You Got an IB Offer — Now What? How to Prepare for Day 1

The Opportunity Most People Waste

You have your offer. The pressure is off. Most candidates spend the gap months (often 6-12 months between offer and start) relaxing, travelling, and doing nothing finance-related. That is understandable — but it is a missed opportunity.

The analysts who hit the ground running on day one are the ones who used this gap to build real skills. You do not need to spend every day studying. But investing 2-3 hours per week into targeted preparation will put you months ahead of your class.

What to Study

Financial Modelling (Priority 1)

You learned enough to pass the interview. Now learn enough to be useful on a live deal. Build a full 3-statement model from scratch. Build a DCF. Build an LBO. Do it without a guide — the struggle is where the learning happens. When you start, your VP will ask you to build a model. If you can produce a clean first draft without hand-holding, you will earn trust immediately.

Accounting (Priority 2)

Go deeper than interview-level accounting. Understand how deferred revenue works for SaaS companies. Understand lease accounting under IFRS 16. Understand how goodwill impairment flows through the statements. These are the real-world issues you will encounter on deals — not just the textbook scenarios.

Industry Knowledge (Priority 3)

If you know which group you are joining (TMT, healthcare, consumer, FIG), start reading about your sector. Follow the key players, understand the value drivers, learn the sector-specific multiples. An analyst who arrives knowing that SaaS companies trade on EV/Revenue while industrials trade on EV/EBITDA has a real advantage.

What to Read

• Financial Times — Lex column: Short, sharp financial commentary. Reading it daily builds commercial awareness faster than anything else.
• Deal announcements: Follow M&A activity in your future group's sector. When a deal is announced, try to understand the rationale, the multiple, and whether you think it makes sense.
• Bank research reports: If you can access them (some are publicly available during IPOs), read how analysts structure their arguments. This is the calibre of writing you will be expected to produce.

What to Do (Beyond Studying)

Get comfortable with Excel shortcuts: Alt-E-S-V (paste values), Ctrl-Shift-L (filters), F4 (toggle absolute references), Alt-= (autosum). Speed in Excel is the single biggest quality-of-life improvement for a first-year analyst. Practise until shortcuts are muscle memory.

Build your professional wardrobe: Two dark suits, 5-6 shirts, 2-3 ties, polished shoes. This sounds trivial — it is not. Looking professional on day one sets the right tone.

Rest properly: The job is a marathon. If you arrive already exhausted from months of partying, the first deal week will crush you. Get into a healthy routine before you start.

What to Know About Your First Months

A few insider realities that will help you navigate the early days:

Your first midyear review will likely be pointless. Unless you have done something really bad, it will be generic. People's memories are shorter than you think — a strong three months going into the year-end review can make up for earlier mediocre performance. Bankers love to see someone who has "stepped it up." Focus your energy on peaking at the right time.

Print everything before presenting it. Errors stick out on paper far more than on screen. Set the tone early that you are not a person who makes formatting or spelling errors. In a job where clients pay millions for advice, a misplaced decimal destroys trust faster than any technical mistake.

Memorise key deal details cold. Coupon dates, maturities of debt tranches, capital structure, historical revenue, EBITDA, and capex — know them off the top of your head. When a senior banker asks you a number and you can answer without opening a file, that is how trust is built.

Manage your time strategically. If a task takes 45 minutes, say it will take 1.5 hours. Deliver after 1 hour 15 minutes — you under-promised and over-delivered while buying yourself a break. Send deliverables around 1am knowing your associate will not review that night, giving you 7-8 hours of sleep without worrying about comments coming back. These small tactics compound into a sustainable routine.

Understand the "pick two" system. Banking allows you to manage one other thing in your life — a relationship, working out, a hobby — with decent consistency. Not two other things. Decide what that one thing is before you start, and protect it.

Live on your base salary. Bank your bonus for the first 3-5 years. Money equals freedom in finance — do not build a lifestyle that locks you into a job you do not love.

Take Your Preparation Further

Start tracking deals and markets weekly with our free Market Briefing Template. For all four model templates (DCF, LBO, 3-statement, merger), get the Complete Modelling Toolkit and start building from scratch.

Ready for personalised feedback? Book a 1-on-1 mentoring session with an experienced IB/PE professional.