Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Current and Future M&A Analysis

The more you can learn and the more you know about today's current market, the better you can tailor your answers to show you are interested in and actually follow the markets. Everyday you should be reading the Wall Street Journal and I also recommend following the New York Times Deal Book. This afternoon they published a short piece entitled "How to Fix M&A: Part 1". I think this article gives a good analysis of the situations related to our current market conditions. I also think it provides some interesting ideas about the future of strategic M&A and private equity deals. In your quest to land your dream job as an investment banking analyst you are going to have stiff competition this recruiting season, as banks continue to limit their analyst and associate hires.

Begin to think about how you are going to differentiate yourself from other candidates this year when you interview. What is going to separate you from the pack?? In my opinion, I think that in addition to showing you know the basics, a great differentiator is a candidate that can talk about current market issues and 'headline' deals in their responses. Keep reading, learning, and following the markets. Find websites and blogs you like and add them to your Bookmark Toolbar to remind you to read them everyday! Be sharp and know your stuff so you can separate yourself and land the job!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very prophetic post on the difficulty of landing an Analyst job in the 08/09 season.

Here's another article on how the M&A process works that would be helpful to potential analysts.

Good luck with the prep!

Dallas Investment Bank said...

Hi,

Incorporating inter-market analysis into a daily analysis is likely too much for the typical trader, a regular review of charts may help provide insight to changing conditions for markets you trade. Thanks a lot.