A career in investment banking is lucrative, rewarding, and exciting. At the same time, it is also a high pressured and demanding job. In general, investment bankers facilitate transactions between the firms while conducting merger and acquisition; or between the market and the firm during IPOs or within the firm for establishing business plans. These varied roles call for tangible and intangible skills. A mere academic degree may not suffice to stay and step up in the career in the long run.

So, what are the skills employers expect from an investment banker? We have compiled together a list of top skills that an investment banking job will need. Take a look, it may help newbies and young professionals to acquire the skills.

Top skills you need for an investment banking job

Today, the competition is high and new opportunities and demand for new skills come from all directions. Investment bankers need to be nimble thinkers to survive in their existing job and scale up their career further. Junior employees are capable of owning projects too. Here is a list of few must-have skills for investment bankers to excel in their job.

Analytical skills

The ability to solve a complex task with multiple moving pieces is essential as new information or concept keeps coming up every day. Book smartness or academic grade may not help to a greater extent in this scenario. It is necessary to develop number crunching and quantitative abilities to present detailed analyses of business ventures, investment plans, and risk-return tradeoffs.

So, it is essential to develop analytical skills, use advanced and new analytical tools so that you can back it up with facts and figures for any of your presentations, absorb new data, or manage a project.

Resilience

This is one of the much-expected skills owing to the recent pandemic situation. Generally, financial institutions have a highly pressured work environment. Impending deadlines and working under pressure is a general norm of the industry. Given the pandemic situation, remote work, speeding up the recovery period through new strategies are much needed.

So, it is essential to scale up your skills. Barclay’s management and leadership competency includes working under high pressure. Likewise, M&G investments’ competencies include resilience under intense pressure. You may be asked in an interview to explain any situation or timeframe where you showed resilience. You can see a setback as a challenge and explain how you overcame it or will overcome it if a scenario is given.

Global outlook

As remote work is becoming the norm of the day, several companies look for graduates who can operate in an international context. They also look for investment banking professionals who are fluent in more than one language. Barclays’ competencies include candidates’ willingness to work abroad and language skills. Likewise, several companies look for multi-talent in an individual while conducting interviews.

So, it is essential to possess strong linguistic skills, knowledge of associated culture, and seek international experience. A global outlook is necessary to understand the international clients, their market, socioeconomic trend, culture, and demands.

Innovation

Though you are an employee, entrepreneurial skills are vital. You must be able to produce new ideas, approaches, and spot areas for improvement. Many interviewers ask to give an example when you were innovative. Given the pandemic situation, innovation is a must now, as investment banks make deals virtually. Investment banks are looking for more ways to close deals successfully.

So, it is essential to be innovative in your ventures apart from teamwork and professionalism.

To conclude…

Investment banks look for candidates who are loyal, authoritative, diplomatic, creative, and possess high ethical standards. Apart from the usual interpersonal skills like communication, leadership, networking, and management, the aforementioned skills are gaining traction owing to the pandemic situation and digital trends.

Develop these skills to ace your next investment banking job interview.