I assumed the phone call was my takeout. I was on a video call with my parents when an unknown number rang, and I half-expected a delivery driver downstairs. It was Goldman Sachs, with a Sales & Trading offer. For three or four weeks before that, there had been silence. Every week my friends and I asked each other if anyone had heard anything. By then I could barely tell an offer call from a spam call. If you are working out how to get into sales and trading, the part nobody prepares you for is the waiting.

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Why Trading, and Not Banking

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I had started reading about economics seriously in my last years before university. What pulled me in was how it explained the real world through logic instead of tidy answers. You had to understand the mechanism and weigh the tradeoffs. I went to school overseas from a young age, so I got used to figuring things out on my own early, and that independence shaped how I approached problems later.

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A single bank internship was my first close look at the pace of finance. I knew the high-information, fast-decision environment drew me in, but a few scattered experiences weren't enough to build a career on. What I lacked was a clear read on the tracks themselves, from how to get into investment banking to what a trading seat actually asks for.

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Once I dug in, the logic of each track separated out. Investment banking, sales and trading, and consulting each rewarded a different temperament. What fit me was the trading floor, where the job asks for independent judgment, fast reactions, and a tolerance for uncertainty. Change doesn't unsettle me. I tend to enjoy correcting my reading as conditions shift.

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What the Trader Academy Showed Me

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Goldman became my first choice for a concrete reason. In its Trader Academy program, I met people from different desks who clearly liked the work itself, not the prestige around it. They enjoyed studying markets and building trade logic. The summer program rotates you across multiple desks instead of labeling you on day one, which let me keep testing where I belonged. That respect for an individual's own path matched how I like to work.

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Building the Case Before Recruiting Started

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Getting into a top-tier bank on enthusiasm alone is not realistic. It takes a plan and real preparation. I joined One Strategy Group in my first year of university, well before formal recruiting began, so I never went through the phase of figuring everything out alone. That head start spared me a lot of inefficient guessing as I sorted through different finance career paths. I first heard about the program from an upperclassman I trusted, and his read on it held up: clear planning, real resources, and people who actually walk the full stretch with you.

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A few mentors carried different parts of the load. When I felt stuck or anxious, Winnie helped me break the problem down and reminded me I still had options. My lead mentor, Mike, handled logistics. Whenever an interview came up on short notice, he found me the right person to prep with, so I was never left scrambling. Jimmy and Anthony gave me clean frameworks before sessions and sharpened my materials inside them.

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Behavioral Is Storytelling. Technical Is Earned.

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The One Strategy Group mentorship drew a line between the two halves of prep. Behavioral was mostly about telling a true story clearly. Technical was the part you can't fake, the part that needs slow accumulation. My mentors helped me prepare stock pitches and trade ideas, and pushed me into a habit of following market news daily. The point wasn't to cram for one interview. Over time it built a sharper feel for how markets actually move. On the storytelling side, the One Strategy Group career coaching ran me through a cut-it-down process until I could pull the few valuable threads out of a messy pile of experiences and lead with them.

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Inside the Goldman Process

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I interviewed at a number of buy-side firms too, including highly selective shops like Jane Street and Point72. Goldman's process was more encouraging by comparison. It was short: one video interview, then the final round. That format is standard for the industry. Goldman runs a roughly 30-minute recorded video interview first, then a superday final round in front of several interviewers, according to Fox Business (2025). What stood out was the tone. My interviewers weren't the zero-feedback type that leaves you spiraling. They would say something like "that was a good point," and the encouragement made me answer with more confidence.

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The competition behind that calm process is steep. Fortune reported in 2026 that Goldman's internship acceptance rate has stayed under 1% for three straight years. The year before, the firm drew more than 360,000 applicants for roughly 2,600 seats, a 0.7% rate. Knowing the odds was exactly why the wait afterward was so hard to sit with.

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How I Handled the Wait

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The waiting taught me to manage my own head. Early on the pressure was sharp, especially when interviews stacked up or nothing seemed to move. So I rewarded myself on purpose. I went to the Botanic Garden in Oxford to watch the fountain and the falling leaves, and took day trips to small towns near Bath and Southampton to clear my head. A steady mind and a sustainable pace are their own long-term advantage. When the offer finally came, what I felt was mostly calm.

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What I'd Tell Someone Recruiting Now

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Three things made the difference in my prep, and they carry over to anyone running this process.

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Know the firm in depth, and stop recycling one answer. Behavioral and technical rounds both assume you understand the specific company. Cultures differ, so the same story needs a different emphasis from firm to firm, or you read as a poor fit.

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Prepare technicals for the exact role. Equity research, trading, and IBD ask for very different content. Applying to all three on one general template doesn't work.

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Use mock interviews to find your blind spots. Before each real interview, I could find a mentor who fit the role and run a mock. They pointed out where my answers fell short and what I needed to show. That is hard to replicate alone.

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I meet a lot of capable people in this process, and almost all of them are anxious. I would want them to carry less of that and trust themselves more. In a job this demanding, only the people who like the work find it light, and the offer tends to follow whoever can keep their footing through the wait.

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Disclaimer: OSG has no partnership or affiliation with Goldman Sachs, Jane Street, Point72, or any other company mentioned in this article. OSG students build their own capabilities through OSG's services and secure offers through official campus and lateral recruiting channels.

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