Maybe you've been here, maybe you haven't. I've been recruiting for mostly S&T, a little bit of IB and at this point, anything to get me into finance. I'm in my last year at a target in Canada, didn't have SA experience (worked at a tech startup) and had a similar rough recruiting season for the summer. Apparently I'm not great at interviews.
I've networked. A ton. I've looked like an idiot in front of some people, and made great connections with others. At this point I've sent out thousands of emails and applied to hundreds of jobs in my very short career. I'm not doing a spray and pray - ok, maybe a targeted spray and pray.
At this point coming into December, I'm starting to get demoralized to say the least. Working in sales this summer, I'm used to hearing no, but this is on a whole other level. There is still about 60% of my school without a job, so I know I'm not alone and I know I'm not special. But that's definitely not how it feels.
I'm not sure if this is more of a rant, if I'm asking for encouraging words, or if I want to hear some stories of people who got out of similar situations. I've been hearing for two recruiting seasons that it always ends up working out. Well, I'll be on exchange in Europe in two months and was wondering if that's enough time to get it to work out. With recruiting seasons basically over, and having two months before exchange to recruit, what do I need to do before going away to end up contracted up for next September?
Stop wasting your time trying to get into one of the hardest jobs to break into. It's pretty straightforward, you're now competing against people with multiple internships, the competition has you outgunned so to speak.
Curious what Canadian target you go to. When you say 60% don't have an offer are you referring to just the business school? If so that's higher than I would have thought, but not overly surprising.
What I'd say is that Canadian "target" is only truly meaningful for Canadian banks, which still haven't really recruited much to my knowledge so you still have a shot there. The % from any Canadian school going to top U.S BBs or EBs is still volatile, small, and should not be viewed as the norm unless you know you're at the very top of your class (i.e - Ivey gold medal level). It's also telling that few Canadians go to work at lower-tier BBs, it's really just GS/JPM/MS and a few EBs or bust, which only exaggerates the divide.
Would agree with the poster above. Once you get one BB offer, the rest tend to fall in line and at this stage I think most who will end up in good spots in the U.S or London will be those that have some kind of leverage in the form of a comparable offer from a BB already.
I'd forget about U.S BB's, etc. now and focus on CPPIB, Ontario teachers', the five Canadian banks, etc. I know are still in the recruiting process just from my OCR. Look to alumni, send them physical letters asking to chat if e-mails don't work, and just focus on getting in the door for an interview.
It sucks and I'd forget about those that tell you to suck it up. The stress of junior year likely dissipates quickly, especially when you end up where you want. For Canadians it does come down to an awful lot of luck. I happened to get extremely lucky and got a IB/S&T role at a big Canadian bank as a sophomore. I find most Canadians from targets who get GS/JPM/MS or EBs have been similarly lucky or have had nepotism working in their favor and the way target schools tout these few people as the norm to freshman/sophomores is pretty disingenuous.
EDIT: This advice is only for those going into junior SA recruiting. Read OPs comment too quick, sorry.
Interesting perspective on the Canadian banks. I was under the impression they were also all done with their FT recruiting.
Shit, I thought he said he was in his junior year and was referring to striking out across the board in sophomore recuriting. Different scenario obviously and the banks are done (I believe) FT. The pension funds and teachers have FT listings online though; might be able to squirm into something.
My post applies to anyone looking to junior SAs though. Sorry, OP, read too quick. Perhaps look to the technology quasi-IB/PE-related analyst position at Birchhill given your startup experience, although it'll be a stretch.
A bit unorthodox for someone in their final year, but I would try to lock up a Toronto boutique for 2016 summer. While they may not offer you a FT offer, it puts you in a competitive position for FT recruits when August-Sept swings around. It's not the end of the world if you don't get IB/S&T this year... I'd say recruiting in Canada for high finance is less stringent vs the US as I've seen a number of people break in by working towards a CPA/CFA (albeit this path may take a bit longer).
I'd agree with this, OP. Try to push out your degree one year if at all possible so you have one summer left or just try to grab a SA stint even if you're graduating and hope no one cares too much.
This worked for me. Also, keep in mind Big 4 Recruiting and Consulting is in the spring. I have seen corporate finance internships in Big 4 to extend graduation through another summer and provide a more loaded resume for a "Second-shot" at SA recruiting.
I'd definitely be ok with getting a summer gig, just for it to potentially lead into a FT offer, or even have an actual corporate experience on my resume. A big issue is that my career center only has FT opportunities, whereas they allocate the SA positions to juniors.
With banks that I've already struck out with (or ones I haven't), should I be contacting them asking about their summer availability?
To be honest, I was in the exact same boat when I was finishing off my 4 years at a Canadian B-School. I realised that I needed time to get some finance experience as my prior marketing and corp fin experience at a Fortune 500 wasn't enough. All my other experience was in research. I did two things: 1) Extended my program for two more years working towards a Masters in Fin/Eco; this gave me a justification to my employers and helped me apply for SA roles. 2) Landed a Capital Markets internship on a derivatives desk for my first summer, then worked at a boutique consulting firm (specialising in fin advisory) on my second summer. I'm now finishing off my 2nd year with a full time job at a Big Financial Institution, in a role I like, plus I got a graduate degree.
2 years ago it wasn't such a happy space.
I guess extend your degree to a Masters and then keep retrying and don't let others discourage you! Micheal Jordon didn't make his school's basketball team ;)
Good luck!
Why are you trying to break into the hardest jobs like IBD/S&T? It's quite obvious now you don't have the experience to break in. Cold networking doesn't always work, believe me I've tried. It's time to shoot for less competitive positions like Big 4 Audit/Tax and possibly Advisory, MO functions like Risk, Treasury, Controllers and shoot for boutique IBD shops, real estate boutiques, F500 fldps, commercial banking, etc. Get your ass out of your head or else you won't have anything when you graduate. Btw, finding a job is 100x harder out of college without OCR. Don't get to that point.
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