Is it bad that I try to steer students to IB?
Whenever a student asks me for career advice and they are looking to go into business, my instant reaction is IB (or consulting). I always tell them to try and get IB internships or top consulting internships for the exit opps. in that it's well respected and they could certainly move to a different business field come FT.
Even if they're looking for accounting or marketing, I always always tell them to try IB or go into IB because it will set them up for better exit. opps. and they could always do accounting or marketing later on if they so chose. I really try and hammer this exit opportunity thing into their head and it always surprises me when they don't know what exit opportunity means or don't seem to care about it as much.
So far no one has caught on from my advice so I'm wondering if it's their loss or if I just need to really get it underneath their skin and then perhaps they'll thank me later? While not everyone in business may have the passion or guts for IB, I see no other reason not to pursue it if you're in business.
I recently finished my freshman year and I can pretty much confirm the general lack of direction and knowledge of most kids there. The majority work in any fast food joint for their summers, a-lot don't even know internships exist..I would hate to be a junior with BK summer experience being my only proof of competence. Generally, most kids declare a major in their 3rd year - they pretty much procrastinate, which also leads to a lack of relevant internships. In short, it's their loss - they chose to allocate 90% of their time to play when they should have allocated 40%.
I wish that one of my undergraduate advisors had suggested this. So keep on suggesting it and maybe one of them will take your advice.
I completely agree--I do the same thing...especially bc banking internships are respected by most bc of how hard they are to get and how hard you need to work....but its very hard to convince someone to do this when they are dead set on becoming a billionaire at age 23 making video games
one of my buddies really wanted to do consulting for a summer gig... i really pushed him for IB and told him to try it for a summer...
needless to say, he dove right in, starting studying his ass off, and now has a SA with a top, elite boutique; oh and he's from a semi-target (had to go through connections for the elite boutique interview). keep encouraging students... they just need someone to show them the big picture. It's also good for the future too as they will most likely introduce you to people that they've met or in the firms/groups they're in.
No its a horrible idea. People need to do what they choose to do. They need to do something they are passionate about. Fill their head with stories about MD bonuses and they will force themselves to try IB for the wrong reasons. And even if they make it into IB (and avoid getting laid off) there's still a good chance their work life won't be as fulfilling as it could have been.
Dude not everyone has a MD father to teach them about IB. Someone has to explain what IB is to a student who might only know he wants to do "business" or "finance".
this.
Fuck no PJC, makin' it harder for me to get those internships. I don't want to miss out cause some quant fuck with a triple major in finance, economics and trigonometric calculatory addition applied for the same position. Asshole.
:-p
Disagree. IB (and to a lesser extent, trading) is for people who want to rent their souls for a paycheck. It's a good place to be if you like money.
If you:
-Want a family. -Like free time. -Believe your 20's aren't overrated. -Are happy making five figures in your twenties.
There's no REAL reason to do IB. My Dad is a CPA. He could make it in banking if he really wanted to, but he's happy he only has to work 40 hours/week outside of tax season. He makes more money than most analysts and associates (maybe less than some NYC VPs), and he managed to make it to all of my family's birthdays and most of our sports games. Being a partner at a large CPA firm and focusing on tax stuff is a very nice lifestyle outside of February-April and October.
I think someone in treasury at an F500 company who is raising three well-adjusted kids is a heckuvalot more successful than an I-Banker who's had three divorces and is miserable, but that's just me. Life isn't all about money or a career. Everybody has their own philosophical/religious views about the most important thing in life, but I know that what's second-most important is probably a tie between learning new things and having healthy relationships. After you graduate and get away from parents insisting on their kids being a success and classmates judging you by where you land, career doesn't even breach the top 5 most important things, and it might not even make the top ten.
I just dove two wrecks this weekend in 50 degree water. To me, FINALLY figuring out how to hover in a drysuit was a much bigger accomplishment than anything that I did during the week. Other 25 year olds will talk about different stuff (hiking, marathons, maybe even watching their baby take some of its first steps), but you'll find that most 25-year-olds in banking who still have a few marbles left will be talking about something besides work as the highlight of their week or month.
Not saying average life is a bad thing, its just not for everyone.
If you think you need banking to avoid a "mediocre" life, banking will likely only make you more miserable. Spend a few years away from the other college kids judging people solely by where they land and figure out what really makes life mediocre. I think a mediocre life is defined more by mediocre relationships, mediocre experiences, and mediocre learning than anything else. In other words, you can just as easily have a mediocre life in banking as you can anywhere else. If anything, the lack of free-time makes a mediocre life all the more likely in banking.
lol @ trigonometric calculatory addition
the freshman members of the finance club don't even know what an investment bank is, these kids nowadays would rather sleep/cruise facebook than prepare for the future
you realize how ridiculous this sounds? they are 18-19yrs old, they SHOULD be focused on social entrepreneurial activities. it's how you find out where your real interests and motivations come from.
TRUTH! If I hadn't been stalking this one chick's page that was a total slampiece and into my twitter posts about how awesome lax is, I never would have learnt how to value a real estate company!
I also never would have known that she 'h8s finals', she LUVS Ke$ha, and her favorite book is The Giver
Oh, deary me! Kids try and have actual social lives instead of preparing to slave at an investment bank since freshman year!
You develop yourself and your interests throughout college and find what you are passionate about. If you are dead-set on banking since freshman year, great. Just know that there are some extremely smart kids out there who aren't sure what they want to do. I understand you need to prepare and craft a resume and relevant experience throughout college, but you sound like a dork if you look down on people who haven't spent as much time learning about finance, especially freshman.
10 times out of 10 I'd rather talk to a kid trying to learn more about the industry and about current financial/macroeconomic issues than someone who shits on his peers for not knowing the advanced dupont model. Get real.
I advise students to do what they want. Money isn't everything. I spoke to an old classmate yesterday who ended up becoming a Zookeeper at Bush Garden and she loves every second of feeding baby Giraffes and picking up Rhino poop, even if she is 28 years old barely touching 40k.
If someone approaches me with a genuine interest in IB; the first thing I advise them is to do their homework on the industries they'd want to work in, the hours and the REAL salaries. The norm, not the exception. You have to put in some serious blood, sweat and tears before you get to the "models n bottles at the pink elephant every Saturday without having to wait in line" status.
Although IB can be a great stepping stone, I wouldn't suggest it to anyone unless that had a genuine interest in the markets, or were obsessed with making money. Other than that, how does it really help you. If you're a marketing or accounting type person, taking a job at P&G or a Big 4 accounting firm is probably a better bet for your career than Wall Street.
I do regret not pursuing IB as much as I should have when I was in school, but that's because investing was where my passion lied. I aced all my finance and investment courses and slacked on the rest. People swore I was going to make it to Wall Street, but with a 3.0 in undergrad and 3.3 in grad school, it wasn't in the works for me. I didn't care much because I thought a nice cushy Fortune 500 finance job would make me happy, but it hasn't worked out that way. Looking back, I would have done whatever it took to get in on a AM or ER position. I would have busted my ass and studied until my eyes bled if need be. But here I am now, working on shitty forecast templates I have no say over and still having to make fucking journal entries every monthly close. So I feel like I'm the guy who would have benefitted from your advice. Not the marketing schmuck or accounting geek.
I don't advise my students I teach them stuff.
I just received a summer internship offer, but when talking to other friends (students) about job/internship searching it amazes me how little they actually do. I dont push people towards IB because that is what I want to do but to do what THEY want, and if they really want something to work for it.
Even the finance friends that I talk to barely know what I-Banking really is. Well, in general, it could be a lot of things, but most think investment management/advisory.
Besides that, when I talk about how I networked with a few bankers that went to my school to either gain knowledge or an edge in getting an interview, they were floored and said "how did you even think of doing that and talking to someone?" I havent networked to the extent that 90% of the people on here have. Only sent a few emails and met with a couple of bankers. (There were only a few people from my school that I actually found in the area that had graduated from my school) This is 99% more than others that I have talked to at my school, though.
CLIFF NOTES: Most either dont care or dont have the drive, passion, or balls to network/go out and get the jobs or experience that they want.
I wish I had you for an advisor, not the dumbass bitch I had back in school. Who knows, at 23 I would have been working at a Bank rather than just finishing my first year of University.
Totally agree on drilling in the importance of exit opps. I wished I had someone drill me about things like internships, IB, exit opps. I had to set myself unto the right path on my own.
A zookeeper doesn't need exit opps if they enjoy their job. Neither does an accountant. Optionality never hurts, but if you are planning on spending the better part of your twenties in an industry you are trying to escape, that might not be the wisest course of action.
If we're lucky, most of us have another 60 years on this planet. If we're lucky, 30 of those years will be spent without too many wrinkles and will allow us to most of what we could do in college. Do you really want to spend 5% of your remaining time on this planet in an industry you are trying to get "exit opps" from? Life is too short to spend three years in an industry you wouldn't enjoy staying in. That's if we're lucky- that's assuming we'll be perfectly healthy in three years. So you really have to ask yourself, "Is this what I REALLY want to do?"
I can say yes to that, but us quants have much better lifestyles than bankers. We only have to work 55 hours/week. I could be working 40 hours/week at Google, but then I wouldn't be able to afford to do all of the fun stuff in the other 110 hours of my life that I do now. If you don't enjoy those 90 hours of your week as a banker as much as you would enjoy the 50 hours you'd spend at an F500 firm along with the extra 40 hours of free time you'd get, you should think a lot harder about that free time.
Not everybody wants the same thing, though.
So if you wanted nothing to do with IB, how would you feel if some advisor kept pushing you to do shit you didnt want to do.
I do the same, its either banking/trading/CPG marketing or consulting. Beyond that I stop listening if they are not interested in it. Some love the idea and get right into it, some freak out when they hear about the hours or how much you have to sacrifice for these hard interviews.
I lived with 3 engineers during school, they always were shocked how much time i had to spend prepping for interviews alot of people do not have what it takes.
I dont prep much for interviews. Then again, im not interviewing at BBs, so most MM and Boutiques dont focus on technicals.
I figured out how my story was gonna go and just went with the flow. Most of the time we just had conversations and talked about other things outside of school and my previous work experience which had nothing to do with finance.
In the end, I got an offer for an internship.
I dont prep much for interviews. Then again, im not interviewing at BBs, so most MM and Boutiques dont focus on technicals. I do know some if I had to answer, though.
I figured out how my story was gonna go and just went with the flow. Most of the time we just had conversations and talked about other things outside of school and my previous work experience which had nothing to do with finance, but most of my interviewers were really interested in.
In the end, I got an offer for an internship.
I don't see anything wrong with what the OP is doing. It's a suggestion, they can either take it or leave it, and if they land an internship with a BB, they can decide whether or not they like it. If they don't like it, at least they learned at a very young age and can start networking into a different field. Working for a BB or even a boutique looks great on a resume, whether you're applying to investment banking positions or not.
An internship, sure. But working for any employer for just one year on a resume doesn't look good.
The notion that "Everybody should do IBD if they can get in" is largely responsible for the increasing number of FO letters we've seen over the past five years, IMHO. A respectable goal in life is to learn new things and make good friends. If you're miserable, something is wrong. IMHO, the laser-like focus that generation Y has had on success has created a lot of misery, and my prediction is that we will all have to go be Jesuit Priests, hobos, and ski bums later in life just to even things out.
I agree with you 100%. I interned at an investment management firm just outside of Philly over last summer and back again during Christmas break, where I researched stocks for 8 hours a day. I know that 8 hours a day is insignificant to most people on this board, but it was way too boring for me and I'm happy I learned that then.
The mediocre life was more aimed at the accountant bit, being a missionary/monk/ngo worker etc... anywhere is obviously far from mediocre and much more meaningful than almost any other job. Same goes for other high impact public services or academia.
also on the hour point, at any entrance level job you will have to work extremly hard if you want to go far in the given field, comparing senior partner hours to entrance level is bad.
Defining mediocrity is difficult, we have to look at starting conditions as well. Coming from a wealthy background at a top 10 school to become an accountant I would consider mediocre, achieving the same feat coming from the working class from a much worse school is very respectable.
I didnt mean to put down accountant as a profession, I just think in terms of career achievement it is significantly below potential when coming from the countries top school.
Then we would need to define what makes a mediocre life, I do agree that most ibankers likely suffer the fate of tolstoi's Ilich, messed up relationships and a successful career.
I agree that an accountants relationships are likely much more fulfilled than an ibanker, but I would still argue they are mediocre compared to a social worker or teacher who forms strong bonds with people to help their lifes.
I would argue to avoid mediocrity you have to excel in a field, and this will naturally come at a cost. I don't think there is anything wrong with mediocrity in all fields as such, since you run into diminishing returns in any field its questionable whether its desirable to achieve greatness in any one field as the costs in other areas of life are naturally going to be huge.
@andreas:
Does excelling at homemaking count as excelling in a field? I make a mean apple pie, and my kid will have to find out what a blowjob feels like at some point in time...
(sorry for picking on you today, just happen to be an easy target for my douchebaggery)
Regardless of the fact that your aversion to "mediocrity" reflects a normative value judgement on your part with which I, and most Americans (who are happy to be "mediocre," known in a less pejorative sense as "average"), would disagree and take offence, your idea that working in banking will somehow avoid this fate is ridiculous. I know lots of bankers, from boutiques to BB's, from analysts to MD's, who are decidedly "average." Banking is a job, or if you happen to be doing it for more than "exit ops," a career; I know that most plumbers might say, "I'm a plumber," but I imagine that's not how they'd define themselves, and it's not how you should; or do you introduce yourself as "Dick the banker?"
Moving on to the OP, yes, if someone wants to work in business and asks you for advise, mentioning investment banking is reasonable, especially if they are unfamiliar with the industry; choice never hurts. Pushing them towards a particular career is in my opinion part of why you have so many analysts who hate their jobs; they never wanted them in the first place, but they went to a school where a FT banking offer was what your peers expected, and are consequently in a field simply because of peer pressure. If you wouldn't let someone else define what you wanted (well, judging by most of your fascinations with Lambos and G5's, that's probably not strictly true), why would you think you should do so for others?
Also, everything illinprogrammer has said is spot-on.
I am not arguing that mediocrity/being average/living a balanced life(whichever way you want to connotate it) is good or bad, that is a misuse of the word on my part then if it is interpreted as negative, and I do apologize for that.
What do you mean when you refer to bankers being decidedly average, in what respect? A 90 hour job that requires a decent amount of previous credentials to break in(on average, again networking can offset some of this) is hardly average. My point isnt that being a banker somehow makes you excel in all fields, of course you are average in so many areas and that is good. Just in terms of wealth and career you move relatively far away from the average. Henry Ford lived a very down to earth average life, he was still far away from average in career terms.
My argument is simply that banking is a way to avoid being average in the career field, if you want to proof to me that being a banker is equal to being a plumber in terms of career be my guest.
mas, well yeah you would not be average in the homemaking area and excel in that field, and if your goal is to excel in that field then thats what you should do.
If you die with all the riches in the world but your wife and kids hate you and nobody really cares that you've died except for pecuniary reasons, it's pretty fair to say that you've lost at the game of life. CC: Citizen Kane.
Yes. But if you take a look at John D. Rockefeller near the end of his life, he was totally miserable. All the money in the world couldn't make him feel happy or fulfilled. On the other hand, when my grandfather- a paper cup salesman- died (this was before I was born), he was content knowing that his family was still OK and that he had accomplished his mission in life (more than selling paper cups).You can gain the whole world in banking, and it still won't make much difference in the grand scheme of things. Maybe if you are lucky, you will be able to make the same mark as Ozymandias. I know what's important in the grand scheme of things- do you?
You can also drive an orange car to avoid being average. Or you can attach a 40-ft tower to your house (zoning commission permitting). There are many ways to avoid being average, and banking is a comparatively very small way of being not-average in a big picture sense. The point, though, is that visiting the Arctic and doing something crazy up there (IE: cross-country skiing, ice diving, feeding polar bears) is a much less time-consuming way of being not-average in the aggregate than just doing banking.Eccentricity is a much better way of being not-average in the aggregate than achievement. If anything, it's a lot easier to get into the history books today for eccentricity than it was 50 years ago, because achievement has gotten a much bigger focus today than it's had in the past.
Steering sounds a bit forced, but honestly I welcome your decision to inform others about the opportunities of IB and other related fields. So yes, the competition gets tougher now that far more people are applying, but let's hope it weeds out the wanna be bankers who are not serious about banking and would rather wax poetic about the "baller" groups at MS and GS.
Now, I need some steering. I got an offer a few weeks back to enter IB (I currently work at a top F500 firm). It's not at a BB, so I'm wondering if it makes more sense to stay at my company which everyone knows. Is IB experience respected, even if not from a BB?
It totally depends on what you want to do in the future, dude.
this is exactly why the unemployment rates for college grads is so high..its ignorance on their part and also on their parents
the problem is, even if most of these kids had parents who went to college 20-30 years ago, it was way different back then. yeah, an internship was helpful but if you spent 4 years working dog shit jobs during the summers in between college you could still land a decent paying gig out of school..even with a basket weaving degree
welcome to post 2008 america
if you don't have atleast 2 internships under your belt at the end of your college years, you will be about as employable as a high school drop out
i love how you say "Everybody has their own philosophical/religious views about the most important thing in life," and then go spewing bullshit that is entirely your own opinion. idga flying f about cross-country skiing, but that is my philosophical view. now enough with your crap.
You're 100% right. Any undergraduate should take an IB internship if possible. This isn't a long-term commitment, it's a 3-month commitment. Anyone can sign off 3 months of their life. Once you do, you'll have so many full-time opportunities in any field you want.
There's a difference between pursuing an undergraduate IB internship and pursuing a FT IB role.
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