Investment Banking LinkedIn Profile and Guide: How to Survive the Cesspool of Cringe

If historians ever write The Rise and Fall of the Internet, LinkedIn will be Exhibit A.

Back in ~2003, it launched as a nice, intentionally limited social network.

People logged in to update their profiles when they switched jobs, and they occasionally looked up former co-workers to see who had switched firms or moved to new areas recently.

Even people with thousands of connections used the site maybe once per month because there was no “feed,” which made it different from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc.

But then Microsoft acquired it in 2016, and the full enshittification began.

Everyone still uses LinkedIn to update their profile for new jobs, but now there’s an added layer due to the “feed.”

It’s an otherworldly mix of cringeworthy posts, humblebrags, AI slop, and influencers peddling courses, consulting, and coaching.

Meanwhile, some students mistakenly believe that they need to be active on LinkedIn or that writing a “10 Things Polygamy Taught Me About Recruiting!” post counts as “networking.”

Unfortunately, even though LinkedIn is a cringeworthy cesspool, you still need to maintain a simple profile if you want to work in the finance industry.

We last covered this topic of LinkedIn profiles a decade ago, so it seemed like a good time for an update:

Investment Banking LinkedIn Profile & Usage Guide: The Short Version

Here is the very short version:

• Yes, you 100% need a profile with your real name, a good headshot, a brief description in the “About” box, and short summaries of your work experience. Your profile is a shorter, more visual version of your resume.
• I do not recommend using a fake or AI-generated headshot. Unless it is very close to your real appearance, it could hurt you in the future because finance is still an old-school industry. If you cannot afford a professional photographer, get a friend to take your headshot in front of a light, neutral background.
• Leaving comments, posting, liking posts, etc., is all useless in my opinion and a poor use of time for students and career changers. You do need to make sure your profile is visible to recruiters, but you can do that with the right optimizations (see below).
• Searching for people, looking up work histories, and researching firms are the best use cases for LinkedIn. Think of it as “Company + People Search” rather than “Work Instagram.”
• You can update your profile and notify your network when you win an offer, but please try to limit the self-congratulatory posts (follow the LinkedIn Flex or VCs Congratulating Themselves accounts on X for examples of what to avoid).
• LinkedIn is generally better for research rather than direct outreach because many people, especially senior professionals, do not read their messages regularly. But some disagree with me and claim it works well, so who knows (see below).

How to Craft Your LinkedIn Profile

Before you do anything on LinkedIn, start by cleaning up your existing online/social media presence.

I recommend setting anything personal or potentially controversial to private so that it cannot come up in “background checks” (both official and unofficial).

This applies to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and any other network where someone you don’t know could potentially see your profile.

To do a quick assessment, ask a few AI tools to summarize findings associated with your name, and then Google yourself and see what else pops up like that.

Yes, you may find embarrassing results, but you should do this now – while you can still fix it – rather than dealing with the consequences when a potential employer finds a negative result.

Something like a personal website is fine and could even help you if it looks reasonably good.

Once you’ve done this, you need three things to build an effective LinkedIn profile:

1. A high-quality headshot.
2. A “neutral” / professional-looking cover image.
3. The most recent version of your resume/CV, which should be based on one of our templates.

Your headshot photo needs to meet these requirements:

1. You should be wearing business professional attire (a suit and tie if you’re male).
2. You should look directly at the camera – no side gazes or “interesting”
3. You should be up against a solid background that’s not distracting. Ideally, the background should be white or a very light color for enhanced contrast.
4. It should show your head or the top part of your body, but not your entire body (that makes it too hard to see your face).

I strongly recommend hiring a professional to do this, but if you can’t afford it, you can ask a friend for help or use an AI/automated tool and hope it doesn’t look too much like “uncanny valley.”

Technically, you don’t “need” a cover image, but I do recommend it to make your profile look more complete.

The default options are not great, so consider using a “city image” of the skyline in the nearest financial center or the place where you’ll be applying for internships/jobs.

One of these examples might work for NY:

Before you upload photos or make any other changes, I recommend limiting your visibility and then restoring it when you’re done.

If you go to Settings and then Visibility, you’ll see something like this:

And if you go to “Public profile & URL” on the top right of your profile, you’ll be able to set a custom URL – which you should definitely do – and temporarily limit your profile’s visibility:

If you have a name like “John Smith,” it’s OK to add numbers to the end.

Consider using your graduation year rather than your birth year to make your age less obvious. The numbers associated with something else you can easily remember, such as an old street address, could also work.

Once you’re done, you can upload your headshot and cover image and write your headline.

If you’re currently working, the headline should be easy:

“[Position Name] at [Firm Name]”

EX: “Investment Banking Associate at Moelis”

If you’re currently in school, you could just say you’re a “Student at University X or MBA Y.”

Some students write about the roles they’re “seeking” or upcoming internships.

This used to look a bit tacky, but due to the speed of the IB recruiting timeline and the need to “market yourself” via future internships, it’s probably OK.

So, a headline like the following could work if the rest of your profile is solid:

“UGA Finance Student Seeking Investment Banking Analyst Roles”

“Incoming Investment Banking Summer Analyst at Centerview”

Your LinkedIn Profile: Summary and (Work) Experience

Keep your “About” section very short, especially if you’re a student.

One of these examples could work:

“Student at [XX University] with leadership roles in the investment club and the track team, with coursework in accounting and finance and participation in several M&A case competitions; currently seeking investment banking internships.”

“Associate in the TMT team at [YY Bank] with previous experience in equity research and corporate development; experience advising on over $2 billion worth of M&A deals in the hardware and semiconductor sectors.”

In the Experience section, do not just copy and paste directly from your resume.

For example, let’s take the private equity resume example, which has 3 deals listed for the investment banker applying to PE roles.

I would keep the summary sentence and, for each deal, include only the first bullet:

And, as with your resume/CV, start dropping older experience as the years pass.

I would not keep high school experience beyond your second year of university, and I would start dropping or consolidating early university experience once you’ve graduated, for example.

You could certainly add organizations, certifications, skills, languages, and other supplemental points to your profile, especially if you can use keywords that recruiters might use to find candidates (e.g., valuation, leveraged buyouts, private credit, etc.).

Recommendations and endorsements can also be useful, but you don’t need them right away; you can request them as you gain full-time work experience.

When you’re done with everything above, make your profile visible again and start adding connections.

It looks a little weird to start contacting people when your profile has no connections, so aim for at least 10 – 15 before you start.

Ideally, you’ll eventually reach 100+ or even 500+ by adding fellow students, co-workers, family friends, and anyone else you can think of.

No, it’s not rational because you might not even know most of these people, but all these connections will boost your profile’s visibility and response rate.

Investment Banking LinkedIn Profile: What If You Don’t Have Work Experience?

If you have no real internships or full-time work experience, I’ll refer you to this article about how to write a finance resume with no work experience.

The short version is that you can spin your activities, clubs, projects, volunteer work, and even short, 1-day “shadowing events” into experience.

People tend to exaggerate wildly on LinkedIn, so you don’t want to go too far with this, as it could make bankers even more skeptical.

Everything Wrong with My Profile and How to Fix It

My LinkedIn profile is currently “not great,” even though I have thousands of connections and am in the top 1% most viewed profiles.

It’s mostly because I don’t care: I haven’t held a formal job in a long time, I’m not looking for a job, and I don’t use the site to recruit.

So, what’s wrong with my profile?

1) Missing Cover Image and Not-Great Headshot – It’s not a big deal, but my profile looks a bit empty without the cover image, so I should add one.

Also, my headshot is “stylish,” but it’s not ideal for job-search purposes:

2) Too Much Text – My “About” section is too long with too much text, and so are my experience sections.

However, they used to be even longer, and I’m not sure how much further I could shorten them.

If I had more traditional work experience, such as switching jobs every 2 – 3 years, this would be easier to turn into many short entries that are easier to scan.

3) Not Much Activity / Posting – Finally, if I posted occasionally or joined some groups and cross-posted new articles and videos there, my profile would get more traffic.

I don’t bother to do this because I don’t really “use” LinkedIn for anything, and I don’t have the capacity to respond to even more comments on yet another site.

Investment Banking LinkedIn Profile: Does It Work for Real Networking Outreach?

Some people swear by LinkedIn – for example, the reader in the London PE recruiting article mentions that he responds to LinkedIn messages all the time.

The usual argument is that it’s intrusive to cold email people, and most email inboxes have far too much spam and unwanted nonsense these days.

Therefore, LinkedIn is better because it comes across more like a casual interaction.

People also tend to send shorter messages, so they are more likely to get responses.

I understand these claims, but I’m still skeptical.

The main issue is that many bankers, especially at the senior level, do not check their LinkedIn messages frequently, so you are less likely to get responses there.

This is why we recommend using LinkedIn to find bankers but email to contact them.

Bankers are in their email inboxes 24/7, so while they may ignore your messages, they will at least see them and understand you are putting in effort to contact them.

Your hit rate will be low with email – expect a 5 – 10% response rate at best – but it will still be higher than LinkedIn in most cases.

That said, yes, you can still try to use LinkedIn to network because you might have better luck.

I recommend the following:

1. Send *Something* in Your Initial Invite / Connection Request – People who get a lot of connection requests may be more likely to accept yours if it has something in it.
2. Make Your Intro Message Short and Highly Specific / Personal – Keep it to a max of 2 sentences and say something highly specific about your connection to them.
3. Repeat Your Intro Message If They Don’t Respond – Many people will accept your connection request but not respond to your intro message. So, wait a few days and send another message if you don’t hear back from them.

Here are a few examples of short intro messages you could send:

“Hi [Name] – I saw you had worked on SaaS growth equity deals in the ad-tech space at [Firm X] and was interested in your experience since I did a recent internship at [Firm Y], which focuses on ad-tech roll-ups. I’m currently a sophomore at [University Z] and looking for GE/PE internships for this upcoming summer, so if you have a few minutes in the upcoming weeks, it would be great to connect.”

“Hi [Name] – I’m currently a freshman at [University Q] and am planning to apply to Chicago-based investment banking internships next year. I saw you were a [University Q] alumnus and started working at [Bank A] in Chicago right after graduation – if you have time in the next few weeks, I would really appreciate the opportunity to hear more about your experience.”

Do not propose a specific date or time in these initial messages because it’s too much for LinkedIn.

If you do not get any solid responses after sending 30+ good, personalized messages, switch your focus to channels like email, events, or even cold calls.

LinkedIn is nice if you can make it work, but it seems to be very “hit or miss.”

Final Thoughts on LinkedIn for Investment Banking

Depending on who you ask, LinkedIn is either an essential networking tool that will skyrocket your career or a complete waste of time.

The truth is somewhere in the middle.

Yes, you 100% need a LinkedIn profile, but you don’t need to be active on the site.

Please keep the “Offer Accepted!” messages and cringeworthy “What My Divorce Taught Me About B2B Sales” posts to a minimum (or better yet, avoid them altogether).

Focus on building a simple, visual profile with 100+ connections so you can use it to look up bankers, find work histories, and research firms.

If you’re especially active, you might even consider LinkedIn Premium for a few months (I am not affiliated and earn exactly $0 from this suggestion).

If you don’t find much success messaging people via LinkedIn, don’t take it personally; it is quite random, and there are other networking channels.

And please, whatever you do, never list your current position as “Head Intern”: