke with the career counselors and alums who got into Investment Banking at my school they had asked me to be prepared to answer more about why I-Banking at this stage in my career and to be prepared to sell my story of how my industry experience would be a strength when if I got in into one of the coverage groups that focus on those verticals. I was told in the past for experienced folks making a career switch and trying to get in at the associate level post-MBA the focus was more on fit and what transferrable skills they can bring to the role than pure finance technicals, which can be taught. They said that hard finance technical questions are usually reserved for analyst interviews who are expected to do much more modeling than the associates. I had even prepared material to talk about a couple of different industries, what I think their trends would be in the next 10 years and what I thought some of the M&A activity could be in those industries. I only got to talk about this in one of the interviews (I had a total of five).

Anyway, I look at this as a learning experience. The interview that just happened was for a bulge bracket bank. Next week I have 4 more interviews lined up (2 bulge brackets, 1 mid market and 1 boutique). I have a better idea now on what to prepare for these interviews and will be spending the weekend doing just that.

CFA is probably not the best idea for I-banking. Unless you are trying to break into ER or PM there's no point in spending the time on CFA.

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I was told in the past for experienced folks making a career switch and trying to get in at the associate level post-MBA the focus was more on fit and what transferrable skills they can bring to the role than pure finance technicals, which can be taught. They said that hard finance technical questions are usually reserved for analyst interviews who are expected to do much more modeling than the associates.

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I've heard this from MBA students with Finance background/experience. I'm just assuming they want to make sure you know that you're sufficient in those areas. At least you will be prepared next time. Congrats on even getting an IB interview btw, that's difficult in itself

PM as in portfolio manager?

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PM as in portfolio manager?

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Yeah, CFA is more geared for that area. It would be helpful for finance acumen and would give you a slight edge once in banking, but really not that much of one since in-depth finance knowledge honestly isn't that critical for IB. MBA is the most straightforward route, as silly as that concept is.

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I don't have standout intelligence relative to IB candidates and I have an LSU degree without finance experience; I feel as though I'll need every possible distinguishing factor to break in somewhere worthwhile.

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It definitely won't hurt and its relatively cheap investment(financially) and as someone who doesn't have a ton of finance background besides an MBA, I've learned a shite load and I found it interesting anyway.

Learn excel like the back of your hand, but that's frankly not important until you have the job.

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I think you got bad advice. People only care about your "why" once you show yourself capable of doing the job / being the best of the applicant pool.

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100%. My grad school experience was the "why" along with your resume and whether or not you're a part of a "core" school gets you in the door for an interview. Once you are at the superdays, your technical expertise and financial acumen are tested time and time again. If you do well there, great, but you still need to beat out some of your classmates/competition because your school only has 1-2 slots available while some Ivy league schools have more. This was my experience with the bulge bracket banks though, not sure about mid-level/middle market.