Monash Banking And Finance Handbook
Xena Donovan
Students who commenced study in 2015 should refer to this course entry for direction on the requirements; to check which units are currently available for enrolment, refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course.
Students may be eligible for up to 48 credit points for previous graduate level or honours level studies in business. Credits or exemptions up to 24 credit points may be granted for previous undergraduate studies in business or an honours degree in a non-business discipline. Students with a prior business degree may elect to do the 96 credit point program but may be required to apply for exemptions from units which cover banking and or finance topics previously studied.
If you are not currently an undergraduate at a top university, then you need to think long and hard about whether or not you want to put in the mammoth effort required to get into IB.
If your full-time work experience has nothing to do with finance, or you got interested in investment banking after you had already graduated, you will probably have to apply to top MBA programs, get in, and use one of them to move into the industry. Assuming you get into one of the top programs, you have a pretty good chance of winning an IB offer if you put in a lot of effort and start networking long in advance (i.e., months before the program starts). Read more about the MBA investment banking recruiting process here.
If you are having a mid-life crisis and want to make more money or lead a more exciting life, you should read our article about how to move into finance as an older candidate to come up with better ideas.
The initial internships might be at search funds, smaller PE firms or VC firms, or startup hedge funds; or in corporate finance at normal companies, Big 4 firms, non-Big-4 valuation or accounting firms, or even non-IB groups at banks, such as corporate banking or wealth management.
If you have done everything above (networking, relevant jobs, etc.) but still have trouble winning interviews because of issues with your undergraduate experience, such as low grades, then the degree might help.
As an undergraduate, 1-2 finance-related internships before you apply to large banks should be enough. If you have just one internship, you could use an activity or student group to support your story.
People online like to obsess over their resumes and ask for advice about the wording of specific bullets, the font size, and the formatting, but most bankers glance at your resume for a few seconds and look for:
Brian DeChesare is the Founder of Mergers & Inquisitions and Breaking Into Wall Street. In his spare time, he enjoys lifting weights, running, traveling, obsessively watching TV shows, and defeating Sauron.
Free Exclusive Report: 57-page guide with the action plan you need to break into investment banking - how to tell your story, network, craft a winning resume, and dominate your interviews
I would need more context to answer your question (Which country are you a citizen of? Where do you have permission to work? What is your actual university?), but in general, you should go to London for IB internships and full-time roles in Europe. Other European cities pay less and have worse recruiting and exit opportunities. So if your goal is to work in Europe, yes, aim for internships in London along with everything else you need to get in.
Great article, as always. I am a senior undergrad (econ) in a developing country. I just declined a great offer from an another sector to get into investment banking. I accepted the internship offer of a low-tier investment bank in my home country (it is in MENA region). This will be my first M&A internship. There are few good IB firms here. Not every firm enables workers to move into London. I feel like I will be working in a place with no actual deal experience and this will prevent me from getting into large banks in abroad and even in here. What would you suggest me? Should I run to another place after my internship or stay in here for a couple of years? I plan to pursue a MiF in Europe after few years of IB experience in here. I believe this will lead me to be a strong candidate in London/Europe.
I may have to study Economic and Management for Art, Culture and Communication at Bocconi University, but my goal is to enter the field of IB. I wanted to know if there is a chance of entering IB from this major or not? And if there is a chance, how much harder is it for me compared to someone who has studied Economic and Finance?
I have an experience of working as a Data engineer for 3 years (did my graduation in Bachelor of technology in Electronics and communication engineering). Now I have an offer letter from Warwick Business School in Msc in Business Analytics. Post my masters I want to get into the finance domain as an investment banker. I really want to get your suggestions on my plan given my details. Am I going in the correct way?
Thanks in advance
Hi Brian,
I gonna be graduating in Aug 2024 with my MBA degree and want to start my career as a investment banker and want to learn from scratch and have 3-4 months as I have to complete thesis too, so what can I do some suggestions would be great and I have no work ex just have two internships in finance.
If your goal is investment banking and you are a recent graduate, you should focus on finding off-cycle roles at boutique PE firms and banks, following the example I linked to above. If you cold email aggressively and have permission to work in the country, you can usually find something.
I am a curent junior at a small, non-target liberal arts college midwest. I am a Finance and Accounting and have a GPA of 3.78/4.0. I have not had any industry relevant internship experience but have owned and operated a small business for the past three years that has shown impressive growth. Along with this, I am doing consulting with my university and have worked on consulting projects with large firms. I have also competed in commercial lending and M&A competitions with the university. What actions would you recommend I take to try to secure an industry relevant internship for the summer of 2024 besides just applying and networking? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!
I hope this message finds you well. I recently graduated from a T20 undergraduate program double majoring in business and a scientific field with a 3.7 GPA (think biology, chemistry). I start working for a B4 consulting firm in January in their healthcare advisory practice. Before I start work in January, I am trying to see if I can get on the healthcare deals team by networking internally to gain relevant deals experience. Do you think this is feasible / a good idea? Also, since I have this interim time between now and January, do you have any advice on what I can be doing now to improve my chances to break into banking. How do you think my odds current may be? Appreciate the advice. Thank you!
I completely understand the purpose of learning valuation, accounting, financial modeling for the sake of potential interviews (and I plan to do so), but is there any way to showcase that I actually took the time to work through material (i.e. on my resume or in information interview calls, when the time comes)? Or does that not really matter?
Hey Brian, I currently just started as a Graduate Auditor for Big 4 in Australia. Do you think I should try and get into IB straight from Audit or go into a stepping-stone role eg. TS or M&A first within Big 4 before trying to make the move to IB?
No, do the steppingstone role first. Australia is an extremely difficult market for career changers getting into IB. So you may want to consider going overseas or doing a top MBA program overseas once you have 3-5 years of full-time work experience.
Hi Brain, I am a high school senior starting at Duke in 4 months. I wanted to make use of this time and read up on some technicals. Apart from financial modelling what would you recommend reading/prepping for? Additioanlly, I have heard that the finance clubs at targets and semi-targets are hyper competitive, do you have any advice for networking and getting into them?
Thanks
Hi Brian, I will be starting this fall a double major degree in accounting & law on an accelerated program for an MBA in the 4th year at the Hebrew University in Israel (one of the top universities here). assuming I will be able to maintain high grades, do you think I will be able to get a H1B visa sponser to work in investment banking? or should I give up the accelerated MBA and look into transfer to an american University after the first year?
My situation is: I graduated with an economics degree from a top target university in the UK. During the degree I did an internship in equity research, as well as one in fintech mobile app development. I got final round interviews for IBD as well as for MBB consulting but failed to secure full time offers due to lack of preparation :(. So after graduation I ended up working at a Big 4 doing Tech Consulting for 1.5 years :(.
If I want another shot at IBD, what should I do? I was planning on trying again for MBB consulting (and work on deal due dilligence), then do a masters in finance, then work in MBB consulting again, then go to B School to do an MBA and then apply for IBD summer associate and so on.
Hi Brian, I am a fund accountant where I calculate the NAV for mutual funds and hedge funds, basically accounting job, doing this job for around 2 years, but I wanted to get into IB, so I was planning to study some certifications and become corporate finance analyst or M&A analyst then moving into IB after one or two years. Do you think I can be successful taking this route?
Thank you in advance
You can, but certifications will not help much (except for maybe the CFA), and you will need to network extensively and target smaller firms most likely. The current recruiting environment is also terrible, with most banks cutting or freezing hiring, so it will probably take longer than usual to find something.
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