My Successful Investment Banking Cover Letter + Free Template - YouTube

hey everyone my name is kenji and in this video  i want to walk you through my investment banking  

cover letter so this is a cover letter that  got me multiple interviews at places like  

jp morgan morgan stanley and bank of america it is  true that in the end i ended up working on goldman  

sachs where they didn't actually require a cover  letter instead they require the 300 word personal  

statement and it is true some investment banks  require more essay-like questions but the overall  

idea is still very much like a cover letter so  i'll also be attaching a cover letter template  

in case you want to use it for yourself so before  we get into the details let's first look at the  

differences between a resume and a cover letter  so essentially in a resume it should be much  

more factual as in year one i did this year two  i did this and it's more like a bio in that sense  

whilst the cover letter has much more of a flow to  it it's more like a sales pitch where you have a  

whole story behind you as to why you want this job  and why you're the right candidate a cover letter  

is also a great place to explain yourself so  for instance if you don't have amazing grades or  

if you study something that's not finance related  things like that you can really convey them and  

put a good story to it during the cover letter  whilst it's not really possible in the cv ring  

so you're probably wondering which one is more  important well a cv is by far a lot more important  

basically a cv is the one that when you get to the  interview room usually the person interviewing you  

has it ready whilst the cover letter is just  nowhere to be seen but on the whole uh cover  

letter if you don't do it well can still hurt  you can still get you rejected basically but on  

the flip side it's probably not gonna be the deal  breaker it's probably not gonna get you the job  

all right so here's my cover letter as you  can see it's only one page long it doesn't  

occupy the whole page but that's fine you  really only want to put whatever is relevant  

in there and that being said you can see that it's  fairly simple there's no fancy colors there's no  

images no things like that that can be distracting  to the viewer and that's really how they're meant  

to be for investment banking in terms of sections  it's really five main ones the first one is  

just the header or the contact details then you  have the intro so essentially who you are after  

that you're gonna have a section called widest  company or widest position while you're into it  

next up you'll probably have something called  a yu why you're the right candidate basically  

essentially your sales pitch and then  lastly you might finish with a closing  

but overall between why this company and  why you you might sometimes flip that  

depending on how strong you are of a candidate  and what kind of a compelling answer you have  

and i'd say this cover letter the structure not  only applies to investment banking but also to  

say management consulting or accounting or  any other really like business oriented role  

all right so let's get into the details of each  section so for the header this is really quite  

simple essentially you have the recruiters info  on one side so their email their contacts etc  

and then on the other side they're going to  have your own contact details that might be  

name email address things like that but that  said in my case at least i usually didn't know  

the recruiters there so i didn't really have their  emails right so i would just omit that part and  

you only have your own contact details and that's  fine at least for me it wasn't really a problem  

that said if you do have the requires info  or you've gotten in touch with that person  

before then obviously put it right it's not  it's not gonna hurt your your cover letter  

all right so moving on to the intro section here  you just wanna introduce yourself right so i was  

a full-time student so that's essentially what i  wrote right i'm studying at this university i'm in  

this year i hope to graduate by this time and this  is my major it's really that simple now if you're  

a full-time worker you might have something like  your position and the department you work at with  

the company name it's really just that then after  that you want to add how you learned about this  

company so maybe you had a networking event at  your school or you know the recruiter or you know  

someone inside that's recommended you things like  that if you do have them make sure to put them  

they really help out the recruiter and  overall they do probably give you a preference  

if you've already been to one of their events  say but that said in my case at least sometimes i  

didn't really have any connecting points so i just  didn't put anything right i just said that hey i'm  

interested in the position um whilst not really  linking it to anything else and then towards the  

end of the paragraph you just want to say what  specific position you're applying to and what the  

company's name is so after that we have the widest  company and why this position section and here i  

typically have a first widest company and then i  might have why this specific role so starting off  

with why this company if i'm applying to goldman  sachs i might say something like i want to gain  

exposure to some of the largest transactions in  the economy like most recently your airbnb ipo  

where you were an advisor to and things like that  so overall you do try to give examples of some of  

the work that they do so they really see that  you're keen on it and you've done your research  

right now moving on to the widest position side  suppose i'm applying to goldman sachs for their  

analyst position so here i'm essentially going  to say some of the tasks that analysts usually  

do a goldman sachs and explain why i might enjoy  them so for instance i might say something like  

i'm very keen on the analyst position because  of the high responsibilities the collaborative  

environment and the use of financial modelling  all of which i consider fundamental to a career  

in the financial services industry or something  like that then after that we get into the why me  

or why i'm the right candidate section so here  it's essentially a sales pitch right you wanna  

explain whatever you're good at and how that's  gonna relate to the role ideally you wanna give  

some examples of that also you should have a good  idea of the types of skills that they might look  

for in an investment banking candidate say for  an investment banking analyst they might look for  

someone that's good with finance and accounting  that's numerically oriented that's a team player  

and say that enjoys a high pressure environment  so all these things you want to try to relate them  

back to your previous roles or your university  courses such that it looks like you're the ideal  

candidate right so in my case for instance if we  look at my example i previously worked at pwc in  

their financial audit team so essentially the role  is somewhat similar to the investment banking role  

where i work with financial models i  work with accounting and i worked with  

finance so these are all things that are relatable  to the role that said i realize most of you  

probably haven't worked at pwc so let's look at  my other example where i worked as a belmont and  

that's got nothing to do with finance at all  but if you pitch it well um it can have some  

some kind of link and some kind of relationships  between the two so for instance in bellman you  

work as a team right an investor monk as well so  you say you're a team player that's one number two  

you might say you have attention to detail right  if you work at a five-star hotel say that means  

that you're clearly attentive to what's going  on and you want to deliver high customer service  

that's the second one thirdly you might say you've  have exposure to client interactions just like  

investment bankers do that's another linking point  and so on and so forth so you kind of get the idea  

you can use that for bartender roles say you can  use that for really anything that's people related  

so yeah that's how you kind of pitch it  in order to become the ideal candidate  

i also added a paragraph on my background i  felt like it added to the application i speak  

five different languages so that's something  that they could look at favorably hopefully  

so if you have something that differentiates  you whether it's that you you were an athlete  

that you did really well in a math competition or  whatever it is and if you feel like it's strong  

then just put it in there and overall there is  no real guideline as to how many paragraphs it  

should be it's essentially whatever makes it  strongest right so if you really only have  

one work experience just put that one and you  don't really have to talk about what you did  

when you were 15 years old right and then lastly  for the conclusion here you just want to reiterate  

that you're keen on this position that you really  appreciate their time in reviewing the application  

that's really about it there's really no tricks  on this section and you might wonder if i made a  

cover letter for each application the honest  answer is no usually i just had a template  

and it would take me about five minutes to  rearrange that to whatever bank i was applying to  

so i might look up a deal that they worked  on and kind of put it in there for instance  

or sometimes i just didn't have the time or  i wasn't bothered and i just have the exact  

same cover letter only changing the name of the  bank but if you have a solid template you should  

be able to get away with changing it in 5-10  minutes and honestly if you're applying to say  

25 positions or more then you really don't want  to be spending one hour on each cover letter right  

also another thing i did which i found quite  useful was to have a cover letter for each  

industry that i'm keen on so for instance one of  the industries was investment banking obviously  

another one was real estate or accounting and so  i'd have one cover letter for each and showcasing  

and tailoring my skills to that industry right  so yeah that's the end of the video hope you  

found it useful if you did feel free to like and  subscribe and if you have any questions do put  

them in the comments i'll make sure to get back  to you and i'll hopefully catch in the next one