Beyond the 400 Questions: Key Takeaways from GCI’s Recruiting Panel

Finance recruiting is known for making even the most driven students feel anxious. What begins as excitement about investment banking heading into sophomore year can quickly become a blur of coffee chats, resume edits, technical guides, application dates, and advice coming from every direction at once. Whether it’s being told to network harder and memorize more, or to be polished yet natural for an interview, the process gradually stops feeling like a clear path and starts feeling like noise.

That exact tension was what Georgetown Collegiate Investors sought to address at its recruiting panel on March 13. The event brought together GCI members who had successfully gone through the internship hunting process, ranging from fields like investment banking to sales and trading. Part of what made the discussion so useful was that no two panelists’ experiences were identical. Rather than offering one formula for success, the panel revealed a set of recurring themes that cleared up much of the confusion surrounding recruiting.

Below is a structured recap of the most important insights and a guide to the lessons that shone through the most in the panel.

1. Start earlier than you think

One takeaway that kept surfacing was that students benefit from building an understanding well before the prime time of recruiting begins.

Francesco Donato, GCI’s former CEO who is headed to Boston Consulting Group, put it in plain words. His main piece of advice, he said, would be “to start early and make sure to understand the ins and outs of the jobs you are applying for.” Although a simple piece of advice, it points to a common problem. Many students do not truly begin learning what the role entails until the process is already urgent.

Ethan Choe, GCI’s Consumer & Retail Junior Sector Head who is headed to Barclays for investment banking capital markets, added his own reflection. Looking retrospectively, Choe said one thing he would do differently is truly understand what investment bankers do from early on, including “what actually happens in IPO or M&A or LBO, and what is the role of bankers in those.” Not only does this kind of learning improve interview answers, it also builds the type of conviction that matters.

Finance recruiting is not just about being able to respond to questions. It is also about knowing why you want to be in the room to begin with. Students who start earlier give themselves time to mold that answer honestly instead of trying to force it together under the pressure of a few minutes.

2. Networking is not a numbers game

No part of finance recruiting is as obsessed over as networking, and it's partly for good reason. Students are often made to feel that success comes from the amount of coffee chats they can stack, how many alumni they can email, or how many names they can jam into a spreadsheet. The panelists did not dismiss networking, but they did challenge the idea that more is always better.

Kartikeya Dantuluri, GCI’s Chief Marketing Officer who will be joining Wells Fargo’s investment banking division, said students often overstate the number of coffee chats they need at each bank. In his words, “the quality of the chats matters a lot more than the number.” He noted that at one specific bank, he spoke to only one person and still received an interview through that connection.

That same sentiment came up on the advice of Colleen Maloney, a Consumer & Retail Analyst at GCI who got an investment banking internship at Morgan Stanley. Maloney highlighted the importance of follow-ups, but only when they’re done with intention. She said, “Always follow up. Max three times. It shows that you care and are intentional and won’t waste their time.”

These points present a more grounded view of networking where the goal is not to perform effort just for the sake of it. Rather, it is to build genuine relationships through thoughtful questions, and leave a positive impression of yourself that is worth remembering.

Choe built upon this insight from another angle, where he encouraged students to be human during coffee chats and interviews. He suggested that some of the most memorable interactions in the process came not from perfectly rehearsed questions, but from real conversation. In such a grueling recruiting culture that can sometimes feel overly transactional, that reminder carries weight.

3. Stop treating technicals like a memorization contest

One idea that came up repeatedly amongst the words of the panelists was that students often misunderstand the role of technical preparation. Technicals certainly matter, but not in the way most people assume.

Maloney was especially direct on this point, stating that memorizing the M&I 400 questions guide is “overrated.” Students do need to know the basics and understand how they apply, but she argued that too much time gets spent on trying to purely memorize when that energy could have been better spent on behaviorals and on developing a clear reason for pursuing a specific role. “They want to see your personality,” she said.

Nicholas Tanzi, GCI’s Industrials Sector Head who is headed to Goldman Sachs for sales and trading, offered a similar perspective. For Tanzi, “memorizing the entire 400 question guide” is less important than having “a deep conceptual understanding of the basics.” This was a point that Dantuluri echoed as well, explaining how candidates often spend too much time memorizing technicals rather than understanding the underlying concepts.

That distinction matters because the strongest candidates are usually not the ones who sound like they swallowed an entire guidebook. They are the ones who can apply core ideas naturally and think through follow-up questions without sounding mechanical. The panelists were not saying technicals are irrelevant, but that understanding matters more than recitation.

4. Behaviorals and fit matter more than many candidates think

Another major theme was that students often underestimate how much recruiting is about personal fit. It is easy to fall into the trap of approaching the process as if it were only a technical assessment, but that misses a large part of what interviewers are trying to determine.

Tanzi said one of the biggest misconceptions across candidates is “that technicals matter more than behaviorals.” In his experience, the majority of superdays he had “never asked technicals, but rather were about getting to know you as a person.” He explained the logic behind this: “Bankers want to assess if you are someone they want to sit next to on a desk for 16 hours a day.”

That is a useful reminder because it captures something students often lose sight of when they get buried in prep. Interviewers are not just evaluating whether a candidate knows enough to get through a question, but more so whether they possess the traits to be successful at the job and if they can come across as thoughtful and genuine.

Maloney’s advice about having a clear storyline ties directly to this, since students who can explain why they are drawn to a certain path tend to sound far more compelling than those who simply appear well rehearsed. Candidates typically stand out because they sound real, not because they sound polished.

5. Curiosity and specificity can set you apart

The final insight that stood out across the panel was that strong candidates tend to move beyond generic interest. They are curious enough to dig deeper and be specific about what actually interests them.

Tanzi pointed to the importance of learning beyond the bare minimum that is necessary for an interview. He recalled being able to explain a niche topic that the interviewer brought up because, months earlier, he had taken the time to research a term a trader mentioned in a conversation. “Being curious and wanting to learn is incredibly important,” he stated.

Samuel Cohen, GCI’s CEO who will be joining Evercore for investment banking, highlighted a related point. Cohen believes many students approach recruiting too generally and end up lacking clear sector interests, which can work against them in interviews. He said that having one or two sectors that you can know well and speak about thoughtfully “goes a very long way.” In a competitive process where many candidates are relying on the same guides and asking the same questions, having focused interest can be the thing that makes someone more credible and much more memorable.

Altogether, the panel’s advice offered a more useful picture of recruiting than the one students often absorb through rumors. The speakers did not try to present a magic formula or pretend the process is easy. Instead, they offered specific insights that go a long way. Start earlier. Learn the work deeply enough to know why it interests you. Build relationships with intention. Focus on understanding rather than memorization. Take behaviorals seriously. Stay curious enough to develop real conviction.

That may be the most valuable takeaway from the whole GCI recruiting panel. Finance recruiting will always feel demanding, but it becomes far more manageable once students stop trying to do everything and start focusing their energy on the things that actually push them forward in the process.