FT 2027 Premium Database SALE
FT 2027 kicked off for banking and buyside programs and is expected to ramp up in June. For 1 week only, we are running a 25% sale on our Premium Database so that you never need to worry about tracking apps or finding folks to network with.
Join thousands of other students who leverage the Premium Database to lock in on interview prep and secure interviews faster.
Our Premium Database covers 500+ firms across banking, buyside, and consulting so that you never miss an app. Premium Database Access
Recruiting Timeline:
Banking:
Where We’re At:
SA 2027: No new apps opened this week. 100 banks are actively recruiting for SA 2027. This process is 95% complete.
FT 2027: No new updates this week. 2 banks are actively recruiting for FT 2027.
If you need some interview support or just need a place to vent, check out our Coaching Program: Investment Banking Interview Coaching | The Pulse. 95%+ of those coached for the summer 2026 recruiting season received offers!
New SA 2027 Applications:
None
New FT 2027 Applications:
None
See below to gain access to our premium database, updated weekly, which houses the application processes for over 300+ 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:
Still quiet since MBB released their applications. Things will really pick up in the next month or so. Use this time to network and case prep if you didn’t land at MBB.
SA 2027 released apps:
None
FT 2027 released apps:
None
Buyside:
Where We’re At:
SA 2027: Capula, Bay Point, Stepstone, and more opened their apps this week. There are currently 90 buyside firms actively recruiting for SA 2027.
FT 2027: Cove Hill Partners opened its app this week. There are currently 8 buyside firms actively recruiting for FT 2027.
Buyside Associate Recruiting: Ares, ICONIQ, Cliffwater and more are actively recruiting for summer 2027 associates. This is a section dedicated towards providing updates for our post-grad Buyside Associate Recruiting platform: Buyside Recruiting & Interview Prep Platform | The Pulse.
If you’re a senior or first-year analyst looking to get the fuck out of banking—-you need to be on this platform. Live job updates and 14+ LBO modeling case studies with answers
New SA 2027 released apps:
Capula Investment Management: Quant HF (SA 2027)
Bay Point Advisors: PC (SA 2027)
Stepstone: PE (SA 2027)
Long Ridge Equity Partners: Growth Equity (SA 2027)
New FT 2027 released apps:
Cove Hill Partners: PE (FT 2027)
New Buyside Associate released apps:
Ares: PC (summer 2027 start)
ICONIQ: PE (summer 2027 start)
Cliffwater: PC (summer 2027 start)
Premium Database:
The database is updated weekly and contains 300+ 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 154th 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 make a one-time investment of $65 Credit Card / Debit Card: (ThePulsePrep—Stripe.com) that grants you annual access to the updated database (please reach out for additional payment options). If you don’t find our services helpful, we simply ask for feedback on an area we can improve upon and will refund your $65.
This is a small investment for a huge payout when you secure your dream offer!
Premium Database——>Database for investment banking, consulting and buyside roles | The Pulse
Market Update:
The K-Shaped M&A Market
Q1 2026 was the biggest quarter for global M&A in history, with $1.6 trillion in deal value and a 50.6% year-over-year increase. Bankers are eating well and your LinkedIn feed is unbearable, but the boom is more concentrated than the headline suggests, and most of the market isn't actually participating in it.
Source: Pitchbook
Analysts have started calling this a "K-shaped" market, which is a fancy way of saying some people are winning and a lot of people are not.
The Q1 numbers make it hard to argue otherwise. S&P Global counted only 7,924 announced deals in Q1, a 30% drop from last year, even as headline value hit its strongest start since 2021. Other research desks have global volume down 5.3% YoY.
Fewer deals are getting done, but the ones that do are dramatically bigger, which means the middle of the market is essentially frozen while the top end is more active than it's been in years.
A single transaction did a huge amount of the lifting. SpaceX's $250 billion related-party acquisition of xAI, which is worth flagging because both companies are Elon's, accounted for roughly 30% of Q1 deal value by itself.
Strip that one deal out and IT M&A actually fell 52.5% quarter-over-quarter, which tells you a lot about how much of the "record quarter" narrative depends on a handful of outlier transactions rather than broad-based dealmaking activity.
Source: PwC
The sector split tells the same story. Energy led the quarter at +59.8% QoQ, which makes sense given the data center electricity buildout we've been talking about for over a year. AI needs power, power needs capital, and dealmakers are following the cash flows. B2C followed at +38.6%, while healthcare, financials, and materials all lagged.
Cross-border activity hit a record $454.7 billion in Q1, up 47% YoY according to LSEG, with European corporates buying into U.S. growth and U.S. acquirers rolling up global platforms in sectors where scale matters. CFIUS work has gone from a niche specialty to something every M&A banker is suddenly fluent in.
There are three takeaways worth sitting with.
First, private credit has effectively replaced banks as the financing engine for the largest deals. Apollo, Ares, Blackstone, and Blue Owl can underwrite a single check that used to require a full bank syndicate, and they can do it faster and with more flexibility, which is why so many of this quarter's mega-deals never went through traditional leveraged finance desks.
Second, mid-market PE is in a much worse spot than the aggregate numbers suggest. PE deal count fell to 614 in Q1 from 785 a year earlier, a 22% drop, and the only reason aggregate value rose 12.6% is that 22 PE deals topped $10 billion, the most ever in a single quarter. Six of the eight largest sponsors grew committed capital while roughly half of the next twenty shrank, which is a fairly stark divergence within the asset class itself.
Source: FTI Consulting
Third, AI is now the dominant M&A thesis across almost every sector, with deal count up 90% YoY and AI representing 89% of tech deal value in Q4 2025. Most of these pitches will not hold up under scrutiny, but the ones with real proprietary data, distribution, or compute moats are commanding premium multiples that don't really make sense in any other framework.
The broader point is that "M&A is back" is doing a lot of work as a headline. Mega-cap, AI-adjacent, cross-border, private-credit-financed transactions are absolutely back, and arguably more active than at any point in the last five years. The classic mid-market sponsor-to-sponsor process is still mostly stuck, waiting on rate clarity and a more functional exit environment.
It's the same market on paper but two different experiences depending on where you sit, and which side of the K you end up on is going to shape what banking, PE, and corp dev actually look like over the next eighteen months.
Learning Point of the Week:
How To Nail The Walk Me Through Your Resume
It's the first question in almost every interview, and most candidates treat it like a chronological recap. They start with high school, list every internship in order, and end with something about how all of that led them to want a career in investment banking.
It feels safe, but it tells the interviewer almost nothing about why you'd actually be good at the job, and it sounds exactly like the answer the previous five candidates gave.
The candidates who get offers tend to build a 90-second story with three points.
An early interest or experience that explains how they got pointed at finance in the first place. Two or three experiences along the way that show their conviction getting deeper and more specific. And a clear reason why this particular role is the logical next step rather than a generic one.
Each experience should connect to the next, not just sit beside it on a timeline.
The point isn't to summarize your resume because the interviewer already has it in front of them. The point is to make them feel like your path was actually deliberate and your interest in the role is real.
Practice it out loud until it sounds like something you'd say to a friend over coffee, not something you memorized. If a friend can't repeat the rough arc back to you after hearing it once, it probably isn't there yet.
Going Forward:
Hiring Interns Across Marketing, Tech, and Growth Roles!
We are actively hiring interns across marketing, tech, and growth roles. Our interns have gone on to work at firms such as Goldman Sachs, Guggenheim, Bank of America and more.
Fill out this form to apply: Intern App Form
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