Bank on Banking

I’ve seen questions on the IB sell-day on more than a few occasions lately, so I figured that I’d draft a quick post summarizing the process, strategy and mistakes. So, first and foremost, congratulations – you’ve survived the Superday and landed the investment banking gig you’ve been gunning for over the past several months, if not longer. It’s now time to relax, right, wrong! The sell-day is by no means NEARLY as stressful as the superday, nor does it hold the potential to screw your offer (well, at least not generally – I wouldn’t go cursing anyone out of course). Well, now that we’ve gotten some of the stress of the process out of the way, let’s get into what exactly entails a sell-day.

Generally speaking, a sell-day is your opportunity to impress the other teams and, ideally, join the team of your choosing. Up to this point you have been fighting for a position within the investment banking unit, but now that you’ve landed the position, both you and the bank itself need to figure out exactly where to place you within the investment bank – in other words product or industry, and more specifically, which product group or which industry group. In order to do this, the bank will throw a sell-day for their incoming analysts – usually more than 1, depending on the size of the class – where the analysts have the opportunity to meet the different teams and, perhaps more importantly, the teams have the opportunity to meet the analysts.

During the sell-day, you will usually sit for several short presentations, by each hiring group, each concluding with a chance to network with each individual group for a few minutes. This last part is the part that you want to pay strict attention to and make the most of – but we’ll come back to that in a minute. Doubling back for just a second, the reason why I mentioned each “hiring” group, as opposed to every, or each group within the investment bank is that as a FT incoming analyst, you will have been hired either as a new candidate or received an offer from the SA position. If the latter is the case, and you were, in fact, a SA who received a FT offer, you will only usually be at a sell-day if you expressed an interest in joining a different group and didn’t find a new home or didn’t want to decide until the sell-day. Those SAs that have accepted positions within their SA groups will fill seats in those respected groups. Therefore, if there were only a handful of seats open in, for example, Technology, and all of the SAs kept their seats, then Technology might very well not be at the sell-day, or on the ranking sheet, since they do not have any openings for new analysts and will therefore not accept any incoming FT analysts. It’s not a big deal by any means, but just wanted to clarify that point as incoming analysts often wonder why a particular group or 2 isn’t available or isn’t on a ranking sheet or didn’t set up a presentation, etc.

Before getting to the final leg of the presentation, the chance to network with the bankers, let’s get into the presentation aspect of the day. Essentially, each group will have several bankers representing the team and set up in a conference room to introduce you to the team in attendance, the group, what the group does, impressive league table stats, deal closing figures, noteworthy deals, interesting aspects and capabilities of the group and anything else that they can think of to pull you in – I’ve even seen bankers pull out charts showcasing their record of getting analysts into top business schools and strong P/E shops 2-3 years down the line. In case you haven’t realized, all of this is done to attract as many incoming analysts as they can to their group so that the group, essentially, has their choice of the best of the incoming analysts. The presentation will certainly resemble that of a capabilities pitch delivered to clients introducing the group because, basically, you are clients and the group is trying to pitch to you their team, and get you to rank them number one. Now remember, just because the presentation is the group’s big opportunity to “sell” you their product/industry, no aspect of this sell-day process is one-sided.

Just as the presentation is the group’s opportunity to pitch you on them, it is also your opportunity to express your first big interest in the field and in joining the team. Use this presentation as a chance to ask some questions based on the group’s discussions and make your presence known ahead of the networking opportunity – this will help you to get on the team’s radar and even make the team a bit more receptive to you when it comes time to network at the end of the presentation. The key here, however, as is the case in every aspect of this day, is to keep the questions and comments relaxed and within the limits of moderation. If you are firing out questions every 30 seconds you will come off as more of a distraction than interested applicant, and you will definitely run the risk of establishing a reputation or displaying personality traits not of interest to rest of the team or that do not fit with the group dynamic. Don’t isolate yourself by getting too eager and don’t show yourself as a suck-up, trying to upstage everyone else. Just relax, ask a few questions when they are asked for and when the questions are relevant and value-additive – don’t ask questions just for the sake of asking them. If you can do this, you’ll definitely be in good shape.

Now, getting back to my previous point – paying strict attention to the short networking opportunity at the end of each presentation – let’s briefly move into why that is the case. Essentially, once you get past the presentation, you will have an opportunity to network with the group – but by network with the group, I really mean that you have an opportunity to connect with some of the group members, make a good impression, roughly figure out if this could be a fit, and evaluate whether this is a group, based on some of the teammates’ personalities, is a good match for you. First and foremost, some students are going to want to work in M&A, financial sponsors, leveraged finance, energy and power, etc, and while they’d be alright with working in an alternative group, they really want to land a seat in their group of choice. So, how do you do this? The answer: by nailing the networking opportunity at the end of that particular group’s presentation. The key here will be to make the time at the end of the session to go up and introduce yourself to the group’s panel participants, especially a group staffer (if present) and senior bankers, as they will ultimately be the decision makers. Additionally, you want to definitely briefly introduce yourself to the rest of the panel as well to further increase your chances.

By introduce yourself to the panel, I don’t mean state your name and conduct an interview, I mean that you should really be yourself. Express your interest in working for the group (but don’t be a suck-up or phony person – nor do I mean drop a few F-bombs and get your slang on – you’re still being judged, or, perhaps for lack of a better work, “interviewed” – do class is still key), be sincere in your interest in getting to know the teammates and ask questions about group dynamic, team activities, access to senior bankers, even questions on deal flow are fine as well – you really just want to show that you have an interest in the team, while maintaining those likable qualities that, presumably, got you hired in the first place. You want to fit in the bankers on the panel and be able to have a brief laugh or two while making your acquaintances – this will definitely help to set you apart from the rest of the candidates and help boost your appeal when it comes time for the teams to rank the analysts that they want. Additionally, make sure to get business cards from as many of the panel members as you can and definitely send follow-up emails later that day – it might not significantly boost your chances, but people have blackberries, and reaching out to keep your name fresh definitely doesn’t hurt. Remember, just as the group wants you to pick them as number 1 so that they have their pick of the analysts, you want the groups to pick you as number 1 so that you can have your pick of the groups, and the best way to do this is by making a great impression on the team.

After you’ve gone through each presentation it’s now time for the final stage of the process – the selection forms. At this point, if you haven’t received it already, you will be asked to take and fill out a selection card with the name of each hiring group listed along with a blank space next to it. You will then rank the groups in order of appeal to you from number 1 to whatever number of groups there are. Once you’ve done this, you drop the card off and there you have it – your selections are in and the fun for HR begins. The groups will essentially go through a similar ranking process, with the end goal being to get the majority of the incoming analysts into one of their top 3 or 4 groups. In other words, if there are 12 groups on the ranking form, the goal is to get you into one of your top 3 or 4 choices as opposed to your bottom 5 through 12.

Good luck on all of your sell-days and as always, if you have any questions, send them HERE and leave your comments below! Stay tuned for future posts on what an analyst really does, missing the 3rd year/associate offer, and much more!