Get hired in high finance. Prove it with work.

What you will be able to do

Map IB, Equity Research, PE and VC career paths; sharpen the CV and LinkedIn; define a target-role and target-firm strategy.

Learning objectives

• Explain what each high-finance role actually does day to day, and what evidence each hiring stage rewards.
• Score and tier a personal target-firm universe.
• Convert raw experience into a quantified master evidence bank and tailored CVs.
• Position LinkedIn and Naukri so recruiters searching the role actually find the profile.

What is covered

• Career path mapping: what teams actually do across IB (M&A, ECM/DCM, sector coverage), ER (sell-side and buy-side), PE, VC and corporate finance (FP&A, corp dev, treasury, startup finance); the hiring funnel at each level and the evidence expected at each stage (CV screen, tests, technical rounds, HR); entry routes (campus, off-campus, lateral, post-MBA, CA/articleship); salary bands, geography and career velocity; fit vs aspiration.
• Target strategy: choosing primary and adjacent tracks; the 3-tier target role map (reach, realistic, safety); building the target-firm universe; scoring and prioritisation (fit, probability, brand value, learning); reading hiring signals (new funds, growth, organisational changes).
• CV rebuild: the master evidence bank (every achievement with scope and numbers); bullet construction (action, context, quantified result); ordering by relevance per track; ATS hygiene (single column, standard headings, keywords, no graphics); role-specific variants; common failure modes (duties not outcomes, unquantified claims, keyword gaps).
• LinkedIn and Naukri positioning: headline, About, experience and skills; recruiter keyword strategy and searchability settings; consistency with the CV; Naukri-specific fields (profile summary, key skills, CTC and notice fields).

Drills and exercises

• Role-map drill: decode two real job descriptions into the evidence each demands.
• Evidence bank drill: extract and quantify every achievement from your own history.
• Bullet rewrite drill: convert 10 weak bullets into outcome-quantified bullets.
• Profile rewrite against the recruiter keyword checklist.

What you will be able to do

Turn the target list into conversations, and prepare for the HR and behavioural side of the interviews those conversations generate.

Learning objectives

• Build and run a tracked, multi-channel outreach system.
• Convert conversations into referrals and applications.
• Prepare company-specific HR answers from a structured research framework.
• Deliver behavioural answers from a personal story bank under mock conditions.

What is covered

• Cold outreach: email anatomy (subject line, hook, credibility line, specific ask); LinkedIn note constraints; alumni mapping; AI-assisted personalisation (introduced here; deep workflows in Week 10).
• Networking: coffee-chat strategy (the ask, the agenda, the follow-up); event strategy; converting conversations into referrals; community presence.
• Applications and follow-ups: portal vs referral economics; application tracking; follow-up cadence (day 3, 7, 14), bump and break-up messages; CRM discipline (stages, next actions, dates).
• HR and company-specific preparation: the company research framework (business model, headline financials, culture signals, recent deals and news, the interview process itself); constructing why-this-firm and why-this-role; compensation, location and logistics answers.
• Behavioural interview preparation: the 8-10 story bank across leadership, achievement, failure, conflict and teamwork; answer structure (situation, action, result, learning); the tell-me-about-yourself and why-finance spine; delivery (timing, pace, concision); mock scoring.

Drills and exercises

• Write three complete outreach sequences (alumni, hiring manager, recruiter) and load them into the tracker.
• Record two behavioural mocks and score them against the rubric.
• Build one company-specific prep document on a real target firm.

What you will be able to do

Answer the technical questions interviewers actually ask, standing on real accounting fundamentals and the logic of finance.

Learning objectives

• Explain how the three statements link, line by line, without notes.
• Handle the standard accounting technical questions with structured, confident answers.
• Read a real annual report and compute the core ratio families.
• Give interview-level valuation answers; full model construction follows in Weeks 4-6.

What is covered

• The logic of finance: how businesses create and measure value; cash vs accrual; why the three statements exist and what each one answers.
• The three statements and how they link: income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement line by line; net income to retained earnings; depreciation across all three; working capital changes; capex; debt and interest (concepts here; built as full schedules in Week 4).
• The accounting technicals interviews probe: the depreciation walk; working capital up/down effects on cash; goodwill and intangibles; deferred revenue; EBITDA - what it means and how it is misused; inventory methods and basic provisioning.
• Financial statement analysis: profitability, liquidity, leverage and efficiency ratio families with formulas and interpretation; reading a real annual report (MD&A, notes, auditor's report).
• Valuation at interview level (intro only): the walk-me-through-a-DCF answer; the comps answer; enterprise vs equity value in one minute. Full construction follows in Weeks 4-6.
• Technical interview preparation: the question taxonomy (accounting, valuation, markets); answer frameworks and question decoding; structured mocks with scorecards; gap remediation.

Drills and exercises

• Statement-linking drill: trace ten transactions across all three statements.
• The depreciation walk, cold, in under two minutes.
• Ratio clinic: compute and interpret the four ratio families on one real company.
• Question log: every missed technical question, categorised, with the corrected answer.

What you will be able to do

Do the basics of finance practically in Excel: financial statement analysis and linkages, forecasting, and project finance evaluation.

Learning objectives

• Work at analyst speed and hygiene in Excel.
• Build a linked three-statement model with its supporting schedules from an annual report.
• Forecast drivers, not lines.
• Evaluate a project with NPV, IRR and payback, knowing each metric's failure modes.

What is covered

• Excel as the analyst's instrument: navigation and shortcuts; core formula families (lookups, INDEX-MATCH, SUMIFS, IF logic, date math); data handling and cleaning; formatting discipline and model hygiene (inputs vs calculations, colour coding, checks and balances, one-directional flow).
• Financial statement analysis in Excel (application of Week 3): building historicals from an annual report; common-size statements; ratio analysis in-sheet; reading trends.
• The core supporting schedules: working capital (receivable, inventory and payable days); PP&E and depreciation (capex, straight-line, net block roll-forward); debt and interest (drawdown, rate, interest, scheduled repayment); taxes (effective rate, current vs deferred basics).
• Statement linkages in practice: assembling the schedules into a linked three-statement skeleton built from scratch, with a balancing check.
• Forecasting: driver-based revenue build; cost ratios; working capital days; scenario toggles and sanity checks.
• Project finance fundamentals: the time value of money; NPV; IRR and its failure modes (multiple IRRs, the reinvestment assumption, the scale problem); payback; a complete project evaluation model with sensitivity.

Drills and exercises

• Timed formula and navigation drills to analyst speed benchmarks.
• Build the four supporting schedules and link them into a balancing three-statement skeleton.
• Project evaluation: NPV, IRR and payback with a two-way sensitivity.

What you will be able to do

Build the core valuation toolkit: DCF, trading comparables, transaction comparables, SOTP, and the right multiples for each industry.

Learning objectives

• Build a complete DCF from drivers to per-share value, matching cash flows to discount rates.
• Build trading and transaction comps with clean peer selection and normalisation.
• Reconcile the methods into a football-field view and defend the answer.

What is covered

• Valuation foundations: intrinsic vs relative value; the enterprise value to equity value bridge (net debt, minority interest, associates, leases, preference capital); calendarisation.
• DCF (full build; the interview-level overview was Week 3): FCFF vs FCFE and discount-rate matching (WACC for FCFF, cost of equity for FCFE); the WACC build component by component (risk-free rate, beta relevering, equity risk premium; after-tax cost of debt; target capital structure weights); FCFF construction from EBIT; terminal value (Gordon growth vs exit multiple, with convergence and sanity checks); sensitivity tables (WACC x terminal growth); common errors (flow-rate mismatch, double counting, terminal value dominance).
• Trading comparables: peer selection criteria; the multiples taxonomy (EV/EBITDA, EV/Revenue, P/E, P/BV, EV/EBITDAR and industry-specific variants); which multiple when and why; normalisation of one-offs; building the comps sheet.
• Transaction comparables: deal selection; control premium and synergies; when M&A comps answer a different question than trading comps.
• SOTP: when sum-of-the-parts applies; segment multiples and consolidation.
• Valuation by industry: financials (P/BV, dividend models), tech (revenue and ARR multiples), real assets (cap rates and NAV), cyclicals (mid-cycle earnings).

Drills and exercises

• Full DCF on one real company: WACC build, terminal value both ways, WACC x growth sensitivity.
• Comps sheet on 6-8 peers with documented normalisation decisions.
• Football-field summary reconciling DCF, trading comps and transaction comps.

What you will be able to do

Double down on the existing techniques and compare models across industries and company stages.

Learning objectives

• Rebuild the core model set at speed, without errors.
• Adapt model architecture, drivers and multiples to industry and stage.
• Run a professional self-review and peer review on any model.

What is covered

• Consolidation under time pressure (reinforcement of Weeks 4-5): timed rebuilds of the core model set.
• Models across industries: SaaS (ARR, churn, CAC/LTV), banking and financials (interest income, NIM, the loan book), manufacturing (capacity utilisation and capex cycles), consumer (volume-price mix); how architecture, drivers and the right multiples change in each.
• Models across stages: early-stage (burn and runway), growth (unit economics and scale), mature (margin structure and capital returns), special situations (liquidity and distress basics).
• Model review discipline: common failure modes (circular references, hardcodes buried in formulas, broken balance checks, plugs and error traps); the self-review checklist; the peer review method; version control and audit trail.

Drills and exercises

• Timed rebuild of the core model on a contrasting-industry case.
• Error-hunt drill: find the planted errors in a flawed model, using the checklist.

What you will be able to do

Evaluate a deal the way a PE fund does, from screening to carry.

Learning objectives

• Screen and diligence a deal against fund criteria.
• Build a complete LBO model: sources and uses, operating forecast, debt paydown, exit and returns.
• Decompose returns into their drivers and evaluate an exit.
• Step through a fund's carry waterfall.

What is covered

• How PE funds work: LP/GP structure, the fund lifecycle and the J-curve; deal sourcing channels.
• Deal screening: investment criteria; the screening memo; quick-kill analysis.
• Due diligence: commercial, financial (including quality-of-earnings basics) and legal DD; management assessment; red flags.
• LBO returns (full build): the sources-and-uses table; entry assumptions (entry multiple, leverage and debt structure); the operating forecast; debt paydown and the cash sweep mechanism; exit assumptions (exit year and multiple); IRR and MOIC with sensitivities (entry x exit x leverage); the entry-to-exit equity bridge (EBITDA growth, deleveraging and multiple change into equity value).
• Value creation: the 100-day plan; operational levers; add-on and buy-and-build strategy.
• Exit strategy: exit routes (strategic sale, secondary, IPO); timing and exit multiples.
• Carry distribution and fund economics: management fees; the waterfall step-through (return of capital, preferred return, catch-up, carried split); net vs gross returns.

Drills and exercises

• LBO build on the case: sources and uses through exit returns, with a sensitivity grid.
• Equity bridge: decompose the case's money multiple into growth, deleveraging and multiple change.
• One-page IC memo with a clear recommend or decline.

What you will be able to do

Analyse a startup the way a VC does: sourcing, founder assessment, market sizing, business model and traction.

Learning objectives

• Screen startups against stage and fund criteria.
• Assess founders and markets with structured frameworks.
• Size a market top-down and bottom-up, and defend the number.

What is covered

• How VC funds work: fund structure and lifecycle; stages from pre-seed to growth; the power law and ownership targets; how VCs actually make money.
• Startup sourcing and screening: sourcing channels; screening criteria by stage; the first-pass filter.
• Founder and team assessment: founder-market fit; team completeness; red flags.
• Market sizing: TAM/SAM/SOM, top-down and bottom-up, reconciled; market mapping; timing - why now.
• Business model and traction: revenue models; traction signals (growth, retention, engagement); evidence of product-market fit.

Drills and exercises

• Market map and TAM/SAM/SOM for one chosen startup, both directions reconciled.
• Structured startup analysis on the case pack.

What you will be able to do

Turn startup analysis into an investment decision: unit economics, valuation, terms and the recommendation.

Learning objectives

• Compute and interpret unit economics and cohort behaviour.
• Build a cap table across rounds with option pools, convertibles and dilution.
• Read a term sheet's economics and control terms.
• Write an IC-grade investment memo with a clear recommendation.

What is covered

• Unit economics and cohort definitions: CAC (blended vs paid), LTV on contribution margin, CAC payback; cohort retention and revenue curves; burn, burn multiple and runway.
• Competitive position: moats and defensibility; competitive mapping.
• Startup valuation: the VC method (terminal value, target return, dilution), comparables and scorecard approaches; pre and post money; dilution math across rounds; the option pool shuffle (pre-money pool top-ups); convertibles and SAFEs (caps, discounts, conversion mechanics).
• Deal terms: term sheet anatomy - liquidation preference (participating vs non-participating), anti-dilution (broad vs narrow), board seats, protective provisions, ESOP, pro-rata rights; negotiation dynamics.
• The investment decision: thesis construction; risks and mitigations; the investment memo; the invest, pass or conditional recommendation.

Drills and exercises

• Cap-table build across two rounds, including a pool top-up and a converting SAFE.
• Full investment memo on the case startup, with a clear recommendation.

What you will be able to do

Put AI to work on real finance workflows, with judgement about where it helps and where it fails.

Learning objectives

• Run AI-assisted research, modelling support and deliverable drafting with verification discipline.
• Apply the workflows to the artifacts built in Weeks 4-9, and to scoping the capstone track.

What is covered

• AI-assisted research: company and sector research, market mapping and startup sourcing; source checks and hallucination control.
• AI in modelling support: formula generation, error checking and scenario narration - with human validation as the rule.
• AI for deliverables: memo and deck drafting; data extraction from filings and transcripts.
• AI in the live job search: outreach personalisation and interview drills (extends Week 2).
• Prompt patterns and quality control: prompt design; output verification; where AI fails in finance (numbers, citations); confidentiality limits.

Drills and exercises

• Build one AI-assisted workflow end to end (research to draft memo) with documented verification steps.
• Use the workflows to shortlist capstone options from the models and memos built in Weeks 4-9.

What you will be able to do

Complete one portfolio-grade proof-of-work artifact to a reviewable standard.

Learning objectives

• Define and scope a track-specific capstone out of prior weekly work.
• Package analysis to professional deck and memo standards.
• Complete the build through the research, model, draft, review and defence stages.

What is covered

• Project selection and definition: choose the track (IB, ER, PE or VC) using the Week 10 scoping; select the company, startup or transaction; define the question, thesis, methodology and deliverables.
• Track deliverables: IB - three-statement model, DCF/comps and transaction pitch deck. ER - initiation report, forecast and valuation model, investment recommendation. PE - LBO model, due diligence summary, investment committee memo. VC - startup analysis, market sizing, unit economics, valuation and investment memo.
• Packaging standards (taught at the kickoff clinic, because every track deliverable is judged as a document): layout and exhibit standards, action titles, chart selection, sourcing and numbers discipline in PowerPoint.
• The build stages: research, model, draft, review, defence.

Drills and exercises

• Rebuild one exhibit to the deck standard before the main build.
• Hit the milestone plan: research sign-off, model sign-off, full draft.

What you will be able to do

Present your proof of work live and defend it under questioning.

Learning objectives

• Present analysis concisely and defend assumptions under challenge.
• Close the camp with a portfolio-ready artifact and a 90-day search plan.

What is covered

• Polish and rehearsal: presentation structure; defending assumptions; handling investment-focused questions.
• Demo Day: live presentation of the capstone; questioning and feedback; finalising the portfolio-ready work sample.
• The close: next steps for the live search; the 90-day plan.

Drills and exercises

• Two full rehearsals, with a question fire-drill against the artifact's weakest assumptions.