"The Pulse" --#64 (FIRST SA 2026 APP) / Turnover in Finance

SA 2026 interview szn is fast approaching! Don’t fall behind your competition by wasting time tracking applications.

Instead, use our Premium Database to gain access to 200+ banks/consulting/buyside firms. Venmo @ThePulsePrep $50 or pay with credit card (ThePulsePrep—Stripe.com) and shoot us an e-mail @[email protected]. Additional details of the database can be found below. Gain an edge over everyone by accessing a wealth of recruiting resources and detailed explanations of the interview processes of each firm.

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Looking for interview prep or a coach to help you navigate the process? Check the “Going Forward” section below for more details.

Last year, 85% of students coached received offers.

Recruiting Timeline:

Banking:

Where We’re At:

• SA 2026: Holy shit, Houlihan Lokey just scheduled the release of its SA 2026 app. The first firm to get the ball rolling here. The app will open on October 15, 2024 with a prompt close on November 7th, 2024. This kicks off the beginning of our SA 2026 tracker

• SA 2025: Fireclay Partners opened its application bringing the total bank number up to 120 for the SA 2025 season. As previously mentioned, we will stop tracking this process within a month as we gear up for the SA 2026 season!

• FT 2025: Piper Sandler, Shea & Company, and Westbury Group opened their FT apps this week. There are currently 33 firms actively recruiting for FT 2025. Please reach out if you are looking for coaching!

New SA 2026 Applications:

• Houlihan Lokey: elite boutique—strong Rx group (SA 2026)

New SA 2025 Applications:

• Fireclay Partners: small boutique (SA 2025)

New FT 2025 Applications:

• Piper Sandler: Solid boutique—DI group (FT 2025)

• Shea & Company: Boston boutique—software focus (FT 2025)

• Westbury Group: boutique (FT 2025)

See below to gain access to our premium database, updated weekly, which houses the application processes for over 200+ banks/consulting/buyside firms! Gain an edge over everyone else by not having to spend countless hours tracking applications and deadlines.

Consulting:

Where We’re At:

• SA 2025: 24 SA 2025 applications have been released so far and 20 FT 2025 applications have been released.

SA 2025 released apps:

• Bain: Associate Consultant Intern (Second Deadline - SA 2025)

• HKA: Business Consulting Intern (SA 2025)

• NERA: Summer Research Associate (SA 2025)

• Tuscany Strategy Consulting: Summer Analyst (SA 2025)

• Teneo: Summer Consultant Intern (SA 2025)

FT 2025 released apps:

• Bain: Associate Consultant (Second Deadline - FT 2025)

• Hayden Consulting Group: Associate Consultant (FT 2025)

• Teneo: Consultant (FT 2025)

• Analysis Group: Analyst (FT 2025)

• Tuscany Strategy Consulting: Analyst (FT 2025)

• The Brattle Group: Research Analyst (FT 2025)

• Nera: Research Associate (FT 2025)

• HKA: Consultant (FT 2025)

Apply ASAP if you’re interested!

Buyside:

Where We’re At:

• SA 2025: Global Endowment Management, Aldrich Partners, and MFS opened their SA 2025 apps this week alongside a few others. So far ~125 buyside shops have opened applications.

SA 2025 released apps:

• Global Endowment Management: Investment intern (SA 2025)

• Aldrich Partners: PE (SA 2025)

• MFS: Quant research intern (SA 2025)

• Principal Financial: CRE investments (SA 2025)

The database is updated weekly and contains 200+ Investment Banking and Consulting internships/full-time positions along with:

• Interview tips for specific companies

• Interview prep material

• Applications and deadlines linked so that you can apply with one click

• Insider information about the application process

• Professionals to network with

• Buyside deadlines, interview prep, and people to network with for the sweatiest of students

We send the updated dataset every week with the latest banking and consulting job postings. We released our 64th update today.

Students we have been helping have already landed roles at Blackstone, Goldman, J.P. Morgan, Jefferies, Citi, and Solomon.

To get access to the database and the weekly updates, you pay a one-time fee of $50 (Venmo: ThePulsePrep / Credit Card: (ThePulsePrep—Stripe.com)) that grants you annual access to the updated database (You can enable purchase protection if concerned). If you don’t find our services helpful, we simply ask for feedback on an area we can improve upon and will refund your $50.

This is a small investment for a huge payout when you secure your dream offer!

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Market Update:

Turnover in Finance

Background:

Employee turnover in finance is insane. People hop around from bank to bank or fund to fund all the time to chase a mix of better compensation, WLB, prestige, etc.

In this industry, everyone believes there are greener pastures. Within IB, it is widely known that the “golden path” is 2 years BB or EB IB analyst, 2 years Mega-fund PE associate, 2 years T7 MBA, and then back into either PE or HF as a VP / Principal.

As you can see, that path requires a ton of jumping around. A consequence of mobility is having to adapt to new team cultures and learn new industries / products.

These changes don’t happen overnight. Even the brightest people can take years to get “caught up to speed.” At that point, they’re probably thinking about their next move!

From a manager’s POV, mobility means having to teach people the same concepts / practices over and over and over again. This is partially why most banks have a 4-6 week analyst training program where analysts learn basic corporate finance and accounting from firms like Financial Edge and Wall Street Prep.

Every second spent teaching someone new is time not spent making money for the firm.

These considerations beg the question: would stronger employee retention lead to better firm performance? Or is everyone expendable?

Teaser: there is one firm that outshines all others

Data:

We looked at two separate groups: publicly listed elite boutiques and publicly listed alternative asset managers to assess management tenure vs. stock price.

The idea here is to evaluate whether tenure has an effect on deal-making efficiency (investment banking performance) or illiquid investment performance (alternative asset management).

Our tenure data isn’t perfect, the only reliable information can be found by looking at the tenures of those in executive suites and sitting on the boards of directors. Ideally, we’d dig into the efficiency of individual teams, but that data simply isn’t public.

Anyways….elite boutiques:

We looked at average management tenure and 5yr. stock price performance across PJT, EVR, and HL.

To find average management tenure, we dug into the backgrounds of all of the executive suites and boards of directors at the respective firms.

Wow, PJT is a bit of an outlier here.

The firm IPO’d in 2015 and has been a tremendous compounder despite the lighter management tenure. However, if you dig into the weeds you’ll notice that 75% of the executive suite used to work together at Morgan Stanley prior to starting PJT. Therefore, their efficiency should not be benchmarked to their PJT tenure alone.

Tbh, the most shocking information here is that the EBs are way outperforming market benchmarks like the S&P 500 (~95% return over the last 5 years).

Beyond management tenure, average tenure of all “lower-ranked” employees of MDs → analysts is likely much lower. So, in the world of investment banking does stronger tenure = greater firm performance? Not really.

This is the exact reason banks aren’t begging anyone to stay with crazy big junior salaries or bonuses. As long as the entire firm doesn’t leave at once, they’ll still be able to crank out deal fees. There are always hungrier, smarter people to replace the ones looking to leave. So, chase that bag.

Whether an analyst leaves or not, the bottom-line won’t flinch. Deals will get done because businesses need access to capital and to execute corporate strategy like M&A, not because some MD gives more instructive comments to his juniors.

Banking teams fight for deals, deals don’t fight for banking teams.

Now, onto asset managers. We’re going to focus on three of the largest and most successful asset managers: BlackRock, KKR, and Brookfield. They have fairly similar average tenures, but KKR leads the pack at 29 years.

*Note, these asset managers all focus on different strategies which makes the data difficult to compare*

In addition to having the longest tenure, KKR has far and away the best 5-year stock performance (386%)! Founded in 1976, KKR is credited with pioneering the LBO and is the most pure-play PE fund of the three (though they are diversifying their areas of business). A large portion of KKR’s returns have been generated in 2024 (the stock price has nearly doubled). Investors believe KKR will be a huge beneficiary of the likely upcoming rate cuts and are piling into the stock. When money gets cheaper this is great for PE funds like KKR!

It’s important to note that asset managers make money by having assets under management–which they can charge a small fee on–and generating returns on their investments. Thus, asset managers want to diversify their areas of business to maximize their assets under management and therefore the fees they generate.

Given that all three companies have 20-plus year executive tenures I don’t think we can attribute KKR’s outperformance to that factor alone. All three firms have impressive leadership that have been working together for quite literally decades. Given how coveted positions are at these firms, I am not surprised to see such long tenures. However, now that these firms are very established rising the ranks is incredibly difficult and will only be done by the top performers.

Conclusion:

High turnover is an embedded component of the financial industry. Just like many other companies, greater tenure does not always translate into greater business performance. What drives value is being able to adapt with the business environment.

Now, the one outlier here is Renaissance Technologies: the late Jim Simons’s firm. They boast on their website, RenTec, that the average tenure of all employees is 14 years!

I don’t know a single other company where the average tenure of all employees from managers → janitors is greater than 7-8 years.

Is it a coincidence that the Medallion Fund has printed annual returns of nearly 66% over 30 years?

Disclosure: Nothing written here is financial advice or should be used for investment decisions.

How to Master Technicals

“With an all cash purchase price of 8x LTM EBITDA, LTM EBITDA of $100, annual EBITDA growth of 10%, a dividend recap of $200 in Year 3, and an exit multiple of 8x LTM in Year 5—what is the IRR?”

^can you answer that question? Many FT IB analysts can’t.

But this is the kind of shit we have heard pop up in banking interviews across the street. Remember, you need to answer every single technical question correctly to even have a shot at receiving an offer.

To answer this type of question, you need a true fundamental understanding of finance technicals. So, how can you prep?

Our core advice is to buy ‘Investment Banking’ by Rosenbaum and Pearl: R&B. Read this front to back and you’ll be in better technical shape than 90% of your peers.

I wish I could say we are endorsed by these guys, but we aren’t lol 

Subsequently:

1. Know the technical categories: accounting, market trends. valuation, and merger math

2. Start with accounting, the building blocks of any role in finance. Your options to learn: pay attention in your introductory accounting classes, YouTube videos, and online guides (purchasing a course really isn’t necessary here if you’re savvy enough)

3. For market trends, subscribe to newsletters like: Exec Sum, The Wall Street Rollup (beehiiv.com)—-our personal favorite!, and Home | Short Squeez for banker-focused breakdowns of market trends. Pay attention to the ‘deals’ sections of these newsletters

4. Valuation can be learned through R&B or Street Of Walls (can also avoid paying for a course here)

5. Merger math. The hardest technicals because you need to blend accounting, valuation, and deeper strategic thinking. R&B is really the best way to understand these answers. Tangentially, cross-reference questions asked on the ‘400 question guide’: M&I 400 Question Guide with explanations for answers found elsewhere online (merger math questions are usually only 10-30% of any interview)

6. Practice! Quiz yourself as you walk to class, question everything you discuss in finance-related classes, and seek practice questions from others—-check out details for our coaching practice in the ‘Going Forward’ section

“Yo, the ‘400 question guide’ looks good enough, why don’t I just study that?“

There are thousands of technical questions that can be asked.

The best way to prepare for all of them is to actually understand the material. The ‘400 question guide’ is fantastic to reference when in a pinch or to quiz yourself, but shouldn’t be the only crutch you lean on.

Going Forward:

If you run a club, we want to connect with you to partner. Please give us an email @[email protected], would love to make your club the most prepared on campus.

Coaching Details:

• 1 hour session = $50. (Venmo @ThePulsePrep or Credit Card: ThePulsePrep—Stripe.com

• 30-minute session = $30. Venmo @ThePulsePrep or Credit Card: ThePulsePrep—Stripe.com

• Email us with your availability and we will be happy to schedule a session @[email protected] 

Students we coached for SA 2025 have received offers at Goldman, JP Morgan, Evercore, and many other firms. Roughly 85% of those coached received offers last year!

Please reach out to us with any questions about recruiting or if you’re interested in meeting the team! ([email protected])

We are happy to chat, review resumes, or help set up a coaching session

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“The Pulse” #64