How to Get an Investment Banking Internship

Updated October 24, 2026

An investment banking internship is a summer analyst job at an investment bank, usually taken the summer after junior year of college. It is the main way banks fill their full-time analyst classes. To get one, you apply well before the summer, often more than a year ahead. You pass a résumé screen and a recorded first-round interview, then a Superday of back-to-back interviews. The candidates who reach the Superday have usually spoken with several investment bankers at that firm before applying.

This guide covers the junior-summer analyst internship at investment banks in the US. It also explains how that internship differs from internships at commercial banks and Big 4 firms, which often appear under the same search.

What does an investment banking intern actually do

An investment banking summer analyst joins one product group (M&A, leveraged finance, restructuring) or one industry group (technology, healthcare, industrials) and works as a junior analyst on live deals. The work is the same work first-year analysts do: updating financial models, building comparable company tables, pulling data for pitch books, and fixing slides late at night when a senior investment banker marks up a page. Interns rarely touch the client directly.

Most programs start in early summer and run until shortly before senior year. The final weeks matter most, because that is when the bank decides who gets a return offer for the full-time analyst job. A large share of full-time analyst seats go to returning interns, so treat the internship as an extended interview, not a line on your résumé.

Group placement shapes what you learn. Of the 12,389 investment banking professionals in Recruiterbase's database, 2,697 (22%) are in M&A, 1,481 (12%) in technology and 1,147 (9%) in healthcare, which gives a rough sense of where the seats are. If you have a real interest in one sector, say so early. Groups prefer interns who can explain why they want that coverage.

When do investment banking internships recruit

Investment banking internships recruit far earlier than most students expect. For a summer after junior year, applications at many banks open during sophomore year, and some firms interview candidates more than a year before the start date. A student who started college in fall 2026 is targeting summer 2029 and will be recruiting for it during 2028.

That means the networking has to happen before applications open, not after. If you wait until postings go live to contact anyone, you are already late at the banks that move first. The full semester-by-semester calendar, and what to do if you are starting late, is in when to start networking for investment banking.

Freshmen and sophomores have separate options. Several large banks run early insight and diversity programs aimed at first- and second-year students, with applications opening as early as freshman fall. A spot in one of these does not guarantee a junior-summer offer, but it puts you on the bank's radar and gives you contacts to follow up with. Some banks also hire fall, winter or spring co-op interns, but only through universities with an established co-op program.

How do you get an investment banking internship

The path to an investment banking internship runs through networking, the online application and two interview rounds, roughly in that order:

1. Build a target list of 30 to 50 firms: a mix of bulge brackets, elite boutiques, middle-market banks and regional banks.
2. Find two or three investment bankers at each firm who share something with you: your school, a club, a hometown, a previous employer.
3. Email them for a 15-minute call, months before applications open.
4. Apply online the week applications open, and tell your contacts you applied.
5. Prepare for the first round, usually a recorded video interview (HireVue or similar).
6. Prepare for the Superday: several interviews in one day with analysts, associates and senior investment bankers.

The email in step three is where most students lose. Keep it under 100 words, make the shared connection the first line, and ask for one small thing. Something like:

Subject: Michigan sophomore, question about Jefferies healthcare

Hi Sarah, I'm a sophomore at Michigan studying economics, and I saw you were in the Michigan Investment Club before joining Jefferies' healthcare group. I'm recruiting for summer 2028 analyst roles and would be grateful for 15 minutes to hear how you chose healthcare coverage. I'm free Tuesday or Thursday afternoon but happy to fit your schedule.

Thanks, Alex

Send it to a work email, not a LinkedIn message: investment bankers check their inbox constantly and LinkedIn rarely. Recruiterbase lets you filter investment bankers by firm, group and alma mater and gives you their verified work emails, which is the slow part of steps two and three. How to run the outreach itself is in how to originate networking calls. What to say once you are on the phone is in having a productive networking call.

For the interviews, expect two kinds of questions. Behavioral questions are the ones like "Why investment banking?", "Why this bank?" and "Walk me through your résumé." Technical questions are the ones like "Walk me through the three financial statements", "How does $10 of depreciation flow through them?" and "What are the main ways to value a company?" Have a two-minute answer to each that you could give while tired, because Superdays run long. Some banks make offers at the end of the Superday; others take weeks.

Most students make the same four mistakes:

• applying only through the online portal, where a résumé with no internal name attached is easy to pass over
• waiting for applications to open before reaching out to anyone
• applying only to the ten best-known banks and ignoring middle-market and regional firms
• sending the same generic email to 200 people, which reads as exactly that

On geography, think wider than Manhattan. In Recruiterbase's data, 6,978 of 12,389 investment banking professionals (56%) are in New York City, followed by San Francisco (747), Chicago (497), Houston (349) and Charlotte (340). Offices outside New York get fewer applicants per seat, and an energy group in Houston or a healthcare group in Chicago may be a better shot than the same bank's New York office.

What GPA do you need for an investment banking internship

No investment bank in this research publishes a GPA cutoff for its summer analyst program. GPA still matters: it is one of the first filters in the résumé screen, and a low number makes the screener look for a reason to keep you. The cutoffs quoted online come from career blogs, not from the banks themselves.

If your GPA is on the weak side, networking becomes more important. An investment banker who has spoken with you and flags your name to recruiting can get a résumé past a screen it would fail on its own. A strong upward trend, a hard major or a demanding job during school also help explain the number. For how a specific GPA like 3.6 plays, see how to work with an investment banking recruiter.

Which internship is best for getting into investment banking

The internship that most helps you land an investment banking summer analyst role is a smaller finance internship the summer before, with real modeling or deal work. Good options, roughly in order of how directly they translate:

• a boutique or middle-market investment bank
• a small private equity or venture capital firm
• corporate development or the finance team at a company
• transaction services or valuation at a Big 4 accounting firm
• equity research or wealth management at a smaller firm

Interviewers care less about the firm's name than about whether you can talk through a deal or a model you actually built. A sophomore-summer role at a ten-person boutique where you built a comparable company analysis beats a rotational program where you watched presentations.

As for which internship is most prestigious, junior-summer investment banking at a bulge bracket or elite boutique is the most common answer in finance, partly because it leads to so many other jobs. Of the 2,288 private equity professionals in Recruiterbase's data with a listed past firm, 66% had worked in investment banking. For hedge funds, the figure is 44% of 2,015. If private equity is your actual goal, how to get a private equity internship covers the firms that hire undergraduates directly.

Are Big 4 internships a path into investment banking

The Big 4 are the four largest accounting firms: Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG. Their internships are in audit, tax and advisory. They are a reasonable stepping stone toward investment banking if you land in a deals-facing group, such as transaction advisory, valuation or financial due diligence. That work involves the same financial statements and deal processes investment bankers use. An audit internship is a weaker stepping stone. It still teaches accounting, but you will have to explain in interviews why you want to move to the deal side.

A Big 4 internship is generally easier to get than an investment banking summer analyst role. The firms hire far larger intern classes and recruit heavily through accounting programs. Accounting majors are well placed; non-accounting majors will find advisory groups more open than audit. Starting in Big 4 and moving to an investment bank as a full-time hire is a well-worn route, though it usually takes networking into the bank rather than an online application.

Do regular banks offer internships too

Yes, commercial and regional banks run internships, and they often appear in searches like "bank internships near me." They differ from investment banking. A commercial bank internship focuses on lending, treasury services and client relationships, not M&A or capital markets deals. Texas Capital Bank's student page describes summer internships for rising seniors: each intern gets a mentor for daily projects and works on a charitable project with a nonprofit partner. The bank says top performers are eligible for full-time jobs after graduation. Texas Capital also runs a separate early careers program that combines classroom sessions with on-the-job training and places graduates into analyst roles within the bank.

If investment banking is the goal, a commercial banking internship is still useful. Credit analysis and financial statement work carry over, and some banks run both businesses under one roof. Be clear in interviews about why you want to move from lending to deals. To find these roles, check each bank's careers page directly, your school's career portal, and LinkedIn job search filtered by city.

Can you get into investment banking through an apprenticeship or after 25

In the US, investment banks hire junior analysts almost entirely through summer analyst internships and full-time analyst programs for college students, not through apprenticeships. Some banks outside the US run school-leaver or apprenticeship schemes, so check the careers page for the bank and country you are targeting.

Age 25 is not too old for investment banking. People in their mid-twenties usually come in as associates after an MBA, or as lateral analysts hired from a Big 4 firm, a smaller bank or a corporate finance role. Those routes depend on networking even more than the undergraduate route, because there is no campus program pulling you in. The details are in how to work with an investment banking recruiter, and turning a good conversation into an interview is covered in from networking call to interview.