How to Walk Through

Your Resume or CV When

You Have Full-Time Work
Experience
Will That MBA Work Miracles?

This Lesson: Read OR Watch It

This video walks you through the key

points of our more experienced / MBAlevel / career-changer templates
but its not really essential, since you
can just look at the templates, examples,
and explanations there as well. Or
download these slides!

Telling Your Story as an Experienced Candidate

Part 1: The Truth About Career Changers and IB

Part 2: The Main Ideas Behind These Templates

Part 3: Answering the Why Now? Question
Part 4: Why MBA and Masters Degrees Dont Matter
Part 5: What If Your Background Doesnt Match?

Part 1: The Truth About Career Changers and IB

REALITY CHECK: You must already be doing something relevant to
investment banking law, Big 4, corporate finance, etc. to have
ANY chance of moving into the industry
Not Possible: Librarian or Firefighter directly to IB
UNLESS: You get highly relevant experience in between, such as
a pre-MBA internship at a PE firm
Also: Even with a highly relevant background, youll often need a
steppingstone role such as a boutique IB internship

Part 1: The Truth About Career Changers and IB

Steppingstone Roles Most Needed For: Back/middle office, Big 4
or smaller firm accounting/audit, corporate finance,
entrepreneurship, military, or roles that are even more different
Not As Necessary For: Law, corporate development, sales & trading
or equity research, or a Big 4 role where youre working on deals
Litmus Test: Do you work in a front-office role at a bank, or do
you work on M&A or capital markets transactions? If so, you can
probably move into IB without doing something else first
BUT: Remember, it still wont be easy banks are very picky!

Part 2: The Main Ideas Behind These Templates

Beginning: You always had some interest in finance, even from back
in university or high school
But: You chose to go into a slightly different field dont explain
why in detail but found yourself increasingly drawn to IB over time
Spark: Should move you from finance in general to IB specifically
seeing an IPO from the S&T side, or seeing the legal side of a
Restructuring deal, or interacting with VCs at your startup
BUT: You have to show more of a gradual buildup of interest in
IB over time, or this wont seem believable

Part 2: The Main Ideas Behind These Templates

Growing Interest: Your steppingstone role (e.g., Big 4
accounting/audit role to TAS group, or independent valuation
firm), your MBA or MSF program, and your self-study
Sometimes: Could just be a slightly more relevant role in the
same group (e.g., sales rather than trading, or working on more
M&A deals as a CFO)
This Section: Needs to prove to bankers that you can hit the
ground running and immediately contribute something to the firm
Usually: Only way to prove that is with a previous internship

Part 2: The Main Ideas Behind These Templates

The Future and Why Youre Here Today: Should be very specific
and tailored to the bank and your background
Need: An industry and/or a deal type (e.g., healthcare equity
research to healthcare IB, or tech startup to tech IB)
What If Theres No Match? Make it broader, or find something else
in your background that matches up (e.g., familys professions)

Part 3: Answering the Why Now? Question

KEY QUESTION: So if youre so interested in investment banking,
why didnt you get in right out of undergrad?
Bad Answers: My school didnt have any recruiting, I
graduated in a recession, or I couldnt win any IB offers (with
some exceptions, such as the back/middle-office template)
Better: You realized pretty quickly you wanted to do IB, but you
had to work toward it with a steppingstone role first
Better: You knew about IB, but were more interested in another
career a long time ago until you saw the downsides firsthand

Part 3: Answering the Why Now? Question

Example: For a career change out of law, you can say you were
drawn to finance starting in your first BigLaw internship
But you were obviously not going to turn down a return offer at
a major firm, so you accepted it
and then worked in the most relevant groups possible (e.g., M&A
and capital markets) while planning your transition to IB
Formula: Honesty (admit you were initially interested in something
else) + early realization and specific actions taken since then

Part 4: Why MBA/Masters Degrees Dont Matter

MBA Myth: You can re-invent yourself in our program!

MBA Reality: If you cant explain in 30 seconds why you want to

get into IB, based on your background from before business
school, you have no chance
MBA Reality: So unless youre coming from a closely related
background, like corporate development, an MBA alone wont
make your story work
MBA Reality: Even with the degree, your story doesnt change
much the degree is just another Growing Interest point

Part 4: Why MBA/Masters Degrees Dont Matter

The Value of an MBA or Masters in Finance Degree: Gaining
access to on-campus recruiting and an alumni network
So: Were not saying that these degrees are useless; its just
that they wont help your story that much
Best Solution: Combine these with a pre-MBA internship, or
school-year internship(s) for the MSF degree
Truth: In 10+ years of doing this, Ive only seen one case of
someone using an MBA to win an IB role at the last minute with
no advance planning and he got extremely lucky

Part 5: What If Your Background Doesnt Match?

Truth: We think it would be useless to provide 1,053 templates for
every single possible background
My Recommendation: Dont focus on the templates look at
the executed examples of how each client told his/her story
Common Elements: Youll see a lot of language and arguments
you can re-use in your story
And If Youre Not Sure: Ask us! Leave a comment within this
lesson, email us via the contact form, etc.

Recap and Summary

Part 1: The Truth About Career Changers and IB

Part 2: The Main Ideas Behind These Templates

Part 3: Answering the Why Now? Question
Part 4: Why MBA and Masters Degrees Dont Matter
Part 5: What If Your Background Doesnt Match?