utilizing mandarin in IB
having studied mandarin for the past four years, i am questioning my intentions in accepting a SA position stateside this summer vs pursuing asia. as a side note, i began studying mandarin with interest in diversifying myself from the masses of finance majors while learning about china as a growing power. however, i never originally had the intention to actually move to asia for work.
4 years later, beginning IB recruiting, i see extreme upside in exposing myself to physically locating myself in asia. come graduation in may of 2012, should i try to pursue a bank in shanghai/hk or should i stick to the US?. i'm worried that if i do not want to stay in asia forever i will face no exit opps coming from asia back to the us into private equity/hedge funds. i appreciate any advice.
The upside is not that extreme. Asian IB has matured to the extent that they don't really need Western-trained analysts to come in, enlighten them, and save the day. You're going to be competing with the best and brightest Chinese/HK kids who studied in the US and have better English than you do Chinese, especially if you're white and did not study abroad. They also have a network in Asia which you won't.
I'm an '08 grad, studied Chinese (white), did 2.5 years of M&A in Beijing and just moved back to the US with no exit opps in hand. There are certainly exit opps for China PE (no real HF industry in China just yet, only HK, with regulations just now allowing some hedge funds in China), but the US recruiters won't be calling you on the mainland, so you won't have the visibility back home that a Wall Street analyst would.
If you're genuinely interested in China, it's worth giving it a shot. If you think it will somehow put you ahead of everyone else, it won't, so don't bother. The transition back home will probably be a little awkward job-search-wise (I'm still looking but haven't had too much trouble finding decent leads and interviews), and you will for sure be at a disadvantage compared to the masses of finance majors who went to Wall Street. In the long run it may be advantageous as you become more senior, so the upside is likely greater than the downside, but early on it's not going to translate into much material advantage.
A lot of what you said has truth in it, but this line is such a load of bullshit it's incredible. Not only is their English not very good (except for the top 1%), but 99% of the HK kids' Mandarin is just pitifully bad (far worse than their English).
agree on HK's mandarin abilities but finance is flooded by mainlanders now
HK kids may have shitty spoken Mandarin, but their reading/writing will kick a white guy's up and down the street.
Most HK kids I met or worked with had great English -- not as good as mine, but certainly better than my Chinese was. Most mainlanders had worse English than my Chinese, but China is sending 25k+ undergrads to study in the US every year. A lot of them end up with pretty damn good English abilities, not just the top 1%.
Ditto Tracer - graduated from HYP a few years back with several years of Chinese under my belt and a pretty good GPA, didn't get many BB interviews, and found minimal interest in those interviews in my Mandarin.
If anything it ended up hurting me when applying for jobs in NYC, since interviewers often went after me for not applying to their Asian offices if I was so interested in China. (and to head off the trolling, I work at MBB now, so I'm pretty confident my resume and interviewing skills weren't at fault)
that ship has sailed.
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