Training design guides for HR and L&D teams
Practical guides for HR professionals, L&D teams, and program managers designing training for finance and professional services - onboarding, new-hire and graduate programs, technical training, and ongoing talent development.
Each guide is built to help you design a clearer, more effective program. You will find a training overview, core concepts and topics, suggested learning outcomes, a sensible structure, and guidance on how to combine foundational learning, technical training, and applied practice so that what people learn actually transfers to the job.
The strongest guides do more than list topics. They show what students should be able to produce at each stage of the course: a strategic question, an external analysis, an internal diagnosis, a set of options, a recommendation, an implementation plan, or a reflection on performance.
The aim is not to hand you a fixed program to copy. It is to give you a strong starting point you can adapt to your roles, your timelines, your formats, and the capabilities you most need people to build.
What these training guides include
Each guide is designed as a practical resource for designing a program, not just a list of topics. You will typically find:
- A concise training overview and its intent
- The intended audience and useful prerequisites
- Core concepts and topics to cover
- Suggested learning outcomes
- A sensible program structure across sessions
- How to combine theory and practice
- Applied exercises and where they fit
- Where a simulation can consolidate the learning
- Format options, from short sessions to multi-week programs
- Links to related onboarding and talent development programs
The guides are especially useful if you are building a new graduate or onboarding program, refreshing existing training, or trying to make a technical, theory-heavy subject more applied and engaging.
Browse training guides by subject
Financial Analysis & Modelling Training
Financial Modeling and Valuation Training · Discounted Cash Flow Valuation Training · Equity Valuation Training · Data Analysis Training
Corporate Finance & Strategic Decision-Making Training
Corporate Finance Training · Advanced Corporate Finance Training · Cost of Capital Training · Working Capital Management Training
Investment Banking & Capital Markets Training
Investment Banking Training · Private Equity Training · Debt Capital Markets Training · Derivatives Training
Risk Management, Compliance & Governance Training
Financial Risk Management Training · Credit Risk Analysis Training · Regulatory Compliance in Finance Training · Value at Risk Training
Leadership & People Management Training
Crisis Management Training · Strategic Business Planning Training
Client Relationship, Negotiation & Stakeholder Management Training
Emerging Markets Training · Fairness Opinion Training
Communication, Influence & Collaboration Training
Equity Research Training · Scenario Analysis Training
Business Operations, Project Management & Process Improvement Training
Supply Chain Finance Training · Sensitivity Analysis Training
Why the learning experience matters
Training is increasingly judged on experience, not just content. L&D teams have to deliver programs that people genuinely value - and learners can tell the difference between being talked at and being given something real to do. When a program lets people actually practise the work, satisfaction and trainer ratings rise, attention holds, and the learning sticks. When it does not, even well-built content is quickly forgotten.
This is why interactive elements matter so much. A session that asks people to collaborate, negotiate, or work a realistic problem in a team is consistently rated more highly than one built around presentation alone. Role-play and simulation-style exercises that replicate the actual tasks and challenges of a role do two things at once: they make people better at the job, and they create an experience participants remember and speak well of afterwards. For an L&D team, that combination - better capability and a better-rated program - is the goal.
A shift in how leading firms train
Top investment banks and leading professional services firms appear to be further ahead than most in integrating simulations into their programs. Many now build simulations into their intern and analyst programs - sometimes as icebreakers early on, but more importantly as a way to consolidate concepts taught earlier, by having new hires apply them in a realistic setting before they reach the desk.
Early-career hires arrive at a desk with knowledge but little practice, and the gap between the two is where firms lose the most time. Using applied exercises to close that gap, rather than more instruction, is what these programs have in common.
Designing an effective training program
The most common weakness in a training program is not the content; it is the lack of genuine application. People are told what to do, shown an example, and then assessed on whether they can recall it - rather than on whether they can actually do it.
A simple, effective structure for each topic uses three moves:
- Teach the concept. Explain the method, process, or decision directly. People need clarity before they can apply anything.
- Show a real-world example. Demonstrate the concept in use, so learners can see what good performance looks like before they attempt it.
- Give an applied task. Ask people to use the concept in a realistic situation where they have to make a decision and deal with the result.
It is the third move that builds capability, and it is the one most programs skip - because realistic application is the hardest part to design. Strong applied tasks ask people to do something specific and consequential rather than simply discuss a topic: build and defend a valuation, structure a financing, respond to a counterparty changing position, prepare a recommendation, or manage a stakeholder whose interests conflict with theirs. Tasks like these are what turn knowledge into capability.
Where a simulation fits in a program
A simulation is most effective when it is placed where it reinforces the learning outcomes, not added as an unrelated activity at the end. Used well, it gives people a role, a situation, information to interpret, decisions to make, and consequences to manage - the applied step in a structured, repeatable form.
A simulation can fit a program in several ways:
Point in the program | How a simulation can be used |
|---|---|
Early on | Set the professional context and give people a reason to engage with the theory |
After a core topic | Let people apply a concept they have just learned |
Midway | Reveal where understanding is strong and where more teaching is needed |
Later stages | Bring several topics together in one integrated decision |
End of program | Use as an applied capstone that consolidates the whole program |
In most programs, one or two well-placed simulations are more effective than trying to make every session simulation-based.
Where simulations add less value
A well-designed program uses simulations selectively. Some learning is better delivered simply and directly. Memorising a definition, a formula, a regulation, or a fixed procedure is usually faster through direct instruction than through a simulation, and a straightforward reference guide or short lesson may serve better.
Simulations add the most value where performance depends on judgment rather than recall - processes that unfold in stages, interactions with other people, decisions under ambiguity and pressure, and work that requires several capabilities at once. Where the task has a single stable answer, or where the behaviour can already be practised safely on the job, a simulation may add activity without adding much insight. Knowing where simulations help and where they do not is part of designing a program well.
Format: short or detailed, online or in person
Training programs vary widely in length, and the design should follow the goal. A short program might target a single capability in one or two sessions; a detailed one might run across several weeks, building from foundations to integrated, realistic decision-making. The structure in each guide can be adapted to either.
Format is flexible too. Applied exercises and simulations can be delivered online or in person, and synchronously or asynchronously, depending on the program. Asynchronous delivery suits foundational learning that people can work through in their own time. Synchronous, in-person or live online delivery - particularly anything involving collaboration or negotiation - is where engagement tends to be highest, because it recreates the real dynamic of working with others. Each individual program guide explains the format options suited to that subject.
Low effort to adapt, low risk to run
The main barrier to a more applied program is usually preparation time and the risk that a new activity will not work as expected. These guides reduce the first by giving you a structure, learning outcomes, and exercises to adapt rather than build from scratch. Where a simulation is recommended, it is supported end-to-end, so you are not designing or troubleshooting the activity alone, and it can be added to an existing program without rebuilding it.
You can explore the two main program types in more detail: New Hire Onboarding for graduates, interns, and new analysts, and Talent Development for building capability across existing teams. For the learning principles these programs are built on, see our Learning Science page.