u/Acrobatic_Point6704

I wrote a first post about what I wish I knew before starting an MBA in NYC. A few people found it useful, so I wanted to write a more specific version on investment banking recruiting while it is still fresh in my memory.

This one is not about whether banking is good or bad. It is not about whether MBAs are worth it. It is not even about technical prep in the abstract.

This is about the actual mechanics.

Because before business school, I heard words like “corporate presentation,” “coffee chat,” “networking,” and “follow-up,” but I did not fully understand what those things meant in real life.

So let me explain what it actually feels like.

A bank comes to campus.

Let’s use Bank of America as an example. The event usually starts with a presentation. For 20 to 30 minutes, they talk about the firm, the culture, the summer associate role, the different groups, and the recruiting process. Depending on your school and the bank, there may be several bankers in the room. Some are alumni. Some are from coverage groups. Some are from product groups. Some are junior. Some are senior.

That part is straightforward.

The real part starts after the presentation ends.

Everyone stands up, and the room turns into circles.

Each banker becomes the center of a small group of students. You walk up to one of those circles, stand there, listen, wait for an opening, introduce yourself, ask a question, and try to make a decent impression without making the whole thing weird.

This is what people mean when they say “networking event.”

And honestly, it is much more awkward than it sounds.

You are standing with five to ten other people around one banker. Everyone wants to speak. Everyone wants to sound smart. Everyone wants to be remembered. But nobody wants to look desperate. So there is this strange dance where people are waiting for eye contact, waiting for pauses, trying to enter the conversation, trying to ask one clean question, and then trying to leave the circle gracefully.

Nobody really teaches you how to do that.

You need a short pitch.

Not a life story. Not a dramatic monologue. Just a clean version of who you are, what you did before business school, why banking, and why that bank or group might make sense. It should be around 30 to 45 seconds, but it should not sound like you are reciting something you memorized in the mirror.

You also need a real question.

This is where a lot of people underestimate the process. You usually do not get ten minutes with a banker at these events. Sometimes you get one question. That is it. So the question cannot be random.

“What is the mentorship like?” is not the worst question in the world, but it is usually too generic. Everyone asks some version of that. A better question shows that you know something about the bank, the group, the market, or the kind of work they do.

It does not need to be genius. It just needs to be specific.

For example, if you are speaking to someone in industrials, ask about a trend in industrial M&A. If you are speaking to someone in healthcare, ask how regulatory uncertainty is affecting deal activity. If you are speaking to someone in financial sponsors, ask how sponsors are thinking about exits or financing conditions.

The question is not just about the answer.

The question is a signal.

It tells the banker whether you prepared, whether you understand the room you are in, and whether you can have a normal professional conversation.

There is also etiquette to the circles.

Do not interrupt someone mid-question. Do not trap the banker with a three-minute question. Do not turn your question into a speech. Do not try to dominate the circle. Do not ask something just to sound smart if you cannot handle the answer. Do not visibly compete with your classmates in a way that makes everyone uncomfortable.

The best version of this is simple.

Enter the circle. Listen. Introduce yourself when there is a natural opening. Ask one thoughtful question. Let the banker answer. Maybe add one short follow-up if it feels natural. Then thank them and move on.

It sounds basic, but when you are actually in the room, it is not that basic.

After the event, the follow-up matters.

If you spoke to a banker, you should usually send a short thank-you email the next morning. Not a long essay. Not a desperate note. Two or three sentences is enough.

Something like:

“Thank you for taking the time to speak with me after the presentation yesterday. I appreciated your perspective on how the group is thinking about sponsor-backed exits in the current market. I look forward to staying in touch throughout the process.”

That is enough.

The key is to reference something specific from the conversation. If the banker gave you an answer, mention it. If they talked about their group, mention it. If they gave advice, mention it.

Do not send the same generic email to everyone.

Also, track everything.

You will think you will remember. You will not.

After a few events, every conversation starts blending together. You need a tracker with the bank, name, group, title, date met, what you discussed, whether you followed up, whether they responded, and any next step.

This is not optional if you are serious.

There may be days where you speak to six or eight bankers across different events. Then the next day, you need to send follow-ups. Then another bank comes. Then another. Then coffee chats begin. If you do not track it, your process becomes chaos very quickly.

Now coffee chats.

A coffee chat is usually around 30 minutes. It can be in person, on Zoom, or by phone. Sometimes you get one because a banker offers it after an event. Sometimes you get one because you reached out. Sometimes you get one because you were selected through the recruiting process.

The calendar part is more annoying than people admit.

A banker may ask you to send availability. You send three windows. But you do not know which one they will pick, or whether they will respond at all. Now multiply that by five bankers. Suddenly, half your week is blocked by possible coffee chats that may or may not happen.

This is where your calendar becomes Tetris.

You are trying to protect class time, attend bank events, prepare for technicals, do assignments, maintain some kind of social life, and keep open windows for bankers who may respond at random times.

My personal advice: give clean windows during normal business hours. Make it easy for them. Do not make them solve your calendar. I personally tried to avoid Fridays because Friday coffee chats never worked well for me, but that may just be my experience.

For coffee chats, you need more than your basic pitch.

You need to know your story clearly.

Why banking? Why now? Why this bank? Why this group? Why does your background make sense? What are you hoping to learn? What kinds of deals or industries interest you?

You also need to be able to talk about a deal.

Not every coffee chat becomes a deal discussion, but you should be ready. If you are talking to someone in a specific group, you should know a relevant transaction.

Know the buyer. Know the seller. Know the transaction value. Know whether it was cash, stock, or mixed consideration. Know the strategic rationale. Know what multiple was paid, if available. Know whether there were regulatory issues, activist investors, financing issues, or market concerns.

You do not need to sound like a banker already.

But you should not sound like you read the headline five minutes before the call.

Choosing the deal matters.

If you are speaking with someone at a specific bank, try to choose a deal where that bank had a real advisory role. Not a deal where the bank was barely involved. Ideally, pick something recent, meaningful, and large enough to matter. If you are speaking to a healthcare banker, pick healthcare. If you are speaking to a tech banker, pick tech. If you are speaking to an industrials banker, pick industrials.

And be careful if the banker actually worked on the deal.

That can be good, but it can also expose you quickly if you are pretending to know more than you do. A safer approach is to be curious rather than performative.

For example:

“I was reading about the transaction and thought the rationale around portfolio expansion was interesting. I was curious how bankers think about buyer motivation in a situation like that.”

That is much better than acting like you personally advised the CEO.

Another thing people do not fully understand: banks are not only evaluating whether you are smart.

They are evaluating whether you are safe.

Can this person be put in front of a client? Can this person write a clean email? Can this person listen? Can this person take feedback? Can this person be staffed on a team without making everyone’s life harder? Can this person handle pressure without becoming strange? Can this person represent the firm?

That is why small things matter.

How you enter a circle matters. How you leave a conversation matters. Whether you follow up matters. Whether your email is clean matters. Whether your story makes sense matters. Whether you ask a question that sounds prepared matters.

You may not get told when you made a mistake.

That is one of the strangest parts of the process. A bank can just stop engaging. You may never know exactly why. Maybe you were fine, but someone else was stronger. Maybe you were too generic. Maybe you seemed uninterested. Maybe you seemed too aggressive. Maybe your follow-up was sloppy. Maybe your story did not connect. Maybe nothing went wrong and there were just too many candidates.

That uncertainty is part of it.

People talk about getting “cut.” That basically means you are no longer moving forward with that bank, or you are no longer being prioritized. Sometimes it is obvious. Sometimes it is silent.

This is why consistency matters.

You do not need to be the most impressive person in every room. You need to avoid obvious mistakes and keep showing up prepared. Banking recruiting rewards people who can do the basics correctly over and over again.

Prepare before the event.

Know who is coming if the list is available. Know their group. Know what the bank has done recently. Know which two or three people you want to speak with. Have a reason for speaking with them. Have a question ready for each type of person.

Prepare after the event.

Send the follow-up. Update the tracker. Note what you discussed. Note whether there is a possible reason to reconnect.

Prepare before the coffee chat.

Review the banker’s background. Review the group. Review your story. Review one relevant deal. Prepare a few questions, but do not make the conversation feel like an interrogation.

Then after the coffee chat, follow up again.

Short. Specific. Professional.

That is the process.

It is not glamorous. It is not mysterious. It is repetitive. You show up. You talk to people. You listen. You follow up. You track. You prepare. You do it again. And again. And again.

The reason it feels overwhelming is because there are so many small steps, and each one feels like it could matter.

Nobody tells you that networking is partly logistics.

It is not just charm. It is calendar management. Email discipline. Note-taking. Remembering names. Remembering groups. Knowing when to follow up. Knowing when not to. Knowing how to be interested without being annoying.

That is the hidden work.

So if you are recruiting for investment banking, do not only ask, “Do I know the technicals?”

Ask yourself:

Can I explain my story clearly?

Can I walk into a circle and not freeze?

Can I ask one intelligent question?

Can I send a clean follow-up email?

Can I track 40 conversations without losing my mind?

Can I discuss one deal without pretending to know more than I know?

Can I be normal, prepared, and consistent for two months?

Because that is a lot of what the process is.

The technicals matter. The resume matters. The school matters. Prior experience matters. But the day-to-day process is built out of these small interactions.

That is the part I wish someone had explained to me.

Not just “network”. Play the actual game.

EDIT - P.S. One important caveat: my perspective is shaped by being in New York City, where many of the banks are already located. That is a real advantage, and I do not want to ignore it. If you are recruiting from a school outside New York, you need to factor in travel time and travel cost much more seriously than I did.

In the earlier part of the process, many conversations may happen by Zoom or phone. But as recruiting moves forward, a lot of coffee chats and later-stage interactions can become face-to-face. I met students from other schools who had traveled into New York for those conversations. For some people, that might mean a one-hour train ride. For others, it could mean flights, hotels, and losing an entire day to travel.

So if you are not already in the city where the banks are, build that into your plan. Recruiting is already a calendar-management exercise. Travel adds another layer. You may need to be more selective about which banks you prioritize, more thoughtful about batching meetings, and more realistic about how much physical presence the process may require. That was not a major issue for me, but I know it is a very real issue for others.

I’m writing this from a burner because I don’t want this tied back to me or my school. I’m not trying to trash my MBA program. I’m also not trying to write one of those fake inspirational LinkedIn posts about “growth,” “community,” and “finding yourself.” This is just the honest version of what I wish someone had told me before I started a top MBA in a very expensive city.

The first thing you need to understand is this: the MBA starts before the MBA starts.

When I arrived, there was already a social trip before formal orientation. People booked houses, went away for a few days, drank, partied, mingled, and started forming early friendships. Then orientation week hit. From morning to evening, you are in programming, classes, events, introductions, panels, social gatherings, happy hours, and dinners. It sounds fun, and parts of it are fun, but it is also intense in a way that is hard to explain until you are inside it.

You get pulled into the current very quickly.

And this is where a lot of people make their first mistake. They think this early period is just for partying, meeting people casually, and easing into school. It is not. This is when people start forming impressions. This is when early friend groups start forming. This is when people quietly start figuring out who is serious, who is prepared, who is sharp, who is social, who is awkward, who is all talk, and who seems like someone they would want to work with, introduce, or recommend later.

I am not saying don’t drink. I am not saying don’t party. I am not saying be fake. But do not sleepwalk through the first few weeks. Talk to people properly. Remember names. Be normal. Be kind. Don’t act desperate, but also don’t disappear. The MBA social machine moves very fast, and if you are not paying attention, you can feel like everyone else already knows each other before you have even found your footing.

Then September hits.

If you are recruiting for investment banking, consulting, or any other highly structured path, September and October are train tracks. Once you are on them, you are moving whether you are ready or not.

For investment banking specifically, the pace is brutal. You have core classes. You have assignments. You have attendance requirements. You have club events. You have finance association sessions. You have bank presentations. You have networking events that run for one and a half to three hours. Some days you have multiple events. Then coffee chats start getting sent out, and suddenly your calendar looks insane.

You are constantly in a suit. You are walking from class to events to coffee chats to another event to someone’s birthday to some other social thing you feel you should attend because these are your new classmates and you are trying to build a life here too.

On a practical note: for banking recruiting, navy blue and charcoal grey are the safest suit colors. Get at least two proper suits in those colors if you can. This is not the moment to experiment with loud patterns, weird colors, or “personality” through your outfit. The goal is to look polished, serious, and appropriate for the room. Also, do not cheap out on shoes. You will be standing for hours. You will be walking everywhere. Cheap uncomfortable shoes will make you hate your own life. This sounds like a small thing until you are on your fifth event of the week, your feet hurt, you are trying to sound intelligent in front of a banker, and you still have a coffee chat the next morning.

The real point is this: you do not have time to “figure it out” once school starts.

If you are coming from banking, corporate finance, consulting, strategic finance, or something adjacent, you already have an advantage. You may not feel calm, but at least the language is familiar. You know what a transaction is. You know what EBITDA is. You know how people talk about companies. You know what an LOI is. You know what a pitch or a deal process might look like. You have probably seen some version of this world before.

If you are a career switcher, the game is different.

If you are coming from a totally different background and trying to pivot into investment banking, private equity, venture capital, or anything finance heavy, you cannot wait until August to start learning. If you start in August, you are already late.

That is not meant to scare you. It is meant to save you.

The 400 question investment banking guide is not magic. It does not become more understandable because you are sitting inside a business school building. You could have downloaded it months earlier. You could have started in January, March, May, or June. There is no secret switch that turns on during orientation. No one magically injects finance into your brain between August and December.

You have to go through it question by question.

You have to learn accounting, valuation, enterprise value, equity value, accretion and dilution, DCFs, merger models, LBO basics, and how to speak about transactions. You have to get comfortable with the mechanics before you are under pressure. Because once recruiting starts, time disappears.

And there is no excuse anymore. There is so much free material online. You can use YouTube. You can use ChatGPT. You can use Gemini. You can take any question from the banking guide and ask for an explanation like you are a beginner. You can ask for examples. You can ask for a mock interview. You can ask why the answer works. You can ask what happens if the assumption changes. You can ask for a simple explanation, then a technical explanation, then an interview style answer.

The key is time.

Give yourself time.

That is probably the biggest advice I can give to someone like me: be kind to yourself by preparing early.

If you are serious about banking, PE, VC, or another competitive finance path, give yourself two to four months before the MBA starts. Not because you need to become a finance genius before school. You don’t. But you need enough familiarity that the first time you hear these concepts is not while you are sleep deprived, overdressed, socially overwhelmed, and running between three coffee chats and a class assignment.

Pick an industry you like. Pick a recent M&A transaction. Read about it. Ask an AI tool to explain the transaction. Ask what the buyer wanted. Ask what the seller got. Ask what the risks were. Ask what questions you could ask about it in a coffee chat. Ask what a banker might have done on the deal. Ask what the valuation logic was. You may not understand everything at first. That is fine. The point is not mastery. The point is exposure.

Because the most dangerous part is not knowing what you do not know.

When you arrive at school and everyone looks polished, it is very easy to assume they are naturally smarter, calmer, or better suited for this path. Sometimes that is true. Usually it is not that simple. A lot of them just had more exposure. They have heard the language before. They know what to listen for. They know how to talk about a stock. They may have defended stock pitches before. They may have worked on transactions before. They may know what questions bankers ask because they have already been close to that world.

If you do not have that background, it does not mean you cannot compete. But you need to respect the gap.

The first semester burnout is real. And in my opinion, a lot of people do not burn out because they are weak or incapable. They burn out because they are trying to learn the industry, learn the technicals, build a network, attend classes, make friends, manage social pressure, and recruit all at the same time. That is too much. Anyone would feel trapped.

So here is my blunt advice for incoming MBA students, especially career switchers:

Do not wait for school to start.

Do not assume orientation is when preparation begins.

Do not think the school brand will carry you by itself.

Do not underestimate how fast recruiting moves.

Do not spend the first month only partying and then act surprised when everyone else seems ahead.

Do not be embarrassed if you are behind. Just start earlier.

Before you arrive, learn the basics. Read the guides. Watch the videos. Practice talking about deals. Understand what the job actually is. If possible, do a pre MBA internship or some kind of project in the space you want to recruit for. But even if you cannot do that, at least build enough knowledge that you are not hearing everything for the first time in September.

The MBA can be an amazing opportunity. But it is not a reset button. It is an accelerator. And an accelerator only helps if you have pointed yourself in roughly the right direction before it starts moving.

That is the part I wish someone had said more clearly.