It's Never Too Early

The business school application process is such a long project that when it was over there was something of a void in my life. Planning to recruit for banking, I took on prepping for that process as the object of my next obsession. Everyone will tell you that recruiting gets started once you set foot on campus but in banking it starts a few months earlier.

For any T'15s who plan to recruit for banking (do it!) there are few things that should be on your radar. At this point you should get your resume completely set; you can work with the CDO to get the Tuck format and work through edits. Depending on your background, you may want to start reading up on the technical topics. Yes, it is early, but the better grasp you get on these topics now, the more time it will free up in the fall. Books such as Training the Street, Breaking Into Wall Street and Wall Street Oasis offer some great guides for technical interview prep as well as online modeling classes. If you don't have a finance or accounting background fear not, you will learn all this in a few months. So don't get overwhelmed, you can just skim these to start becoming familiar with the general topics and buzz words. More than anything, keep up with the news - general market conditions, interest rate environment and recent deal activity (Deal Book is a good site). Again, the details of deals may not make perfect sense, but if you start becoming familiar with some of the terms, things will flow more easily in the fall.

Additionally, there are many events over the summer for diversity candidates - this includes minorities, women, LGBT and veterans. Two events that I attended last year were Forte Foundation's Financial Services Fast Track conference and the MBA JumpStart conference. These were fantastic events for many reasons and I absolutely encourage you to apply! Primarily, you will learn a great deal about the overall industry, the big companies and how they are structured. Secondly, you get to meet recruiters from every firms. Some companies have the option to give out summer internships before first year even begins allowing you to fully skip the traditional recruiting process. Even if you do not have the opportunity to interview early, at the very least meeting the recruiters will allow you to establish a relationship that will be much easier to continue in the fall than introducing yourself for the first time along with the whole class. Thirdly, meeting students from Tuck and the other programs was a great experience. I had some familiar faces at school with the Tuckies I had already met and have also kept in touch with many of the students from other programs. You may as well start building your industry network early.

First year of business school is an amazing, stressful and fun time. You are about to start a crazy chapter of your life so more than anything, relax this summer. But if you find yourself in need of a little beach reading why not start looking over a discounted cash flow model!