Hello, wondering what my options are?
Hello everyone,
Pretty much my entire career up to the present time has been about making short-term decisions which were often profitable at first, drudgery in the middle, and confusing shock in the end, and I just want to know how to revert to the mainstream. I'll begin my story quite early. I was an early high achiever (1500/1600 SAT) and went to a top public school. Needing to finance my education, I took the job that paid the most- private tutor. I took as many students as I could and performed so well in my job that I was promoted to assistant director. While I was making much more than my classmates and could even indulge (renting an apartment instead of a room) while paying for my education, I was burning the midnight oil every day. My grades dropped, but I did manage to graduate on time with a 2.6 in Biology which I chose for its easiness.
I realized that most of my classmates were going to long-term careers with great promotion prospects while I was just working tirelessly in a company that couldn't ever get big. I had made the classic eat the marshmallow now and lose the two marshmallows later mistake. Almost everyone who looked at my resume told me I should be an entrepreneur. No one wanted to verify the details of my accomplishments. I realized that putting down any big name company was better than "self-employed", a euphemism for unemployed. It is easy to go from an institution to an entrepreneur but not the other way around. My wants in life had changed. I wanted to work at a bank because of my mathematical ability and compatibility with the culture, and I wanted to be in a cubicle and enjoy the company of colleagues, cocktail dinners, and not explain to every single person I met that yes, I am making money, I am not saying I'm self-employed to explain unemployment. I also found that pretty much every mortgage/loan required a stable job. While I didn't lack money for everyday costs or even cash for a car, saving cash for a house was more than a little hard.
I decided to go to business school for an MBA (700 gmat score without studying, but who would know?), but the only one that would accept me was ranked 50-70 on the FT. I saw it as redemption, and I attended a double-degree program. Unfortunately, the work experience (tutored, managed employees, ya da da) came back to haunt me. Now it was even harder to apply for a bank job. I assume that most banks saw me as "overqualified" for an analyst, and a little poor on the experience level for associate. I decided to take a break, and work for my family's company. I made a series of investment choices on borrowed money that was quite good, increasing the company's prospects greatly. But I was another two years behind and now, I have the following...
-4 years of experience working my fingers off at a tutoring company that no longer exists
-MBA double degree at two programs ranked 50-70
-two years of managing family company which has done very well
Now, I am quite financially secure but unhappy and unfulfilled in life. Every new person I met has called me out for being "unemployed", "eccentric", or worse. My goals are
-Work at a larger commercial/corporate bank. I just want the chance to prove myself. Salary could be 0 for all I care. As long as it's not the teller, but if that will get me points, I am willing to do that
-Work at another job in the financial sector such as Asset Management with a larger company.
I thought of
-taking the CFA® -offering "100% guarantee or your money back"
-sweet cover letter about wanting to serve coffee and buy cigarettes for bankers just to know them. (yes there is someone who successfully got a job this way, search Google)
-open a bar near a bank, run it successfully to prove my self-employment skills are for real