Career Advice for the young and confused?
I am going into my junior year at a decent school (Northeastern in Boston) majoring in finance with a minor in economics. I have a 3.6 gpa and a decent amount of experiencing. I have worked in compliance for a small start up in New York City, as an FP&A intern at GE in their aviation department near Boston, and as a derivative operations intern at Wellington Management in Boston. As I am going into my junior year, I am starting to look at summer analyst positions.
One of my good friends just got hired full time at Morgan Stanley after having an summer position I think I would like and we have been talking about the process of getting an analyst position for next summer for me at a bunch of different places. That being said, I can work 6:30am-10:00pm for 10 weeks, I can do anything for 10 weeks. As I talk with him more and more though, the more and more I realize that I don't want to work 15 hours a day every single day for more than that. That being said I am interested in a lot of what these positions entail. I am very interested in valuation of firms, including leverage, private equity, and venture capital.
As I start my search for a summer analyst position, I feel like I have no idea what I want to do or where I want to look. I guess I am looking for some advice on what my best avenue is from some people who have already figured these things out. I have no problem working hard and I don't care about putting in hours were I will actually be doing something, but I just really don't want to work 7am-9pm every day for two years (this is what I am told is the standard for a first year analyst). I do not want to do operations or something boring and mundane which seems like the only positions that don't work 15 hours days for years.
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
sounds like you still don't know what you want, this summer or otherwise ... ask specific questions and people here will help
Get the best company brand on your resume that you can. Even if you pursue a banking internship and find that you hate it having the experience on your resume will signal the follow:
1) This kid passed through a rigorous hiring process in a highly competitive field
2) This kid is capable and willing (even if you really are not) to work a lot of hours.
You can leverage an investment banking internship to gain access to a variety of fields (corporate finance, consulting, entrepreneurship/start-ups, etc.). Unfortunately, for those of us who do not grow up knowing exactly what we want to do/be the best way to determine what you like (want to do) is to find out what you do not like (don't want to do). This sounds obvious but most kids graduate college feeling overwhelmed and unsure of what to do next (primarily because our lives generally follow a fairly defined path until after graduation and many of our choices are made for us or are at least heavily influenced by parents, society, peers, etc.).
Should I be going after the big, big banks like Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and all those? Or would it be better for me to go after a smaller firm like Duff and Phelps? I am not really sure the difference in summer programs and the websites do not tell me much.
Cast your net as wide as possible to improve your chances of landing something and then choose your best option. Again, if you can get another big brand name on your resume (i.e. Goldman, MS, JPM, etc.) you will be better off.
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