Key Takeaways

• Relationships drive deals: networking clicked for Jake in investment banking, watching managing directors close deals through 20-year relationships. Early in your career, volume gets your foot in the door. Later on, quality matters more.
• Personalize every cold message: generic “I’m a finance major looking for an internship” messages get ignored. Mentioning a specific detail, like a shared sport or club, shows the extra five seconds of research and stands out immediately.
• Finance is broader than you think: every field has a finance side, and subject expertise can be your way in, like premeds on biotech banking teams. Find your passion first, then apply finance to it.
• The truth about banking hours: live deals can be intense, but it isn’t 100-hour weeks all the time. The pay reflects the grind, and it makes later roles feel manageable by comparison.