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The Vault Internship Rankings include comments from real interns about what it’s like to work at their company. One of the questions we asked these interns is what their responsibilities look like throughout the program. By taking a look at the Best Investment Bank Internships, we can see what the day-to-day life of a banking intern really looks like. Here’s what we found.
Using Excel and PowerPoint
It is apparent that the use of Excel and PowerPoint is prevalent across firms. Interns use these software programs constantly for various behind-the-scenes tasks of deal work. One intern said they spend “most of [their] time working in Excel and PowerPoint.” The specific work done on these programs typically includes “helping build slide decks, models, [and] research,” as well as “building analyses in Excel and creating discussion materials in PowerPoint.” Another intern “also used Excel and PowerPoint to organize financial information, build analyses, and prepare materials for client presentations and internal discussions.”
For prospective students considering a banking internship, skills in both Excel and PowerPoint are increasingly important. With these programs being such a large part of daily life across firms, knowing how to use the programs effectively is a necessity.
Working on Live Deals
Interns typically spend a good amount of the summer working on live deals. While interns aren’t leading the deal, they still make important contributions that directly dictate the deal’s success. One intern said they had “actual deal work and more than taking notes. [They] built CIM slides that went directly to clients, led multiple workstreams, emailed CFOs of [the] deals directly and were on two deals at once.” Other interns also said they worked on more than one deal, with one saying they were “staffed on two live deals and [were] part of [the] M&A deal team” and another saying they were “staffed on 3+ live deals.” The amount of deal work interns are exposed to can vary across firms, but live deal work is still a constant we found across the industry.
More interns went into detail about the specific work they did on the deal teams, which included “pitches, live deals, capital raises, and M&A transactions” and “helping develop slides/areas of financial models for the company to use during the M&A process.” These contributions to live deals gave interns a “really immersive experience.”
The exact amount of deal work interns have varies by firm, but future interns should be ready to do more than just take notes. Be prepared to deliver materials that directly impact a live deal, and understand you’ll be doing more than just busy work.
Meetings and Calls
Attending meetings is also a large part of a banking internship. Interns join a wide range of calls, such as “meetings with executives,” “calls with other teams,” and “client calls.” In some meetings, interns are tasked with “[updating] spreadsheets of loan data and [presenting] them in weekly meetings” as well as “[sharing] decks on calls with clients.” In other meetings, the interns take on a less visible role by “taking detailed notes on calls.” Future interns should be prepared to join multiple calls throughout the program to advance a wide range of projects.
Summer Projects
Alongside day-to-day tasks, interns were responsible for completing a summer-long project. This project is often referred to as a “summer intern capstone project.” The specifics of the capstone project can vary by firm, but they often test core skills. One intern’s project “required financial modeling and building a company overview deck that was presented at the end of the summer to senior bankers.” The end-of-summer presentation is also a constant across firms: interns work on their project alongside deal work during the summer and present their project at the end of the program. Not every firm mentions a summer project, but for those that do, this is the structure to expect.
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