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Welcome to Investment Banking Insights.This is the only show dedicated to helping you learn both the technical and the non-technical aspects of the investment banking process.
Hi, my name is Alex Mason and I'm your host and I'm so grateful that you're here with me today.This is actually the first video episode I'm recording of the show in quite a while.I did a lot of recording
And it's really exciting to actually be here on the mic and be here on video.So thank you for joining me.I want to talk to you today about how the summer went.Let's go ahead and talk about my summer internship.
Some of you have been asking me about it and I really want to get into just some high level lessons that I learned so that when you go into your investment banking internship, you have a little bit better idea of what to expect.
that you can apply to get that return offer.
All right, so the first thing that I really learned in my internship, and first of all, just to set the context, I was working at Lincoln International in Chicago, Illinois, had an amazing time, great people, great work, and I was fortunate enough to get the return offer and I accepted it.
So I'm officially going to become an investment banker for real, for real now.And I'm just really excited about that.So that's the first thing.In terms of how did I get from internship to full-time offer, and it's kind of a long road.
So when you're an intern, you only have about eight or nine weeks to make a first impression.So you kind of, you don't really have that much time. And this is kind of a double-edged sword.It's a good thing and a bad thing.
The bad thing is you don't have really a lot of time to show your full capabilities as an investment banker, just as a person, as a thinker.
You can't really get to know the fullness of someone's work, I think, in such a short period of time, especially if you're working across multiple different teams.So that can be an issue.
One of the good things though about this is it's only eight to nine weeks.So you really just have to kind of sprint and get up to speed quickly for this period of time.
So one thing is, you know, at the beginning you're going to have some kind of training.Uh, this is usually one week long. And then at the end, you're going to have not necessarily anything formal, usually.There may be some closing events.
But of course, you're going to have your performance reviews.But it's really going to be just kind of wrapping things up.And when you're wrapping up, people know that you're an intern.People know that you're about to go back to school.
And so they're not going to give you new projects, most likely. things that you're working on.And so the first week and the last week tend to be lighter weeks, essentially.This middle part in here, this is where you are grinding.This is the grind.
And in terms of general principles, what I want to talk to you about are the things that you can do skill wise to succeed in that internship scenario.So number one thing, And I cannot stress this enough.This is the biggest thing above everything.
The number one above all else is your attitude.It's your attitude.
If you come in there thinking that you know everything, thinking that you're gonna be bossing analysts around, or thinking that you're gonna be telling your MD what to do, you're gonna have a really hard time.And the people,
at work, whether they're hard to work with or easy to work with, generally speaking, they're going to be harder to work with just because you have a poor attitude.So I can't emphasize this enough.
If you go in there with a heart of service, if you go in there focusing on the value that you can bring to the company, like think to yourself, how can I make my bank more profitable and efficient?
constantly be thinking that you're going to come up with ways to help and people are really going to appreciate that.So everything kind of flows from your mindset and your attitude.I'm a strong believer in that.
But attitude and the way that you approach things, that is, I think, a much more fundamental aspect of life and of work.So go in there with a great attitude and focus on being of service to others.
Now, to get a little bit more concrete, let's go ahead and go to number two. And this is the big one that you hear about a lot.
And I heard about a lot, heard about this a lot during not only my training, but also in coffee chats with bankers before I got on the desk.And I'm really glad I listened to their advice on this because this one was a game changer.
So this one is communication.Communication.And when I'm talking about communication, I want to be more specific because I want to clarify what I mean here.I'm not just talking about general speaking and listening skills.
I'm not just talking about your ability to say something in a meeting, although that is important.I'm not just talking about your ability to listen to someone when they're actively talking to you, although that also is important.
What I'm talking about is a focused intensity on clarifying what needs to get done, who it needs to get done for, and what the format of that work is and what the deadlines are.
You constantly need to be asking those questions both of yourself and of your deal team in order to understand what's going on.Because the thing is, when you're recruiting for investment banking,
It's its own process and we talk about that primarily on this show.But when you're actually on the desk, you're focused on specific deliverables.
And you're gonna be judged on how you approach those deliverables within the context of the broader team and the broader organization.And so communication is really important.So when you get on the desk, here's what I mean.
I'm talking about clarifying. Who's doing the work?Who do I need to talk to?Who is this for?Who am I going to be delivering this to?You're going to want to know the when.When is this due?Do you need this right now?
Is this something that can wait till the end of the day?Is this something that can wait until the end of the week?Understanding urgency is super important.I've seen people make mistakes where they got an assignment.They said, okay, I'll work on it.
And then They didn't clarify the urgency.And the senior bankers might have said like, oh, this is we need this right now.And then the person on the other end says, OK, well, like, I'll get to it later.
When you're assigned work and it's considered urgent, you need to do everything in your power to get it done.If that means staying up till 10 o'clock at night, 11 o'clock at night, midnight, 1 a.m., 2 a.m., do it.This is your job.
Your job is to deliver the service to the client.The client is your deal team.The client is your deal team because they actually know what they're doing.They're working at the bank full time.
they're ultimately going to be the ones who judge your performance for this interview or for this internship.That was a little bit of a Freudian slip there because the internship is really like a nine week interview.So never forget that.
So the who, the when, Of course you gotta know the what, right?Like, am I delivering an Excel model?Am I delivering certain slides of a PowerPoint deck?Am I delivering an email?Am I delivering meeting notes?
These are all kind of like mini deliverables that you're gonna be asked to do over the summer, and so it's important to clarify exactly what that is.Like, do you need this part of the deck or do you need this part of the deck?
exactly what to work on.Okay, and then this last one, this is the how.So this is the format you're going to be delivering the work in.So sometimes
you may be asked to do something and you really have a clear sense of when it's due, who it's for, what it is, but the how may be tricky.Maybe you don't know how to do this.Maybe you've never built something before, maybe a certain type of model.
Maybe you've never built a certain type of PowerPoint deck before, and that's okay.This is where you ask questions of not only the bankers around you, but also of your
If they've put together a pit stack before in their classes in some kind of IB immersion, like Cornell for example, then that could be a valuable resource to you.
If they know how to use certain hotkeys in Excel, then that could be a valuable resource to you.So communication, it is such your ability to get the work done at the right pace, in the right way, with the right people.
And that's really where your learning is going to happen, is through that communication.And then another thing I want to do, kind of as a side note to this, I'm just going to call this like number 2A, is your coffee chats.
So some people may think that that you do to get the internship in investment banking.Coffee chats, I think, are really not just for the summer.I think coffee chats are really a way of life.And that's what I truly believe at this point.
This is really just networking.And networking, it's always valuable.It's always valuable to meet new people.It's always valuable to deepen connections And so this is really important as well.
So when I'm talking about coffee chats in the context of internship, over the course of the summer, I personally did over 30 coffee chats internally within the investment bank.30 coffee chats.And so you can imagine over the course of a
and just very consistently meeting people.And I saw some of the other interns who seemed to be the most successful as well, and they were also doing a lot of copy chats.
Some of the interns that were not as successful, I noticed they were not really doing a lot of these copy chats.And this is something that the bank is not gonna tell you to do.
This is something that you have to take the initiative to go out and set up these meetings find time on your calendar, find time on their calendar.
It takes a decent amount of work to actually set these up, keep track of who you're talking to, especially while you're on the job and you're trying to do things as an investment banker intern.So it's really important.
But one thing that I want to do is based on my the other bankers in my area.I want to meet bankers across the entire office, the entire organization, and I want to meet people in other functional areas outside of banking but within the company.
So I talk to accounting, I talk to my deal team, of course, I talk to my assigned mentors, of course, very frequently I talk to my mentors. And I even got to talk to one of the C-suite executives at Lincoln who was very gracious with their time.
And so over the course of the summer, I was able to put together dozens of chats where I just try to soak in as much information as I possibly could about the job, about their lives, about their career progression, about advice that they have for me, about obstacles
whatever deck I was working on.This is really, I think, where you set yourself apart because you're showing a high level of intention and high propensity to learn new things.So this is really huge and another big piece of communication as well.
So that's really what I have for you in terms of high-level principles that I learned from the internship.Number one, you gotta have the right attitude.If you don't do that, nothing else good is gonna flow flows from this.
Your technical skills that you get better at, they flow from this.Your ability to build relationships with the people you work with, that flows from this as well.
So when you get to your mid-summer review, when you get to the end of summer review, you don't want it to be a surprise.
You want it to be so clear that you performed at such a high level that everyone on your deal team and within the organization knows you, they know your quality of work.Even if they've only had a couple of test points with you, they were great test
I was very successful with it.So that's what I have to say in terms of the main things I learned from the internship and that's what I got for you in terms of those principles.
Okay, so that's what I got for you today here on Investment Banking Insights.Over time, I'll be sharing more things that I learned within the internship, some more specific principles that I can share.
But that's the big picture and again, I'm super grateful to be going back Next summer, in the meantime, I'm here in Ithaca doing my second year of the MBA, and just excited for what that holds right now.So thank you so much.
It's good to be back, and I'll see you on the next one.Thank you.