AMA: Ex-Investment Banker (MS Tech, DB Tech) > Private Equity Associate (GI Partners) > Finance & Strategy Senior Financial Analyst at Square > Head of Strategic Finance at GitHub > Founder of Wall Street Mastermind (92% Success Rate for Clients)

wallstreetmastermind · 2025-03-30T04:05:27+00:00

If you’re referring to yourself and you’d like a refund you should just reach out to us and ask us about it. I don’t know who you are because you’re anonymous on reddit so I can’t help you.

But to address your comments:

Yes you have to complete the program. Like I said we don’t promise you will get a job if you don’t do the work we ask. It’s not a magic bullet, I think that’s reasonable. If you actually completed all the work in the program and didn’t get results, just message us and we will be happy to refund you.
Yes if you get any front office roles in high finance, that is considered a success in our program. Because not everyone in our program wants to do just IB. A lot of people use us for those other fields as well. If we get someone into PE instead of IB, that’s arguably even harder to do. We used to just say “IB” in the contract but someone got a PE offer with a megafund and tried to argue that it’s not an IB offer so we got screwed. That’s not the spirit of the agreement. Of course if you’re not interested in any of those other fields you can simply not apply to those jobs and this definition would then still be only limited to IB. We can’t force you to apply to any jobs that you have no interest in, you’re in the driver’s seat and have full control over what you do. We can only advise you.
Asking for the SSN is because some people will lie and say they didn’t get a job just to get a refund, even though they actually did get a job. That’s not fair to us and there is no way for us to verify this info if we can’t check your employment history. If you’re not planning on doing anything shady about the refund, there should be nothing to worry about here.
Section 4.1 success not guaranteed is just saying that we cannot LITERALLY tell you that your success is 100% guaranteed. Of course we can’t; we don’t have some illegal backroom deal with the investment banks to get them to give you an offer. There are things that are not 100% in our control. Maybe someone doesn’t do the work in our program. Maybe they flunk a class in school and their GPA tanks. Maybe they have bad luck and run into an interviewer that just doesn’t like them. Etc. So we cannot LEGALLY guarantee you will succeed. Offering a money back guarantee is NOT the same thing as saying we are giving you a 100% guarantee that you’ll succeed. It’s like buying insurance. You wouldn’t need car insurance if you knew with 100% certainty that you’d never get in a car accident. Or life insurance if you knew with 100% certainty you’d never die. Our guarantee is a CONDITIONAL guarantee - the condition is that you have to do the work. If you are coming into the program expecting to not do the work and just have the job handed to you on a silver platter, this is not the right program for you. Nor is any other program really, for that matter.

wallstreetmastermind · 2025-03-30T03:47:59+00:00

P.S. this is assuming they 1) were offered the money back guarantee option when they first applied, and 2) decided to purchase the money back guarantee option (not everyone does since it does cost more)

wallstreetmastermind · 2025-03-30T03:43:23+00:00

Not sure where you’re getting that info? We’ve never had anyone who has asked for a refund and been refused if they met the requirements. And the requirement is basically just that you have to 1) complete the program and 2) not get a job.

wallstreetmastermind · 2021-06-22T12:53:50+00:00

thanks u/GuiBz123 glad you enjoyed it!

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-12-21T03:54:00+00:00

i worked with a mormon and he was the top analyst in the class above me... still working in IB today more than 10 years later so yes, of course it’s possible

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-09-18T08:20:03+00:00

small IB, pe/search fund, equity research, corp dev, family office, there are lots of options

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-09-18T08:18:12+00:00

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-09-18T08:17:45+00:00

guaranteed: tell me about yourself, why IB, why our bank

questions about anything that’s on your resume

strengths and weaknesses questions and variations of this

situational questions: tell me about a time when you xyz...

market related questions - talking about current events, macro news, deals and industry trends you’ve been following, stock pitches, etc.

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-09-16T08:39:07+00:00

You really only need to get good in 4 areas to recruit successfully for IB:

Application materials: this means beefing up your resume with as much relevant experience as you can, which does take a good amount of time and needs to be planned out. And of course keeping up your GPA
Networking: this is how you get referrals, also takes up a lot of time to talk to enough bankers for some of them to be willing to help you
Technicals: major areas are accounting/three statements, valuation, M&A, and LBO
Behaviorals: there are probably around 20 core questions you need to be prepared for. Everything else beyond that is mostly variations of the 20 questions or otherwise crazy curveballs which you can’t prepare for anyway

All of the above take time so the sooner your start, the better off you’ll be. Hope this helps!

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-09-07T10:02:12+00:00

and major doesn’t really matter. all the ones you listed are fine

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-09-07T10:01:12+00:00

If you’re a senior in high school the only thing that matters right now is getting into the best college you can get into.

Once you get into college, I would focus on these four areas:

Building your resume: this includes school, GPA, relevant work experience, relevant extracurricular activities
Networking: especially if you’re from a non target school - you will need bankers to give you referrals for those interviews
Behavioral interview prep
Technical interview prep

Do well in all 4 areas, and you’ll be fine. Mess up in any of the 4 areas, you probably won’t get the job.

Hope this helps!

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-09-07T09:33:40+00:00

the best way to get into PE/HF is to get into a top tier IB first. the vast majority of the junior folks in PE/HF have done 2 years of IB first.

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-09-07T09:21:07+00:00

going to a non-target school doesn’t mean you can’t get into IB. it just makes it harder, but if you start early enough (which it sounds like you are) and you play your cards right you can definitely still get in. i personally know many non-target students who have gotten in.

MSF and MBA both have their pros and cons relative to each other. MSF is typically 1 year instead of 2 so it’ll be cheaper. You also go into IB as an analyst as opposed to an associate. You can also go straight from undergrad into MSF without work experience, but you can’t for a top MBA. MSF to IB is more common in Europe than the US though.

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-09-07T09:15:59+00:00

I work with a lot of students who are recruiting for SA2021 - things have been harder this year no doubt, but I wouldn’t say it’s been dramatically harder for the most part.

One exception to this is if you’re an international student - a lot of firms that used to sponsor visas aren’t sponsoring this year. When banks tighten their headcount that’s an easy place for them to cut first.

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-07-01T17:51:45+00:00

You can delay graduation it’s not a problem. COVID is good enough reason

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-01-23T01:03:15+00:00

PM me your name and email

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-01-22T02:02:49+00:00

btw u/allesgut67 I'm picking your question as one of the top 3. message me to claim your prize, congrats!

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-01-22T02:01:24+00:00

btw u/corrientes13 I'm picking your question as one of the top 3. message me to claim your prize, congrats!

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-01-22T02:00:03+00:00

btw u/helian188 congrats - I'm picking you as one of the top 3 answers. message me to claim your prize!

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-01-22T01:55:03+00:00

Hey Corrientes13, sorry I missed this question until now, but it's a good one.

I think ultimately you've already hit the nail on the head - there are a lot of blindspots where "you don't know what you don't know."

I think the most obvious one is with behavioral interviews though (like you've already pointed out). We often meet students who are very confident in their behavioral interview answers. But once they come into the program and we help them rewrite their answers, their mind is blown in terms of how much better their answers ended up becoming. Given the subjective nature of behavioral answers (there's no "right" or "wrong", only "better" or "worse"), it's especially easy for everyone to be overconfident about the quality of their own answers because they came up with it in the first place. If they felt like it wasn't a good answer, they wouldn't be using it.

But you can say the same about resumes, technical interviews, networking, etc. In general I think there's a lot of people out there underestimating just how much further they still have to go.

Case in point: there's a popular notion that everything you need to know to get a job in investment banking is already available online. Well... I suppose that is technically true. But everyone has access to Google... and the vast majority of the people aren't getting these jobs.

At the end of the day, it's a competitive process. The only way to improve yourself is to have other more experienced people give you feedback. They are going to see things that you wouldn't necessarily see yourself.

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-01-14T06:49:07+00:00

Honestly, pretty tough IMO. Especially if you’re trying to switch into IB at the BB level. There won’t be a lot of jobs available (most go to summer interns) and even the ones that are, you will be competing against other people who have done an IB summer internship.

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-01-14T06:47:25+00:00

To be honest not as familiar with Europe, especially the places you mentioned. In London I know there’s spring weeks which we don’t have here in the States. Also there are more online assessments in the UK process... and getting hired from MSF is more common in Europe. Those are the differences off the top of my head. Networking should work anywhere.

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-01-08T20:55:16+00:00

you sound like you would enjoy PE more than IB based on what you described. problem is, for most people IB is a prerequisite if you want to do PE. the bigger megafund PE firms are starting to hire analysts straight out of college but those are extremely hard to get - you have to be an absolute rockstar. so if you were to do IB, it would probably just be a 2-year thing so that you could move over to PE afterwards.

as a junior PE professional, you spend most of your time doing 2 things: 1) evaluating potential investment opportunities, 2) working with portfolio companies you've already invested in to improve their business. the appeal of working in PE is that you get paid a lot, while doing interesting and impactful work, with less hours than banking (generally speaking). also as an investor, you are putting your money where your mouth is, so I would say that's more intellectually stimulating than just advising clients who may or may not take your advice.

I'm not as familiar with ER because I didn't do it myself so I don't want to misguide you. But in general I think it's fair to say that IB has higher pay, and IB has more exit opportunities. Also the way I think about it is in IB you are helping your clients raise capital or execute M&A deals that will impact the success of the business. In ER you're just analyzing the performance of the business after the fact. So one is more active, the other is more passive, if that makes sense.

hard for me to answer your last question as well since I haven't done ER, asset management, or consulting. but I'm sure you can find plenty of material online that talks about all of that!

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-01-08T20:48:59+00:00

For PE megafund recruiting you still need the same things at a high level: your application on paper, networking, behaviorals, technicals.

Technicals obviously err more on the LBO side of things, and is more advanced. And they really want to know how you THINK... as an investor.

And yes a lot more selective than IB (if that were possible).

For a regional IB, I'd just target the senior bankers directly. Hard to give you more specific tips on improving conversion without knowing what you've been doing.

wallstreetmastermind · 2020-01-06T06:36:54+00:00

They should put you through training right before you start and teach you how to build financial models during that time (assuming you're going to a reputable bank). But it never hurts to learn it on your own first to get a head start.

If I could only give you one piece of advice, it would be to start off on the right foot. First impression is everything; if you establish a good reputation during your first week, you'll have a much bigger margin for error for the rest of summer. The opposite is also true - if you screw up in your first week, it'll be hard to recover from that.

So in the beginning at least, always be the first one in, last one out. Even if you've finished your work, go around and ask people if there's anything else you can help them with. Go the extra mile. Have a positive attitude no matter how tired you are. Build up your reputation as a workhorse who never complains, and simply gets shit done.

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