Tej Shah is a junior at the University of Illinois who just wrapped up a sophomore summer private equity internship at Water Street Healthcare Partners in Chicago, and has an incoming analyst offer at JPMorgan's M&A group waiting for him next summer.

In this episode, Tej walks through how the IVC Scholar Program connected him to the buy side before he even started junior year recruiting, how both the Water Street internship and his Adventis certifications became instant icebreakers in every banking interview, and why sending 10–20 networking emails a day in October and November of sophomore fall was the key to his JPM offer landing in January.

We also dig into a networking mistake almost every recruiter makes on early calls and the "let the banker lead" mindset shift that fixes it.

Sign up for the Adventis Financial Modeling Certification (FMC) program at https://adventiscg.com

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Edited by Jamie Regan - ⁨@CreatedByRegan⁩

Hosted by Ben Dowell

Guest: Tej Shah

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CHAPTERS:

0:00 — Introduction & Tej's Background

0:54 — Growing Up in Chicagoland & Choosing U of I

2:09 — Saying Yes to Everything Freshman Year: Clubs, Fraternities & More

3:55 — The PE Internship: What Tej Did at Water Street Healthcare Partners

7:08 — The Six-Week Case Study: Modeling a Pharma Carve-Out from Start to Finish

8:36 — Sitting in on Live Deals: SIMs, SIPs & Monday Morning Meetings

9:35 — Key Learning: Understanding the Buy Side Before Going to the Sell Side

10:44 — The IVC Scholar Program: How It Works & What It Unlocks

13:17 — How Tej First Heard About the IVC Program as a Freshman

15:48 — Freshman Year Strategy: Spread Out First, Then Focus Sophomore Year

17:09 — How the IVC Application & Interview Process Works

18:32 — Coming Into Winter Break With a Lead: The Fourth Quarter Principle

19:34 — How Adventis & the Water Street Offer Showed Up in Every Banking Interview

20:37 — You Don't Need a PE Internship — Any Experience Builds the Lead

22:15 — Why Interviewers Love Having Something to Dig Into on Your Resume

22:36 — Water Street Required Adventis — Tej Had Already Finished It

24:15 — How Tej Described the Adventis 90-Minute Standard in Interviews

25:48 — Why the Time Pressure Simulates Real On-Desk Conditions

26:28 — How Many Reps It Took to Get Under 90 Minutes (~10)

27:23 — The JPM Recruiting Timeline: October Outreach to January Super Day

29:11 — Going Full Steam Ahead: The Sophomore Fall Commitment Decision

30:08 — Sending 10–20 Networking Emails a Day in October & November

31:07 — JPM Chicago Specifically: Why M&A at JPM Became Tej's Top Choice

33:25 — The Mistake Every Recruiter Makes on Early Networking Calls

35:23 — The Right Lesson: Let the Banker Lead the Conversation

37:12 — The Secret Ninja Move: Showing You Can Listen

38:35 — Making Mistakes Early So You Nail It When It Counts

39:02 — Tej's JPM Offer Timing & the Decision to Accept Early

40:27 — How Many Banks Would Tej Have Pursued Without the JPM Offer?

42:05 — Target 4–6 Banks, Build Real Momentum at Each

43:59 — Refreshing Relationships After the Holidays Before Interview Season

44:23 — Reframing Rejection: It's a Selection, Not a Dismissal

46:21 — Final Advice: Enjoy the Small Victories & Trust the Process

47:30 — Closing Remarks & Congrats to Tej

Mary Ellen Ryan is the Senior Associate Director of Undergraduate Career Development at Bentley University, where she has spent 12 years coaching finance students into investment banking, asset management, wealth management, and beyond, conducting roughly 500 one-on-one coaching sessions per year.
In this episode, Mary Ellen brings a perspective you rarely hear on this podcast: the view from inside the career center. She walks through how recruiting timelines have shifted dramatically over the past decade, what freshmen and sophomores should actually be doing at each stage, why technical expectations have risen well beyond memorizing the 400 questions, and how banking recruiting is fundamentally a risk management process from the employer's side.
We also dig into AI's role in finance recruiting, modeling, and the classroom.

n this episode of The Coffee Chat Podcast, Ben sits down with Jimmy Johnston, a rising junior at the University of Illinois who just secured a sophomore summer internship at Morningstar and a junior year investment banking internship at JPMorgan, both in Chicago.

In this episode, Jimmy walks through how a Prime M&A info night in his first month of college set him on the path to IB, how he became an Adventis Lead Trainer (completing the full model and valuation suite in under 60 minutes), and how that modeling depth helped his team be the only one to correctly call United Natural Foods overvalued in a live case competition.

We also get into his Chicago-focused recruiting strategy across 15 processes and 5 super days, why he recommends finding "battle buddies" for technical prep, and the lessons he learned from making mistakes during the recruiting process.

Sign up for the Adventis Financial Modeling Certification (FMC) program at https://adventiscg.com

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Edited by Jamie Regan - @CreatedByRegan

Hosted by Ben Dowell

Guest: Jimmy Johnston

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0:00 — Introduction & Jimmy's Background

0:52 — Why University of Illinois: Network, Culture & Chicago Roots

2:07 — Jimmy's Goal: Investment Banking in Chicago

4:21 — Prime M&A: The JV League That Got Jimmy Hooked on Banking

5:43 — The Case Competitions: Winnebago and Traeger Pitches

7:50 — Strategy: Why Committing to Chicago Early Was a Smart Move

9:21 — How Prime Led to the Investment Banking Academy

10:35 — Growing Up Wanting to Take the Train to Chicago

12:10 — The Double Win: Morningstar This Summer, JPMorgan Next Summer

14:29 — Why Credit Analysis at Morningstar Will Pay Off Later

15:39 — 15 Processes, 5 Super Days: What That Volume of Recruiting Looks Like

16:19 — In-Person Office Visits: Chicago & New York with the IB Academy

18:17 — Advice for Rising Freshmen: Don't Jump in the Deep End Immediately

19:06 — Testing Consulting, Law & Education Before Committing to Banking

21:04 — The Go/No-Go Decision Point: Summer Before Sophomore Year

23:29 — Technical Prep: Breaking Into Wall Street Guides & Note-Taking Old School

24:42 — Using AI to Understand Concepts You Can't Grasp from a Guide

25:35 — Don't Prep Alone: Finding Your Battle Buddies

26:25 — Mock Interviews: Technical AND Behavioral — Both Matter

27:08 — Brain Teasers: 10 Ways to Use a Pencil (Not Including Writing)

28:15 — Becoming an Adventis Lead Trainer: The Full Model in Under 60 Minutes

30:36 — How Modeling Mastery Gave Jimmy the Edge in the IB Academy Case Competition

33:26 — Calling United Natural Foods Overvalued — and Being Right

35:39 — Organization: The Skill Jimmy Wishes He'd Built Earlier

37:11 — Making Mistakes in Recruiting & What They Taught Him

38:57 — Why a Typo in a Networking Email Is the Same as a Typo to a Client

41:15 — Final Advice: Go Together, Stay Focused, Enjoy the Ride

43:21 — Closing Remarks & Congrats to Jimmy

In this episode of The Coffee Chat Podcast, Ben sits down with Darren Shum, a junior at Cornell's Hotel School who just accepted a summer investment banking internship at Wells Fargo and turned down an offer from Nomura to get there.

Darren explains how his unconventional major actually became a differentiator, particularly for real estate IB, and how Cornell's massive alumni network is both a huge asset and a serious challenge. He walks through the mid-August outreach strategy that earned him 20-30% response rates when everyone else was getting single digits, the four-touch follow-up system he used to build real relationships over time, and the Adventis shared experience that turned a Nomura Super Day into an offer.

We also get into the right and wrong ways to use AI in recruiting, including why you should never use AI as your current events answer.

Sign up for the Adventis Financial Modeling Certification (FMC) program at https://adventiscg.com

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Edited by Jamie Regan - @CreatedByRegan

Hosted by Ben Dowell

Guest: Darren Shum

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0:00 — Introduction & Darren's Background

0:52 — Why Cornell's Hotel School Is a Hidden Edge in Banking Recruiting

3:19 — Hotels, Real Estate & Why the Hotel School Feeds Directly into REIB

5:11 — Cornell Hotel Alumni in Banking: The Shared Experience Advantage

7:00 — The Restaurant Management Class: Running a Real Restaurant on Campus

9:48 — The Dark Side of a Target School: 400+ People Competing for the Same Roles

10:39 — What Happens When 500 Students Swarm One Banker at a Campus Event

11:56 — 1,000 Cornell Banking Alumni & Overflowing Inboxes

13:16 — When to Start Emailing: The Mid-August Sweet Spot

14:03 — Why Emailing Too Early Can Actually Hurt You

15:18 — Response Rates: 20-30% in August vs. Single Digits in December

16:55 — The Four-Touch Follow-Up System That Kept Connections Warm

18:49 — The Final Holiday Email: Turning a Relationship Into a Referral Call

19:56 — The Adventis Shared Experience That Turned a Nomura Super Day Into an Offer

21:22 — Why a Certification Is More Than a Piece of Paper in the Interview Room

23:15 — What "Creating an Advocate in the Room" Actually Means

24:19 — Using AI for Mock Interviews: What Works and What Doesn't

25:44 — Why AI Fails at Scraping LinkedIn for Networking Lists

27:02 — The Right Way to Use AI: The 400 Questions Mock Interview Trick

28:41 — Mastering Technical Tools as a Junior Hire

30:11 — Pro Tip: Don't Talk About AI as Your Current Events Answer

31:43 — Final Advice: Start Early, Customize Every Email & Don't Blast the Same Group

33:49 — Closing Remarks & Congrats to Darren

In this episode of The Coffee Chat Podcast, Ben sits down with Yash Bansal, a sophomore at the University of Illinois who just landed a junior year analyst internship at JP Morgan's Private Bank.

In this episode, Yash shares how early stock market interest led him to finance and how a single cold email to a Merrill Lynch advisor helped him narrow his focus to wealth management over investment banking or asset management.

We cover his recruiting timeline, how he tackled HireVue as part of his application, what got him straight to a Super Day, and how the Adventis program helped him visualize financial statements under interview pressure. Ben and Yash also get into practical networking techniques, including how to turn a list of questions into an actual conversation, the email syntax trick for cold outreach, and the litmus test for a truly unique "why this firm" answer.

Sign up for the Adventis Financial Modeling Certification (FMC) program at https://adventiscg.com

In this episode of The Coffee Chat Podcast, Ben sits down with Magnus Gadowsky, a sophomore at Amherst College who started college on a pre-med track and just accepted a junior year investment banking internship at Triple Tree in New York.

In this episode, Magnus shares how shadowing an orthopedic surgeon and an unexpected internship at Magnetar Capital sent him down a completely different path. We cover how he used his healthcare background as a genuine differentiator across 60+ networking calls, how Adventis helped him understand what investment banking actually was, and how a connection through an Amherst friend led him to Triple Tree. Magnus also shares one of the best interview tips we've heard on the show, going deep enough on firm culture to uncover something truly unique, not just the generic talking points.

Sign up for the Adventis Financial Modeling Certification (FMC) program at https://adventiscg.com

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Edited by Jamie Regan - ⁨@CreatedByRegan⁩

Hosted by Ben Dowell

Guest: Magnus Gadowsky

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0:00 — Introduction & Magnus's Background

1:19 — Starting Pre-Med: Shadowing an Orthopedic Surgeon

4:27 — The Surgery Sales Rep Conversation That Changed Everything

5:49 — How a Hedge Fund Internship at Magnetar Capital Happened

7:22 — Being Opportunistic: Taking Internships Off Your Planned Track

9:22 — What Magnus Actually Did at Magnetar Capital

10:06 — Falling in Love with Excel & Financial Modeling

11:50 — Coming Out of Magnetar: Still Not Sure About IB

12:35 — How Adventis Clarified the Path to Investment Banking

13:25 — Starting to Network: Reaching Out to Recent Alums

14:08 — 60+ Networking Calls: How the Story Snowballed

15:18 — Why a Unique, Authentic Story Opens More Doors

17:14 — Casting a Wide Net While Staying True to Healthcare

18:07 — How Magnus Found Triple Tree & Connected with the Right People

19:23 — Why Industry Experience Matters in Healthcare Banking

21:17 — Sophomore Summer Plans & Looking Ahead

22:16 — Following Your Genuine Interest Through Networking

23:24 — How Triple Tree Came Up & Working Through Amherst Connections

24:29 — Preparing for the Internship: Adventis, Newsletters & Staying Sharp

29:19 — Unique Interview Advice: Going Deep on Firm Culture

30:25 — The Pond Hockey Story: What Real Culture Research Looks Like

33:04 — Making It Easy for Interviewers to Picture You There

34:10 — Don't Get Blinders On: Let Networking Tell You Where to Go

35:35 — Closing Remarks & Congrats to Magnus

In this episode of The Coffee Chat, Ben sits down with Hadley Siena, a sophomore at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who just accepted a junior year investment banking internship at BMO in Chicago. Hadley shares how an international upbringing, including a formative experience in the Philippines through CISV, sparked her interest in business and ultimately led her to investment banking. We dig into her preparation timeline, from the Prime M&A Case Competition freshman year to grinding the 400 questions guide and earning her Adventis certification. Hadley also walks through her networking strategy, the value of in-person coffee chats, how she used AI tools like ChatGPT for mock interview practice, and what she learned from recruiting in both New York and Chicago.

In this episode of The Coffee Chat, Ben sits down with Anna Dyjach, a sophomore at Syracuse University who just landed a summer analyst internship on the Sales & Trading desk at Bank of America.

Anna shares how she went from a small town in Massachusetts with no finance connections to securing two competitive offers before junior year. We cover her networking strategy (including cold emails with a 70% response rate), how the Adventis program built her technical foundation early, why she chose S&T over investment banking, and how she maximized her career center.

In this episode of The Coffee Chat, Ben sits down with Eric Ren, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign graduate who built his way into investment banking at Deutsche Bank.

Eric shares how he navigated recruiting during COVID, cold-emailed hundreds of bankers, flew to New York to network in person, and developed the technical skills that helped him stand out once he landed on the desk. If you're interested in investment banking recruiting, networking strategy, and breaking into Wall Street from a non-traditional path, this episode provides a practical playbook.

Sign up for the Adventis Financial Modeling Certification (FMC) program at https://adventiscg.com

Edited by Jamie Regan -  ⁨@CreatedByRegan⁩ 

Hosted by Ben Dowell

Guest: Isaac (Ike) Cymerman

In this episode of The Coffee Chat, Ben sits down with Dave Hawthorne, Director of the Financial Markets Institute (FMI) at Michigan State University’s Eli Broad College of Business.They break down how FMI identifies and develops high-performing students for careers in investment banking, private equity, sales & trading, and more. Dave explains what separates successful candidates, why grit and leadership matter, how their 10-week Investment Banking Academy prepares students for Superdays, and how the program’s powerful alumni network places students at firms like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Houlihan Lokey, William Blair, and many others.Sign up for the Adventis Financial Modeling Certification (FMC) program at https://adventiscg.com---Edited by Jamie Regan -  @CreatedByRegan  Hosted by Ben DowellGuest: David Hawthorne---00:00 – Meet Dave Hawthorne & The Financial Markets Institute (FMI)03:00 – What Makes a Student a Good Fit for Investment Banking06:00 – Demonstrated Interest: Clubs, GPA & Adventis Modeling09:00 – The 10-Week Investment Banking Academy Explained13:00 – “Practice Until You Can’t Get It Wrong” (Interview Prep)16:00 – The New York Road Show: JP Morgan, Evercore, Carlyle & More19:00 – FMI’s Alumni Network & Where Students Land Jobs23:00 – Investment Banking as the Stepping Stone to Private Equity30:00 – How to Build a Successful Student Organization36:00 – Final Advice: Leadership, Grit & Earning the Offer