List of best investment banking fresher jobs

A In-Depth Guide To The Investment Banking Fresher Jobs

November 2, 2024 Abhijit Mukherjee

While the commercial banking industry was impacted highly by COVID-19, the investment banking sectors emerged as the gladiators in the economy. According to the Investment Banking Global Market Report (2023), global investment in the investment banking sector grew by more than 165 billion USD compared to 153 billion USD in 2022. It has grown more than 8.4% for this financial year. The Investment banking sector will grow to more than 220 billion USD in 2027. In this document, we will see the characteristics of investment banking fresher jobs.

What You Need to Study for Investment Banking Fresher Jobs

Although it is complicated to say what you study in the particular course modules, I will give here the general overview irrespective of the course you choose. Still, I encourage you to visit the institute’s website for a detailed explanation.

❖ Financial Basic theorems

❖ Economy market

❖ Excel-Powerpoint learning

❖ Financial valuation case studies

❖ Capital valuation investment

❖ Business collaterals creation

❖ Deep learning in capital market with A.I.

❖ IoT in investment banking for data analysis

❖ Trading life span cycle

❖ Managing the assets by identifying the securities

❖ ISDA’s law book for making agreements

❖ Equity project statement modeling

The Academic Eligibility You Require for Investment Banking Fresher Jobs

Having a graduation degree is a prime qualification in the investment banking field. You can be a non-commerce graduate as well for online training. But if you are taking any offline course, you must have a BBA or B.Com degree with sound mathematical and statistical knowledge. Some institutes can demand any work experience for advanced studies.

The Skills You Require for Investment Banking Fresher Jobs

While discussing the skills, I am dividing this section into two sections the first will be the hard skills, and the second will be the soft skills. Hard skills carry 60% of your career, while soft skills carry another 40 % of your career growth. While you will learn the hard skills throughout your academic sessions while developing soft skills, you need years to learn. Therefore I am covering the soft skills first. I will talk about hard skills later in this section.

Google Wizard: Curiosity

Being a Google whiz is crucial, and In Investment Banking, several times, you will hear the person above you telling you to Google it or that you need to Google something. Let’s say you need a complex Excel formula and just Google.

Attention to detail

You’ll hear that phrase over and over, especially in the beginning when you’re making stupid little mistakes. For example, you started at number one, and suddenly, it’s number three. Those are the kinds of things that bankers will expect you to notice. Is the spelling correct? Did you order it in hierarchical rank managing director, director, vice-president associate when you’re sending out calendar invites?

The Grind of Complex Phenomena

Investment banking is a very time-consuming business. There will be weeks where you’re sitting at a desk for 90 hours and need to be able to sit down on the chair and grind out. It is all about giving more while receiving more from your superiors.

Typing speed with Multitasking

What you do is on the computer, and this is going to sound so stupid. Still, typing is essential. It doesn’t matter how you type, but you also get the habit of looking at one thing and typing another because many times, you’re going to have to multitask with various work streams coming your way. Sometimes, you will need to be in a presentation setting looking at a presentation, tearing your senior manager’s talk, and typing away notes.

Memory:

There will be many times when someone asks you, “Hey, do you remember this fact about this deal? If you have a great memory or a tendency to take great notes, it will help you in the long run.

Social Skills with communication

You’re going to be working with other people, and you’re going to be meeting a wide variety of people. Having some level of social decency and capability will also help you a long way.

Controlling Your Emotion with Analytical Thinking:

There are going to be times in this job when things are frustrating. You are ready to leave your office at 9 p.m. Suddenly, something hits your desk about you having to get out the following day for your client. Most normal human beings wouldn’t be happy with that situation, but being able to suppress that heat of the moment and say this is a job. These are your responsibilities, and You need to formulate and be able to control those ups and downs.

Anxiety Control:

You’ll have anxiety-filled days with no idea what’s to come. Something that will take a long time might hit your desk, but you can’t prepare for it. You feel like you’re always on call, so even if you’re out with friends, you get an Outlook notification. You must understand this at the end of the day; It’s a job. You’re going to rough it.

Essential Tools for Investment Banking Fresher Jobs

Wait! Where are the hard skills for fresher investment banking jobs, which I discussed in the last section? Let me tell you, the tools are your hard skills in investment banking analyst jobs for freshers.

❖ M.S. Excel: You need to have advanced level knowledge in Excel to such an extent that 99% of the Excel tasks can be completed without touching the mouse or trackpad. This means that you are highly familiar with Excel’s shortcut formulas.

❖ M.S. Powerpoint: It is your second tool for investment banking because you need to present slides to the clients for better understanding. You should know how to create animation and infographics in PowerPoint so the audience feels comfortable while understanding the fundamental concepts of the session.

❖ Intermediate Finance Knowledge: You need to have CFA level 1 or CA inter and final level knowledge in finance. It is a must-have skill for investment banking fresher jobs. If you have an MBA level of expertise in finance, that is also good in this case. You need to know the concepts of cash flow, cost of capital, cost of equity and debt, and also their calculation.

❖ Financial Modelling: You must have an advanced to intermediate level of understanding. Day in and day out, you will prepare the financial models; therefore, it is your fourth essential skill for investment banking fresher jobs. Eventually, you will prepare some very complex models like some banking company deals or some LBO models.

❖ Valuations: You need financial modeling knowledge because you will prepare the valuations in the greater ranges: the valuation of deals for a company. You can’t shy away from valuation advanced knowledge for investment banking fresher jobs as this will be supported by Excel and PowerPoint.

❖ Stats, Maths, and Accounting: For the Mathematics and Statistics part, you need to have beginner to intermediate knowledge, while for accounting, the more profound you can go, the better it is for investment banking fresher jobs. Deep accounting knowledge will help you prepare Excel or spreadsheet financial modeling.

Career Hierarchy for Investment Banking Fresher Jobs

Investment bankers typically start as analysts and work up to become Associates. Analysts are responsible for financial analysis and modeling, while Associates and vice presidents are more responsible for client management and deal execution.

Analyst:

The entry-level position for investment banking fresher jobs is typically analyst. They perform financial model analysis for clients and with the settlement of the deal. They work closely with Associates and vice presidents to help identify potential clients and provide support throughout the deal process. They are professionals who work in Industries such as Finance, Healthcare, manufacturing, and Emerging Markets.

Associate:

A person may be elevated to associate status after serving as an analyst for two to three years. Associates are in charge of managing teams of analysts and handling additional responsibility for client management and deal execution. They should also be more knowledgeable about market and Industry trends. The associates act as middlemen. They create and format slides and arrange client meetings. They perform DCF-SOTP finance models. It is a level-2 position for investment banking fresher jobs.

Vice President:

After several more years of experience, an individual may be promoted to vice president. Vice presidents direct associates and analysts’ teams for newer goals of the company. They maintain relationships with high-profile clients who belong to high-income groups. They also extend businesses by identifying new business opportunities and finalizing deals. Vice presidents meet with directors and managing directors to determine what they want and translate it into actionable tasks. They meet with equity-venture capital firms for portfolio discussions. The companies sell portfolios for the stock exchange of shares as the organizations raise capita funds to buy bonds. Vice president is the third-level position for investment banking fresher jobs. Both have equal powers and authority.

Five Keys to Unlock Investment Banking Fresher jobs

Find the Door:

The first step to landing in investment banking fresher jobs is to acquire a certificate, diploma, or degree course in investment banking because, with a legitimate certificate, you can hire someone, no matter how hard you try.

Resume Ready:

Step two will prepare your resume banking for investment banking fresher jobs.

Gain as much finance experience as you can, which means working at smaller boutique investment banks- private equity funds, finance divisions within tech companies, or any other type of companies- anything with finance experience.
Participate in conferences and case competitions to add brand names to your resume. Bankers love to see many brand names because it’s like a psychological thing when you’re just looking through a resume, and there’s a bunch of companies you recognize as top-class companies.
Maintain a solid GPA, which generally means above an 8 DGPA.
Ensure your entire resume is formatted cleanly, crisply, and nicely because bankers care a lot about attention to detail. So you ensure that everything is spelled correctly and structured in that way.

Network Builder:

A candidate with excellent networking is crucial for investment banking because if you think about it from a banker’s perspective, they want to make sure that you are not only someone who can get the job done but also someone likable and personable. The one candidate has networked with everyone and got to know the team, and everyone likes that person a lot more. Banks have multiple recruiting rounds. If you’re a candidate who has networked early and spoken with many bankers, and they like you, you can be pushed forward and interviewed earlier than everyone else.

Interview Preparation:

This can be broken down into two parts which are behavioral and technical. With the behavioral questions, people are just trying to get to know you. The takeaway is to make sure that you craft your story. Then the next thing you must do to prepare for your interviews is focus on technical aspects: questions about accounting, equity enterprise value, valuation, accretion dilution, and LBOs. The last thing I want to mention is that you should try to prepare at least three or six months before the recruiting process begins.

Crush the interview:

You have to do as many mock interviews as possible, which is the best way to feel prepared for the real thing.

Check here the best investment banking courses:

Types of Fresher Investment Banking Jobs

Although we can categorize investment banking jobs into four categories, most investment banking companies in India do backend jobs. This means doing paperwork for various clients. I am not saying all companies in India do that, but most do the same. In foreign countries, Investment banking companies deal with front-end jobs like direct contact with a company, firm, clients, consultants, and management.

Mergers & Acquisition:

Suppose you are the proud owner of a fancy bakery chain in Delhi. You want to sell your company. The first step of selling is to write an ad. Here you understand that it is not an asset like a bike or a flat. You’re selling a brand. The brand is in the store’s name. It is a factory that has a financial performance over the years. Yet your advertisement will be of great length.

The ad copy will be 50 and 100 pages. It describes the many elements of your bakery. The second thing is how do you fix the selling price for the store? You need to compare your store to another store that has the same size and equal profit margin. Is that store already sold to someone else? Third, you need to attract potential buyers, and here it will be a different story because your management, employees, and clients can be worried and distracted by your sale process.

But if you make the selling agenda public, there may be your suppliers and clients take this opportunity to their advantage. They may negotiate the prices of your products as they know the store will be sold in a few days. Therefore you should keep the deal under the table. But the main question will be how do you target the potential buyers to yourself. As for the shake of argument, you get a buyer, but how do you manage the documentation and the technical discussion part of the deal? The clients demand huge document sets from previous years.

They may ask you to write an agreement paper from their side. See! It is more complex than it may sound the same. Don’t be tense! Investment bankers are there from the merger and acquisition side. They demand XY percentage of the selling price as their commission.

Equity Research:

After extensive research, analysts give buy or sell recommendations to beat the market by generating profit on their client’s portfolio. There are two kinds of equity research jobs one is on the buy side, and one is on the sell side. On the buy side, the clients are mutual funds, hedge funds, pension funds corporations with surplus cash. These equity research analysts will advise the buy side team and the buy side team will invest in those shares or recommended securities. You will work with investment banks or brokerage houses on the sell side. They will advise their clients to buy and sell some securities, and they earn some commission based on it.

Brokerage Services:

The Prime brokers are institutional brokers, meaning they deal only with large-value transactions and clients. What do I mean by large-value clients? Let me explain it further—the Clients who can give them at least five hundred thousand dollars worth of assets, if not more. Many investment banks like Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs offer prime brokerage services as part of their boutique investment banking services to hedge funds and other institutional investors like mutual fund companies.

They deal only with large-value trades of hedge funds, and the second is securities lending. Prime brokers also leverage their hedge fund clients to trade with their borrowed capital. So leverage transactions, short selling, etc., are specialized trades that only large institutional investors can gamble upon. The prime brokers give them capital and securities.

The prime brokers also provide their investment banking clients and hedge fund clients custodian services, the ability to take care of their securities, reconciliations, updated records, etc. They offer cash management services depending on what kind of agreement prime brokers entered into with hedge funds.

They also provide a few other services as well like custodian services, trading services, analytical services, the ability to create products, and authorization to securitize.

Wealth Management:

It is an advisory service aiming to solve or enhance a client’s financial situation. Wealth management focuses on individuals instead of corporates. A wealth manager helps clients in five ways like

❖ Lifestyle Maintainance: The manager helps the client in two ways while maintaining the lifestyle. How much the client will save, and they limit the budgeting for expenses.

❖ Event planning for life: The managers help their clients buy assets, plan their retirement, and make a trip plan.

❖ Family Continuity: The manager also helps their clients in transferring the generational wealth, education, and marriage planning of their children.

❖ Philanthropy: They also motivate their clients to give donations to some social works.

❖ Risk Management: They manage their clients’ risk by buying insurance, allocating investments in several sectors, and rebalancing portfolios.

Wealth management services providers in India:

Banks: Kotak Mahindra Wealth Management, ICICI Private Banking, IIFL wealth and asset management, Edelweiss W.M., BNP Paribas W.M.
Brokerage Firms: They majorly help you to invest your money. They don’t plan anything for you. You have to do everything on your own.
Boutique Advisory Firm: They sit by you for hours to understand your financial situation so that they can offer customized wealth management solutions to high-net-worth individuals.

Investment Banks in India Those Are Hiring Candidates

Before knowing the Indian investment banks, let’s understand the global players’ names in this sector. They publish notifications for fresher investment banking jobs regularly. Therefore interested candidates should visit their official websites for more information.

Global Investment Banks

J.P. Morgan-USA
Goldman Sachs-USA
Morgan Stanley-USA
Barclays-UK
Bank of America Merrill Lynch-USA
Deutsche Bank-Germany
BNP Paribas-France
UBS-Switzerland

Domestic Players in India

★ ICICI Securities

★ HDFC Bank

★ Kotak Investment Banking

★ Axis Capital

★ Edelweiss Financial Services

★ IIFL Investment Banking

★ Motilal Oswal Investment Advisors

★ YES Securities

★ Centrum Capital

★ J.M. Financial

FAQs: Investment Banking Fresher Jobs

1. What is the salary of an investment banking professional in India?

According to Glassdoor, the salary of an investment banker in 2023 is 18 lakhs per annum. It is the base pay without additional compensation, which can go up to 6 lahks per annum. Therefore, the total salary will be 24 lahks per annum. According to Payscale, the base salary of an investment banker is 8.8 lakhs per year. But why does the salary differ in the vast range? Because there are several factors like

❖ Your salary will depend on how good your hard skills are. I mean, how do you handle the investment fields’ technicalities, like the practical subject knowledge I discussed earlier?

❖ The salary difference is also a case regarding your qualification as a bachelor’s or a master’s degree holder with any professional qualification like C.A. or CFA.

❖ You will get a higher amount of salary as your experience goes up. According to Payscale, your salary hike will be 79% of your med career. After having ten years of experience, your salary hike will be more than 232%. While you are in the late of your career, your salary hike will be 368%.

❖ The salary will differ according to the company you are in as the company’s mode of operation.

❖ Location can be a factor in your salary. The top six locations for investment banker jobs in India are

Mumbai
Bangalore
Pune
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad

2. Which are the institutes providing Investment Banking Courses in India?

We will see some renowned institutes that give training for investment banking fresher jobs because, with training, it is possible to fit into this high-growth strata.

IIMSKILLS- certification course
Jobaaj Learnings-certificate course
Tapmi- online MBA
Dypatiledu- online BBA
Imarticus- certificate course
IIM Indore- PG certificate course
Nseindia- Classroom program
IIT Kanpur-online master’s degree
Datatrained- P.G. course
BSE-Online certification
TSCFM- Diploma course
The Wall Street Schools certification classes

3. What is the meaning of Investment Banking?

Let’s understand this through an example; suppose there is a company or a government institution, and this entity requires enormous amounts of money for any vast project. Conversely, some investors are interested in buying securities through bonds. Now both parties will not come to each other for their buying and selling process; here, the investment banks kick in. Investment banks are the intermediaries for any organization while generating funds. Investment banks also provide financial consultancies to that organization. The company issues bonds and securities while they require money. Investment banks buy their shares and bonds to sell the bonds on behalf of that company to the public. They charge a commission from the company as well. Investment banks also monitor the market’s demand for bonds and shares for smooth selling agendas.

4. What is the future of Investment bank jobs in India?

Automated technologies like AI and blockchains will shape the future of investment banks. Trades are executed automatically through online portals and mobile apps. Blockchain technology empowers investment banks to monitor the settlements without any forgery. A.I. algorithm predictions give vast amounts of data for managing risks earlier for the clients. Investment banking practices are based on a holistic view with a professional code of conduct for sustainable practices so that ethics prevail everywhere.

Conclusion

Investment banking is a vast field with hundreds of tailored jobs for fresher graduates. Money earning is not limited to any ceiling in this domain. But this profession demands severe robust learning curves of a candidate. Most jobs are long working hours with complex data sets and financial modelings for reckoning the valuation of a deal. You have to master the hard skills to the fullest to get on the ladder in the office. These jobs require a fresher’s advanced financial knowledge, which is the core of the value. I have tried to give you a detailed view of this field in this document, but this could be better, at least when you research the doubts on the internet.

Vaibhav Kakkar