Job Description Draft: Investment Banking Intern

Investment Banking Intern

Last semester, I had an internship at a local boutique investment bank in Los Angeles. I was mainly responsible for several company research reports including researching fit target companies for clients to acquire and help facilitate the transaction process. The job itself is not as finance-heavy as I expected. However,  there are times when different VPs would assign me tasks with quite different areas requesting similar priority levels at the same time. 

Below are some descriptions that best help understands the position as an Investment Banking Intern:

- Time Management
- Analytical 
- Problem Solving
 
I’ll go through each of these in the examples of my past internship experience.
 
Time Management
 
As an Investment Banking intern, there is a lot of assistant work that is needed to complete. Good time management is crucial to perform well at the job. Some positive actions of Outstanding time management include:
 
-       Figure out the real priority level of each task
-       Plan the task well with the rough time period to finish 
-       Always stay communicated with colleagues in case of the unexpected 
 
Sometimes it is hard for interns or even first-year analysts to understand how to prioritize tasks. For example, during my internship, I was suddenly assigned by a VP to finish quick comparable companies research for a client and needed to finish by the afternoon while I was still required to attend a weekly staff meeting and needed to finish an excel report for another VP at the same day. I felt a little bit overwhelmed by those tasks. But with more practice, I learned to communicate my ability upward with VP and learned to organize my time wisely. 

 
Analytical 
 
Not very often, Investment banking interns need to do some valuation using simple finance concepts. Now it's time to be analytical when analyzing the fair purchase price, and when valuing the target company's enterprise value. I encountered a time when my excel calculation didn't match the rough estimation on the Internet. I tried to think analytically and then I reviewed my assumptions and found out I made a mistake for one crucial assumption figure. 
 
Problem Solving 

Investment Banking firms all try to serve clients by satisfying their financial related needs. At times, clients' needs can be varied so there isn't a fixed way of conducting services. I learned that from my internship that at times our job can change but the essentials are to help clients solve their problems making them happy.  

For example, I was involved in a Japanese food & beverages Non-Profit Organization that would like us to reach out to as many markets/delivery platforms as possible to help promote Japanese products in the United States. The ability to think wild, think creatively while being able to help solve the problem is exactly what the investment bank VP looking for. 

Readability Statistics
 
Passive Sentences: 10.5%
Flesch Reading Ease: 44.4
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 12.9