My name is Jack Kolb, but you may know me by my TikTok name "Chief Analyst".
I graduated from the University of Illinois in 2023, where I was Captain of the Men’s Division One Ice Hockey Team & President of the Illinois Investment Banking Academy. I finished school in three years & was awarded the university’s highest honor, the Bronze Tablet, for having a perfect 4.0 GPA.
Growing up, I was an extremely competitive kid that pushed myself to be the best in everything I did. In high school, I was an elite AAA hockey player & valedictorian of my class. I brought that same mindset to my career & wanted to land the most prestigious, competitive role I could find.
First semester on campus, I discovered investment banking. Right away, I knew it's where I wanted to be. With acceptance rates under 1%, only the best & brightest from the top schools in the country even attempt to break in.
Investment banking is the most highly sought-after entry-level role within business for a few main reasons.
- Pay: Earning > $200K / year right out of school
- Exit Opportunities: Opens doors to exclusive careers like PE, hedge funds & senior roles at large corporations
- Extreme Learning Curve: Unmatched level of ownership, exposure & responsibility for a 22-year-old
- Fast-Paced Environment: Exhilarating, high-pressure environment juggling multiple rapidly-evolving deals
- Elite Peer Group: Surrounded by exceptionally driven peers, most in top 5% of class at top universities
- Mentorship: Apprenticeship-style business learning from the incredibly smart leaders in seats above you
From that day forward, I made it my mission to do everything I could to land a spot at one of the top firms on the street.
I quickly realized that achieving this goal was going to be an uphill battle. The internship recruitment process is overwhelmingly complex & the fact I was coming from a non-target school put me at an extreme disadvantage.
There are a few aspects that make the on-cycle recruitment process uniquely challenging.
- Early Timeline: Interviews for the post-junior year internship start second semester sophomore year. That's over a year in advance! You only have three semesters to network, build your resume & prepare for interviews
- Non-Target Disadvantage: Targets like Harvard, Princeton & Notre Dame have "On-Campus Recruiting (OCR)". Banks host info sessions on-site & reserve interview slots. Non-targets need a referral to be invited to interview
- Technical Prep: ~50% of every interview is spent testing your hard skills. You're expected to spend 100+ hours studying industry-specific topics not covered in class. That's on top of the hours spent prepping behaviorals
- Networking Requirement: You need a referral to get your resume pulled to interview. This involves sending hundreds of cold emails & conducting dozens of 30-minute phone calls they expect you to drive. You gradually develop relationships with bankers over a six month time frame to get them to push your resume
- Extreme Competition: Most kids have 2-3 relevant internships before submitting applications sophomore year. You have very limited time to bulk your resume with enough professional & leadership experiences to compete
I ended up securing my dream internship at the elite boutique Perella Weinberg Partners in their NYC office.
This was all due to the guidance I received from the Illinois Investment Banking Academy.
The academy is a highly-selective organization directed by a former partner from William Blair. Upperclassmen lead a small group of sophomores through an intense bootcamp to prep for all aspects of the daunting recruitment process.
This visual provides a high-level overview of the academy's structure.
I was elected President of the academy my junior year & led the charge for the entire operation. This was a significant time commitment that often felt like a full-time job. My contributions in that role are summarized below.
I loved my internship & was intending to sign the return offer to come back full-time, but a unique opportunity came up to jump straight to the buy side. I started my career at the middle market PE firm Keystone Capital in Chicago.
After spending one year there, I made the pivot to real estate investing. I work for the world’s largest commercial real estate investment services firm CBRE as a Senior Financial Analyst on their Institutional Office Investment Sales team.
Shortly after graduation, I started a TikTok account under the handle @Chief.Analyst.
In college, I'd developed a passion for helping students break into the exclusive industry of high-finance. This was a way for me to continue passing down the tactics that were shared with me by my mentors at a larger scale.
The channel now has over 2.5 million likes & 75K loyal followers.
I also created a series of guides / templates that walk step-by-step through my approach for each part of the process.
Those are FREE to download & can be found here.
PRIVATE COACHING
Navigating this complex, competitive process would've been impossible without the amazing mentors I had by my side.
I offer one-on-one private coaching to provide guidance tailored to your individual situation & goals.
Here's the link to the tab describing that opportunity in more detail.