Last updated on July 13th, 2021 at 11:53 am
Investment Banking is not just about horsepower, if it was then the smartest people in the room would be PhD holders. Most successful Investment Bankers are not CA’s and neither are they CFA’s. Most Investment Banking analysts around the world are armed with degrees in History and Philosophy and often law because most Analysts are graduates fresh out of university. So what does it take for an Analyst to perform successfully during the first crucial three years?
Hard work
This is a given but after three years of doing a Bcom where you skipped classes and had weekends to yourself, 90 hour weeks can be hard especially if you’ve never done finance before. Most Investment Banks are happy to have you learn on the job but that means doing it on your own time. So while you spend your days building tables, research companies and filling up power point templates, you need to spend your after hours, think skipping that episode of Suits and take out your Damodaran on Valuation.
Investment Banking does not allow for weekends or free time during your first two to three years. You are wedded to your job. That means getting in at 9 am and working till 8 pm after which you’re probably going to have to come back to work on Saturday and Sunday to finish that pitch if you want a coveted bonus.
But beware of face time. Staying in and playing brick breaker at work won’t score you any points primarily because it’s very unlikely you’ve finished everything you need to do. There’s always something more to do in IB. The financial analyst prodegree program is an intensive program that prepares you for the harsh reality of Investment Banking.
Deadlines: Getting stuff done on time is something we have noticed students find very hard to do because they are not used to doing assignments. They think extensions are permissible. There are no extensions in Investment Banking or Equity Research because a meeting or stock calls cannot be postponed. The financial analysis prodegree ensures that assignments have strict deadlines through our state of the art Learning Management System.
Groupwork: for many of you, this will be the first time you work in groups and have to put up with someone else’s style of working. A team will always create better work than an individual because it has the added advantage of multiple inputs, which get validated by your peers, and it also ensures that mistakes are caught at various levels. But group work also means working your leadership skills, learning to delegate, learning to accept someone else’s weaknesses and bringing the best out in the team.
It can also mean learning to work with someone who doesn’t pull his or her weight. This is a common interview question. How would you deal with a team member not working on their deliverables? The Imarticus School of Investment Banking prepares you for group work since almost 40 percent of the course is group work which means you work with people who live 2 hours away from you and come from different backgrounds.
You learn to work in coffee shops and crowded environments and realize that working in a group is much better than working alone.
While the financial analysis prodegree program prepares you for Investment Banking by equipping you with technical skills such as Financial Modeling, Pitch Book making as well as Financial Analysis training, we also focus on developing your soft skills, which include Business communication skills, group work and Interview Preparation.
So to boost to your career in finance and enroll now!
