<p>I’ll be interning at a bulge-bracket investment bank this summer (junior), so I can shed some light on this:</p>
<p>Major:
Everyone views Econ majors as Haas rejects. Unfair, but largely true. When the banks are reviewing resumes for internships, they look at your major first, and that’s what they’ll think. Other common majors are Stats, some sort of engineering, Applied Math. All of those are “technical” and look good, (more math/CS = better), but Haas is fine. All the kids going to Goldman this summer are Haas majors, IIRC.</p>
<p>Clubs:
Delta Sigma Pi, Alpha Kappa Psi, and Beta Alpha Psi are the three business (co-ed) fraternities on campus. You won’t learn anything there, but all the kids in there are interested in doing banking, and most, if not all the Berkeley kids who DO get banking jobs were involved in those fraternities, so you can network with current alums bankers pretty easily. If you don’t care about anything except getting a banking job, these would be the guys to check out. That being said, because of the brutal rush practices, cheating scandals, and aura of arrogance that surround the business fraternities, they’ve developed a pretty negative reputation around campus. Nobody likes them, especially Haas students. </p>
<p>The rest of the business clubs are ******** (Asian Business Association, PBL, etc). Good place to make friends, but that’s about it. </p>
<p>Berkeley Consulting and The Berkeley Group are also very strong, well-connected clubs. Lots of interesting, intelligent people there, usually the people going to management consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain, Boston Consulting Group, etc were from these clubs. But not all, and usually a couple each year do banking. Good people, interesting stuff.</p>
<p>Essentially, of the students who end up getting investment banking internships were involved in either a) a business fraternity b) BC/TBG. Or they worked at Google or something crazy.</p>
<p>Networking:
Getting a banking job isn’t entirely based on merit. When you submit your resume through OCR, it goes to the the analysts (first/second-year bankers) for review. They already have five to seven names (each) in the back of their head that they’re looking for, and KNOW they will be giving interviews to. These are people they’ve met from the clubs I mentioned, or people that have reached out in networking sessions/emailed them. You REALLY want to be one of those people. Get in touch with people at the bank beforehand. By the way, HR people and campus recruiters don’t count. They don’t decide who gets interviews, and they definitely won’t be interviewing you.</p>
<p>Interview/Getting a job:
Banks interview 15 people for first round interviews, and these interviews are conducted by 2 analysts. These 15 people all have GPAs 3.7+, Haas or whatever, and internships I’ll get to later. There will be a mix of technical questions (accounting/finance) and behavioral (“Tell me about yourself.” “What’s your weakness?”). If you’re good there, you go to second round, with maybe 5-7ish people. It’s the same format, only with Associates/Vice Presidents/Directors, and it’s at the bank’s HQ in SF/LA/NY (depends where you apply). Of those 5-7, 2-3 will get offers for internships. </p>
<p>The numbers: there will be roughly 150ish Berkeley students applying to each investment bank every winter. Of those 150, 15 will be selected for first round interviews. Of those 15, 5-7 will be selected for second round interviews. And of those 5-7, 2-3 will get offers for summer internships. 3/150. College admissions doesn’t sound so bad now.</p>
<p>Internships:
I know that one guy said you should “do a private equity internship!” Right idea, but…slow down. As a freshman, you’re going to want to look at Wealth Management internships at all those banks you’ve heard of before (Goldman, UBS, Bank of America). They’re intended for freshmen and sophomores. I never did one, so I have no idea what you do on a day-to-day basis. Call the place up, or email someone, and get in touch. You could also do accounting a big company like Microsoft or something. Sophomores can sometimes get jobs at smaller investment banks (Raymond James, William Blair, other places you haven’t heard of), or small private equity firms, like that guy said. The sophomore year internship is much more important, but it’s hard to get that one without any work experience freshman year. Also, nothing from high school counts. (Sorry.)</p>
<p>The abbreviated version of this post:
Bankers from Berkeley should have (by junior year)
- Haas/something mathy 3.7+ GPA
- Involvement in a business fraternity/The Berkeley Group/Berkeley Consulting/involvement in some interesting club
- Networked with people at most banks he’s applying to (analysts know his name, corresponded in a meaningful way, will pick his resume out of the pile)
- An internship each summer, with at least one being something directly related to finance (banking/consulting/accounting, though preferably not accounting since bankers make fun of it)
- Isn’t socially awkward.</p>
<p>Message me if you have more questions. I don’t check this site very often.</p>