Students with aspirations in finance frantically refresh job portals, treating the application as the starting line.

But it isn’t.

By the time these finance portals go live, the students most likely to land offers have already spent months or years doing the quiet work that never shows up on a resume. This work is necessary, considering how competitive firms like Goldman Sachs have acceptance rates hovering around 1.16% for summer analyst internship positions.

Talent alone can’t explain who receives an offer. Preparation does. UCLA students seeking a career in finance must take the time to learn about the industry and cultivate the qualities that don’t come across on a resume – the kind of preparation that, in a market this unforgiving, has to begin years before an application is ever submitted.

Donovan Brice, a J.P. Morgan associate, said students should spend time researching what the industry they want to be a part of actually involves before doing anything else.

“The financial planning, banking, private equity – you name it – spending time on Google, watching YouTube videos, one-on-ones of what is finance or what is the particular function that they (students) want to learn more about,” Brice said.

This kind of self-knowledge takes months to build – not a weekend before an application deadline.

That exploration means sitting in on an investment club’s stock pitch to learn or cold-emailing a second-year analyst to ask what their Tuesday looks like. None of that appears on a resume.

But all of it shows up in an interview, the moment a student is asked why banking, and specifically, why this position.

Once students figure out an area of finance that appeals to them, it is not always efficient to wait around for an internship to fall into their lap.

Damir Mesinovic, a J.P. Morgan managing director and wealth partner, said it’s on the student to decide how they spend their time, building relevant experience gradually from freshman year onward rather than waiting for one big break senior year.

Students who can’t land a formal internship early on must take initiative, said Mesinovic, a UCLA alumnus. Approach privately owned companies directly rather than waiting on corporate HR pipelines – the standard online hiring process that involves recruiter screenings and multiple rounds. This allows private owners to decide on the spot without a recruiter in the way, he added.

“Walk in, introduce yourself, say, ‘I’m willing to do an unpaid internship,’” he said.

This approach may have worked for past generations, but it asks a lot of students today. Walk-in offers assume a level of access – and a labor market with room to absorb an unpaid stranger – that doesn’t always exist anymore.

Even so, the sentiment of the advice still applies. A calculated introduction or a direct, well-researched outreach can open the same door a walk-in once did.

Benjamin Wallace, a Goldman Sachs partner and co-head of mergers and acquisitions in the Americas, said even raw analytical ability isn’t sufficient without deliberate interview preparation. Wallace, a UCLA alumnus, added that students should use interview guides to prepare for technical questions.

Despite intense competition, Bruins shouldn’t be discouraged.

Adrienne Lee, a rising fourth-year public affairs student and a summer analyst at Goldman Sachs, said students should go easier on themselves in an unforgiving job market. She added that she also experienced plenty of silence after her interviews in previous summers.

On a base level, getting an interview at all comes down to the resume, said Lee. She added that this is because recruiters focus on specific skills that match job requirements. Without a strong match, a great resume might not make it to an interview.

The students who get through the hiring process are the ones who spent the time exploring and understanding the industry.

Talent gets you noticed. Preparation gets you hired.