My name is Ava Jundanian, and I'm a fourth year studying Systems Engineering. I first became interested in a career in Investment Banking in the fall of my second year after joining a long-short investment club at UVA.As a second year, I learned a lot about the industry and about internship experiences in IB through talking with fourth years in the club. When recruitment began in the spring of my second year, I was really lucky to have the older mentors in this club and resources of this club to help me throughout the technical and behavioral portions of IB interviews. However, I know that not all engineering students have access to these resources because membership to many student business organizations is limited. Fortunately,
there are many helpful public resources that exist to assist students in preparing for the technical and behavioral portions of IB interviews. I've listed below some of the resources that were helpful for me throughout my recruiting process, and I hope they'll be helpful for you!
Vanderbilt recruiting guide
This guide provides helpful information about the industry and the IB recruiting process. This guide is a good introduction to how the recruiting process works, and provides useful explanations to what investment banking is and what investment banking internships entail. This guide also provides a list of major investment banks that offer summer internships.
Wall Street Oasis Technical Recruiting Guide
This is my favorite recruiting guide. This guide contains all of the information you would ever need to know for a bulge bracket interview. You don't need to review every chapter in the book (some of the chapters are geared more towards Sales & Trading interviews). The most important chapter is Accounting, Finance, and Valuation. The other chapters that I recommend reviewing are Mergers & Acquisitions and Stocks.
Mergers & Inquisitions 400 Questions Guide
This guide is a great resource for people interested in recruiting for a boutique bank because it provides more difficult questions than the Wall Street Oasis Guide. Do not stress over knowing the answer to every question in this guide—some of these questions are beyond the level of anything that would be asked in an interview. If you're interested in bulge bracket recruiting, spend more time on the “basic” chapters than on the “advanced” chapters. Most bulge brackets will not ask you questions about merger models or LBOs, so if you're interested in bulge bracket recruiting you can skip these chapters in the guide.
Rosenbaum and Pearl Guide
This guide gives in-depth explanations of different valuation methods, leveraged buyouts, and mergers and acquisitions. This is a great resource to use if you are confused by a specific valuation method and want to read up further on it.
Investopedia and Corporate Finance Institute
Both of these websites are great resources for answering any finance/accounting questions that you may have while reading through the technical guides. Investopedia has helpful videos that explain most finance and accounting topics.