Business school my only option?
I have a 3.4 GPA from a top 50 school, and I'm waiting for my CFA Level 3 results. I have 2.5 years experience at a boutique investment firm but it was too small to get anywhere. Now I'm a credit analyst at a small bank. I made that switch 6 months ago so I could at least say I was analyzing individual companies.
So this is a pretty mediocre background, but I feel pretty good about my potential for networking success if I get face time. The problem is that I live in the boonies, so networking here is brutal.
I'd love to work in Asia, but my background, location, and language ability rule that out at the moment. I feel like my only chance is an equity or credit analysis position at a large firm like Bloomberg or Blackstone, prove myself there while I learn Japanese and Mandarin, and then transfer.
So, a mediocre background in the middle of nowhere. Is a solid MBA my only hope?
Do you have any background in Japanese and/or Mandarin at all...?
Japanese, yes. If I don't have any more CFA exams left then I could pass JLPT N2 (roughly business level Japanese exam) by next summer at the latest. I might take a swing this December.
I'm still a beginner with Mandarin, but hopefully that shouldn't rule out Singapore.
If by solid MBA you mean top 10, then I would say your chances aren't very strong.
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I'd get a year in at the bank and if you pass L3 just network and wait until you get your charter. Once that happens try and network to a larger banking in their credit department in a much bigger city. You'd essentially have 3.5 years of experience then.
Rotate out of your position into something that separates yourself from the crowd. Your GPA is a small portion of your graduate school application. I know many people who have attended/attend Top 10's with sub-3.0 GPA's. The key is, they made themselves interesting. They were not in finance
You haven't even tried anything yet. Why would a MBA be your "only option?" That type of rushing back to school is why there are so many unemployed MBA's.
Why don't you spend your time actually learning the languages that you mentioned and trying to get the jobs rather than retreating back into school? Do you really want to do any of those things, or are you just looking for an easy way out? Even with a MBA, if you don't have anything inside of you, then you're going to end up in the same place with $100,000 of extra debt.
Maybe my brief opening post gave the wrong idea. Now that the most recent (hopefully final) CFA exam is over, I'm on the job boards. I know I need to make a couple emerging market stock reports to get noticed by the type of employer I want to work for. I'm studying Japanese hard so I can pass that test by next summer if I didn't fail the CFA, and then it will be time to study Chinese and get a good score on the HSK.
If I go for an MBA, it won't be soon. Even if I passed L3, I won't have my charter sooner than August 2014 because of the work experience requirement. No way I will pursue an MBA before I have my charter. I would love to avoid an MBA, I'm just asking if that's feasible. I'll have a better perspective this time next year, but I just thought I'd ask now. I live in a bad networking town, and my resume isn't at the level that will beat out 500 applicants for the typical front office emerging market equity analyst job posting. I need to adjust my strategy, and I'd love to find a way around relying on the network that an MBA provides. I'm not retreating anywhere.
You can get the same network without a MBA, and you can get a MBA without adding anything meaningful to your network. It all comes down to how you go about it. If you don't know if you should get a MBA, then you shouldn't get a MBA. You've probably already accomplished at least as much as a lot of the people who're getting the jobs that you want.
bump
Why don't you actually select a location in Asia before trying to learn the TWO hardest languages on the planet.......
-_- >.> 0.o
similar profile to mine, however you have CFA level 3 and i work in investments rather than credit. I would say start getting interested in stocks and know about them and actually try make some money from them, or you dont stand a chance.
I'm already too deep into Japanese to turn back now. Mandarin seems like the next obvious choice. I think my best chances would be in Singapore right now, and that's still a long shot.
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