becoming a banker
hey!
i am a new to this site, and i was wondering if i could get some of your help:
i was recently accepted to cornell (MBA), where i'll study finance and, hopefully, land a banking associate position.
The problem is i know very little about Banking, the interview process, and the like. I am 24, and for the past couple of years, i have been a marketer. lol, to make a long story very short, marketing was my second choice -- i missed the deadline for on campus banking interviews, so i settled for the best of what remained (marketing positions). Marketing's alright, but the compensation is absolutely _ _ _ _.
Anyway, last year, i made up my mind that i wanted to give banking another shot. I took the GMAT, scored 690, got into Cornell (yeah, i know -- but it could be worse), with a determination to land a spot on wall street.
Since i didn't (and still don't) know too much about banking, I picked up "Beat the Street: Investment Banking Interviews," by Wetfeet Insider Guide, and read it many times over. Having read it thoroughly, i still feel very unsatisfied and unprepared.
Thus, my question to this great community is:
are there any books that i should read to prep me for the interview process?
as well, given what you now know about me, my background, and my desire to become a banker, what course of action would you recommend? and what are some key concepts and questions that i really need to know?
finance isn't completely foreign to me. in undergrad, i took a number of finance courses, including investments and corporate finance. Thus, i am familiar with various valuations, like DCF.
That's about it for now. in advance, i'd really like to thank everyone for helping me out. hopefully i'll be able to return the favour one day!
kind regards,
Carol
if that is truly your picture in the post, you already have bonus points for interview time :-) (but should be more careful about veiling your ID on the net).
Your MBA program/career office/IB club will have a ton of material to coach you (and you should have free access to all the webfeet/vault/similar materials, which while not that great are good intros...). Plus talk to your classmates, take the mock interviews etc.
Getting ramped up knowledge wise is important though, since internship recruiting starts barely a few weeks after the beginning of 1st year. I had half a heart to try out IB for the summer, but didn't do nearly enough networking to get the interviews...
I think at a top school such as Cornell, you will have access to a ton of alumni and career office as RBwaBD says. Have you begun taking classes yet? I think the classes and your class mates will have an abundance of information for you, you might even have IBanking analysts as fellow classmates.
Oh and would you mind telling me where you went for undergrad and what your final and cumulative GPA was? Thanks soo much.
Does it help if you are a pretty girl ( I mean you are Jessica Simpson, Jessica Alba type); or can it hurt you even if you have good experience, a good GPA etc.?
thanks for the help you guys! i really appreciate it!
with respect to personal information, i think you're right; i'll take down my picture and not disclose private info in the future. Out of respect for the forum and the ppl in this community, I just thought that i'd post a pic. But if you insist!
As for myself, i went to school in Canada -- B.comm @ University of Toronto. 3.65 GPA.
final question: specifically, what sort of questions should i expect on an interview? (that is, technical as opposed to fit questions)
thanks again, guys!
talking to people that are already in banking was very important for me. just ask them questions about what they do and how they got into the industry. i was lucky because I had lots of older friends that worked at banks, and i picked up lots of useful information by just hanging out with them. in addition to learning about the job, if you make friends with people that work(ed) at banks they can get you in touch with the people that influence hiring. definitely a better route to go than relying solely on your school's on-campus recruiting.
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