About This Site

PURPOSE

The purpose of this site is simply to give any good student, who decides to start a career in investment banking, equal footing with Ivy League students, who are also competing for the same positions in New York or across the country. Contacts are helpful, of course, but this site is designed to help you make your own way.

Ivy League students enjoy the privilege of having global investment banks court them for jobs. Even though an undergraduate from a non-Ivy League school may be well versed in financial analysis, we have to go to the investment banks to get jobs rather than waiting for them to come to us.

When I began my job search I was disappointed to find that there was no established path or network to help me. In fact, it grated me so much that all an Ivy League undergraduate had to do was show up for an on-campus interview (i.e., no cash outlays and no sweat) that I vowed to give other undergraduates an edge of their own.

While this web site talks about things from the standpoint of a University of Alabama undergraduate, I hope that any undergraduate will find this site to be the toolbox, blueprints, and work orders that you need along with hard work to land a job in New York and/or investment banking.

WHO CAN BE HELPED BY THIS SITE

This site can actually be useful to three groups of students:

1. Students who want to work in New York.

2. Students who want to work in investment banking across the nation or around the world.

3. Students who want to work in New York investment banks.

I don't make designations of which parts of this site are pertinent to which of the above three groups. Rather, the spirit of the job search and tips on traveling and interviewing will make you better prepared for any situation.

OTHER PROGRAMS BESIDES IB ANALYST

Investment banks have other entry-level programs besides just a corporate finance analyst program. There are programs to train traders, equity/debt salespeople, private client services people (deal with high net worth individuals), and information technology personnel (programmers / support staff) just to name a few. Every investment bank is slightly different so the mix of programs varies from bank to bank. Check each company's web site for more specific information.

In this web site, I have provided specific information only on how to break into the investment banking analyst scene simply because this is the only program with which I have had extensive experience. However, the concepts, tools, and strategies presented in this site are easily transferable to a job search within other divisions of investment banks.

LAYOUT OF THE SITE

This web site is laid out, essentially, in chronological order for a typical job search. Even so, I would strongly recommend reading the entire site once as preparation before beginning a job search. By doing so, you will better understand the "big picture".

Note that this site is laid out so that you can easily print all the pages. Any pages not linked to the left-hand menu are linked to the Appendix page.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I actually came upon the idea of an investment banking career more out of accident than planning. I found this site run by the Finance Department of Ohio State which said the best way to get a job in New York was to go there; a simple concept that appealed to me more when I realized my chances of going straight to Harvard or Wharton without full-time work experience were nil.

It is a well-known fact that the well-traveled path to a top business school, such as Harvard or Wharton, is two or three years as an analyst in investment banking. When you emerge from a top business school you will never be unemployed. Well, three months into an intensive job search I was happily given my turn at the gravy train. :-)

The story does not end there, though. This site sat on my hard drive for about two years before it was released. The delay in finishing it came about because of the severe time constraints caused by my M&A Analyst position at a New York investment bank. I was only able to work on bits and pieces until it was complete.  Because of the delay, I decided to include some information about investment banking from the real-life perspective of living it before I released the site. Throughout this site I have tried to give a no bull look at the process and the industry even though I am a natural optimist. I just think that you can make a more informed decision about anything when you have the facts.

THANKS FOR THE CONTRIBUTIONS

I received some assistance and documents from other people during the construction of this site. I really appreciated the help and I would like to thank everyone who contributed something to this site, whether it was time or documents.

DISCLAIMERS

As much as I would like to promise you success, I can't. Your chances for success, however, are greatly increased by following the advice in this site and other career resources.

THEREFORE, I DO NOT CLAIM ANYTHING WITH REGARDS TO THE RESULTS OF YOUR INDIVIDUAL JOB SEARCH PROCESS. EVERYTHING IN THIS SITE IS MY OPINION AND SHOULD BE TREATED AS SUCH. A JOB SEARCH DESCRIBED IN THIS SITE IS EXPENSIVE AND DOES NOT GUARANTEE A JOB OFFER OF ANY KIND. PLEASE READ THIS ADDITIONAL DISCLAIMER ABOUT THIS SITE.

Well, with all that legal stuff out of the way, I wish you all the success that you so rightly deserve.