investment banking

Recruiting for Summer 2028 investment banking internships runs mainly from September 2026 to May 2027: a few elite boutiques open in the fall, the bulge brackets are expected to post from late November 2026 through January 2027, and last cycle their classes were essentially full by May.

To use the STAR method in a finance interview, set up the Situation and your Task in a few sentences, spend most of the answer on the Action you took, and end with a Result that has a number, all in about 90 seconds.

You build a three statement model in a fixed order: the income statement first, then the balance sheet without cash, then the cash flow statement, whose ending cash links back to the balance sheet so both sides match.

At most large banks, a HireVue is a recorded first-round interview, usually three to five questions with about 30 seconds to prepare and 90 seconds to two minutes for each answer, and nobody on the other end while you record.

An LBO model works out the most a private equity firm can pay for a company, funded mostly with borrowed money, and still earn its target return when it sells the company about five years later.

A consultant hired out of undergrad at McKinsey, BCG, or Bain in the US earns a base salary of $110,000 to $112,000 in 2026, and can make up to roughly $135,000 to $140,000 in the first year with the full performance bonus and the signing bonus.

How much Excel a finance interview tests depends on the seat, but the skills underneath stay the same.

Unlevered free cash flow is the cash a business generates for its lenders and shareholders together, and levered free cash flow is what's left for shareholders after the lenders have been paid.

An overview on asset management interview prep for undergrads: the firms that hire, every question type with sample answers, and a worked pitch.

A one-page finance resume template with a filled sample, section rules, that will get you past the screening round.

A friend of mine from college called me one March about her younger brother, Owen. He was a freshman at a big state school, he wanted investment banking, and he had spent the winter applying to every bank program with "early" or "insight" in the name.

Blackstone received 57,000 applications for 138 entry-level analyst roles in its 2025 class, an acceptance rate of about 0.2 percent, according to Yahoo Finance's report on Jon Gray's comments Undergrads who make it that far rarely lose a private equity interview on the hard LBO question.

If you want one model for hedge fund interview prep, study what David Einhorn did on May 21, 2008.

"Does anyone at a bank actually read the cover letter, or am I writing this for nobody?" A sophomore asked me that on our first call last winter, with four applications open in four browser tabs.

A friend's younger brother, a junior at Michigan spending his spring semester in London, forwarded me an email last year with the subject line "Invitation to Assessment Centre."

Most technical interviews in banking are lost on accounting, not on valuation.

It's 11:40 on a Sunday night and a sophomore I work with through WSG, call him D, sends me his investment banking resume twenty minutes before a JPMorgan application closes.

"Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization." That's what a junior I was prepping for a Morgan Stanley first round said when I asked him what EBITDA was.

Consulting's best-kept secret is that the job is a lobby, not a house.

A junior came to WSG one October, call him S, after striking out of Goldman's Investment Banking Summer Analyst race, figuring his shot at the firm was over.