Undergraduate Blog / Defining Your Babson

Key Takeaways from NYC IBD Internship

This is my last post for my summer internship at Mid-Market Securities in New York City. I am a rising senior and my ideal career path is to pursue in the investment banking industry now and further on after my graduation. 

In the previous post, I talked about how I dealt with different communication styles with both my New York City boss and my Boston boss. In this post, I would like to talk about the key takeaways from the whole internship and an analysis of the investment banking industry.    

First of all, it is definitely a rewarding experience to join Mid-Market Securities. I have learned so much about the investment banking industry from making marketing materials such as investor deck, executive summary and email transmittal to drafting legal documents such as Non-disclosure Agreement. Moreover, the learning experience did not stop at the material level since our boss also provided us with lots of chance to communicate with potential clients and investors. Strategies in professional conversations were conveyed to us through these meetings our boss invited us to attend. 

However, in small banks, although we could have large exposure to all the aspects of a deal, the number of deals could not be compared to the number in big bulge bracket banks. It is often the case when the whole team had only one or two deals to work on. While in bulge bracket banks, one intern should be on approximately at least 3-5 deals at the same time and his/her working hours tend to be much longer than ours in small banks. So the lifestyle could be drastically different and I personally believe that big banks could be more beneficial in early career development and small banks could be better in the later stage when deals could be sourced and closed without the help of resources in big banks. 

Therefore, the key takeaways are the observations in the investment banking industry and the kind of work people are doing in the industry. It is definitely an exciting job as I could meet with so many CEOs of brilliant companies in different industries but not so exciting when I have to spend hours revising materials and looking for potential investor sources. 

In the end, this is a great internship and I would never regret that I accepted this internship. Please contact me if you have resonating experiences in the same industry and I would be more than happy to connect.