DO
Wear a striped tie. Do also make sure that the stripes slope upwards. This is a bull market we’re talking about. None of that downward sloping off the rack limp ass shit.
DO
Come in with a stubble after you’ve pulled your second all nighter in a row. Also, make sure that you don’t shower. This is the only way anyone other than the punk ass analyst who made you pull the all nighters in the first place (and got credit for your work) will notice that you haven’t slept and showered. Get noticed by a VP or above – just because you can’t be of use to these guys doesn’t mean you can’t try to get their sympathy.
DO
Remember that you have not been hired for your ability to do mental arithmetic. If you need to calculate something, use excel. That’s what it’s there for. If you want to be a banker then start acting like a banker. Bankers can’t do maths. If they could, they would have been rocket scientists. 2 + 2 = EXCEL! For those moments you will not be at your computer, keep your trusted HP17B calculator handy.
DO
Do impress your analyst, associate and MD by your ability to down tequila shots. You have a serious competitive advantage here. You’ve been practicing at university whilst they’ve been doing deals late at night, so you will outdrink them. This will remind them of the days when they went out with mates at university. You will thus remind them of the fact that they had a life before banking, and this will make them happy. So, drink like a true student, and you will be in your team’s good books.
Showing posts with label Summer intern success guide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Summer intern success guide. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
…and Some More Investment Banking Summer Internship Donts
Don’t diss the competition:
Many a smartass summer intern (see “Don’t be a Smartass”) try to impress their loyalty to their chosen firm by putting down the competition. Don’t. You never know whether your analyst who thinks quite highly of you is waiting for his bonus before moving to shitty, Goldmen or Moron Stanley. Don’t ruin your chances of getting a call to move once they jump ship just because you dissed the competition.
Don’t aim too high:
An anonymous banker highlighted that you shouldn’t suck up to your MD or VP. Correct. You should aim lower, and suck up to your analyst, because it’s their job to suck up to the associate, whose job it is to suck up to the VP and so on. Don’t forget the hierarchy.
Don’t forget you’re there to support:
And that means support. Carry an extra tie with you, just in case your analyst get called to a meeting and the chino wearing shit needs one. Make sure you’re the same build as your analyst, so he can also borrow your suit if he needs one (if you’re more buff than said analyst, stop going to the gym – this will give you added points as you will soon lose your athletic build and become less intimidating to your analyst). Always carry shoe polish, in case said analyst’s shoes need a shine. Forget your blackberry holster – what you need is a coffee cup holder for more than four cups – this way, you’ll need only make a single trip to Starbucks each morning when you bring your team coffee.
Many a smartass summer intern (see “Don’t be a Smartass”) try to impress their loyalty to their chosen firm by putting down the competition. Don’t. You never know whether your analyst who thinks quite highly of you is waiting for his bonus before moving to shitty, Goldmen or Moron Stanley. Don’t ruin your chances of getting a call to move once they jump ship just because you dissed the competition.
Don’t aim too high:
An anonymous banker highlighted that you shouldn’t suck up to your MD or VP. Correct. You should aim lower, and suck up to your analyst, because it’s their job to suck up to the associate, whose job it is to suck up to the VP and so on. Don’t forget the hierarchy.
Don’t forget you’re there to support:
And that means support. Carry an extra tie with you, just in case your analyst get called to a meeting and the chino wearing shit needs one. Make sure you’re the same build as your analyst, so he can also borrow your suit if he needs one (if you’re more buff than said analyst, stop going to the gym – this will give you added points as you will soon lose your athletic build and become less intimidating to your analyst). Always carry shoe polish, in case said analyst’s shoes need a shine. Forget your blackberry holster – what you need is a coffee cup holder for more than four cups – this way, you’ll need only make a single trip to Starbucks each morning when you bring your team coffee.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Investment Banking Internship Donts
You sit thinking, what don’t you want to see in a would be analyst, running about the office during the summer, and you realize that you cant stop at a single thing. You’ve seen your fellow interns last year so things that made their analysts cringe, and you’ve head a fair share of analyst war stories to be able to draw up a comprehensive list of intern donts. Not from the goodness of your heart, of course, because as every prospective ibanker should know, now that you have permanently infiltrated the ranks of the investment banking full time professional staff, your heart was one of the first things you had to check in before they’d let you into the building. No, you do it in anticipation of getting an intern of your own, so you type up a list of things you don’t want, to save you the time of explaining it to some overenthusiastic (or more like overly confident little shit given the fact that firms are hiring every Tom, Dick and Rupert with a pinkie ring now that the market is booming) intern.
Don’t be a smartass:
Too many little wannabe bankers try to look smart. You were not hired for brains. Your job is to perform manual (excel, powerpoint, Xerox) labour. You’re getting paid a hell of a lot of cash for doing a hell of a little value add, so you’ll be expected to put in the hours, not the brains.
Know your place:
It doesn’t matter that you have tailor made suits. Don’t wear them as your analyst (who’s probably got a massive chip on his shoulder) doesn’t. Don’t go as far as a polyester wrinkle free from M&S, because then even the biggest schmuck with a massive dent on his shoulder will laugh at you. Never dress better than your analyst, but make sure to not dress far worse. If he wears Hermes ties, you go for Ferragamo. If he comes in on the weekend with a Diesel tshirt (bankers like to think they’re hip), come in wearing something from GAP. You get the picture.
Make them look good:
You should expect your analyst to take credit for your work, and they will do that. When it’s god, it will be theirs, when its wrong, it will be yours. Don’t try to make the VP see that you were the one doing a piece of work – because you will get the shit in any case once they figure out its wrong. Oh, and by the way, your work will always be wrong. At best, it will always be something that can be improved. Think of your analyst like a shot of tequila. Salt, lemon and you slam it. Again, and again and again. Look on the bright side, it’s only for the summer.
You will know you are not smart:
Know this in everything you do. Your analyst will give you shit because you messed something up. Say thank you, as you’re really not that bright. You will complain that you haven’t gotten much sleep. You’ll get told to be more efficient and it takes you too long t5o do stuff, because you’re not altogether that bright. Let’s face it. You’ve signed on to spend your last free summer before beginning a lifetime of work with a bunch of boring, arrogant, overworked and underlived cube monkeys for what ends up being minimum wage on an hourly basis. They know it, you know it, so live up to it.
Good luck.
Don’t be a smartass:
Too many little wannabe bankers try to look smart. You were not hired for brains. Your job is to perform manual (excel, powerpoint, Xerox) labour. You’re getting paid a hell of a lot of cash for doing a hell of a little value add, so you’ll be expected to put in the hours, not the brains.
Know your place:
It doesn’t matter that you have tailor made suits. Don’t wear them as your analyst (who’s probably got a massive chip on his shoulder) doesn’t. Don’t go as far as a polyester wrinkle free from M&S, because then even the biggest schmuck with a massive dent on his shoulder will laugh at you. Never dress better than your analyst, but make sure to not dress far worse. If he wears Hermes ties, you go for Ferragamo. If he comes in on the weekend with a Diesel tshirt (bankers like to think they’re hip), come in wearing something from GAP. You get the picture.
Make them look good:
You should expect your analyst to take credit for your work, and they will do that. When it’s god, it will be theirs, when its wrong, it will be yours. Don’t try to make the VP see that you were the one doing a piece of work – because you will get the shit in any case once they figure out its wrong. Oh, and by the way, your work will always be wrong. At best, it will always be something that can be improved. Think of your analyst like a shot of tequila. Salt, lemon and you slam it. Again, and again and again. Look on the bright side, it’s only for the summer.
You will know you are not smart:
Know this in everything you do. Your analyst will give you shit because you messed something up. Say thank you, as you’re really not that bright. You will complain that you haven’t gotten much sleep. You’ll get told to be more efficient and it takes you too long t5o do stuff, because you’re not altogether that bright. Let’s face it. You’ve signed on to spend your last free summer before beginning a lifetime of work with a bunch of boring, arrogant, overworked and underlived cube monkeys for what ends up being minimum wage on an hourly basis. They know it, you know it, so live up to it.
Good luck.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Investment Banking Summer Intern Success Guide
By popular demand you have been asked to provide a summer intern success guide. As many of you know, recruitment season has long past and it’s time for the fresh monkeys to crawl down from their penultimate year university trees, put on their best suits, shirts and ties and walk through the doors of the investment banking powerhouses.
A voice in your head wants to say “shut up”. Interns are nothing like what they used to be. Hard work is replaced with networking. The kind of guy who worked hard and learned how to comp and do price charts with weighted average trading prices superimposed in the hope of eventually being given the honour of doing a DCF (to be read as if DCF was written in fort size 100, Arial Black and bold) – well, this kind of guy is replaced with the chimp who messes up any numbers job he’s given on purpose (even though he’s a maths and physics joint honours student)so that nobody will ever think of giving him anything numbers related to do. Instead, this guy has beers with Rupert in the hope of landing the full time offer by drinking him under the table with Tequila shots.
You think to yourself… do these guys really need an intern guide? I mean come on. These are kind that have read every single vault guide. Kids who pay good money to get valuation skills even before they step foot inside an investment bank. Kinds who wonder whether ones tie needs to slope upwards (if striped) given that it’s a bull market?
To cut a long story short – YES THEY DO. The market is more competitive than ever, that with all these little cowboys running around like a bunch of consultants, clocking higher BPMs (see glossary) than some VP level bankers, it will be the skill set one cannot learn from online valuation training or the vault that will land them the job. So, ladies and gentlemen, get ready for a new series of All Nighter posts on successful interning
A voice in your head wants to say “shut up”. Interns are nothing like what they used to be. Hard work is replaced with networking. The kind of guy who worked hard and learned how to comp and do price charts with weighted average trading prices superimposed in the hope of eventually being given the honour of doing a DCF (to be read as if DCF was written in fort size 100, Arial Black and bold) – well, this kind of guy is replaced with the chimp who messes up any numbers job he’s given on purpose (even though he’s a maths and physics joint honours student)so that nobody will ever think of giving him anything numbers related to do. Instead, this guy has beers with Rupert in the hope of landing the full time offer by drinking him under the table with Tequila shots.
You think to yourself… do these guys really need an intern guide? I mean come on. These are kind that have read every single vault guide. Kids who pay good money to get valuation skills even before they step foot inside an investment bank. Kinds who wonder whether ones tie needs to slope upwards (if striped) given that it’s a bull market?
To cut a long story short – YES THEY DO. The market is more competitive than ever, that with all these little cowboys running around like a bunch of consultants, clocking higher BPMs (see glossary) than some VP level bankers, it will be the skill set one cannot learn from online valuation training or the vault that will land them the job. So, ladies and gentlemen, get ready for a new series of All Nighter posts on successful interning
