What was your experience like after graduation?
Just curious... For you older monkeys out there, what were your experiences like after graduation?
There's so many routes beyond the conventional "find a job".
What I heard from some people networking:
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Take time off to pursue an MBA
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Take a couple months off to travel
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Go through a rough patch of 1-3 month of not finding anything
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Joining a service organization like AmeriCorps and the like
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Skip job hunting altogether and run their own business
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Continue working at a firm that they interned with
So tell me...what was your experience after you took the plunge into the real world?
Go through a rough patch of 1-3 month of not finding anything
I took an unpaid internship to start directly AFTER graduation for four months while working at a gas station in the PM prior to getting an offer with the company I am at now. That's what you get for fucking around in school.
I am in the exact same boat. How did you leverage that internship to other opportunities?
a) it was something to put on my resume. b) it was decent experience that I was able to spin in to good experience and learn the "deal process" and basic intro to financial modeling
I started in retail, it was a waste of my time & my college degree.
How did you get back into the game?
MSF, which took my student loan debt from like 10k to roughly 70k. Shoulda just taken undergrad more seriously (not that my GPA was bad).
Join the US ARMY reserves. And, then get a job.
took a few months to breathe, traveled, interned, spent time with friends still in college (i graduated a bit early) etc etc
Do this, OP. if you don't have a job at graduation and you've never done it, do it. Great stuff. you can do 3-4 weeks .
This. Even if you do have a job, you should have some time off before it starts. Take advantage of it.
It's much easier to travel, sleep in hostels, do cool/weird stuff when you're this age than at any other time. You'll definitely look back at those times with fondness while you're crushing spreadsheets and eating a soggy sandwich at your desk.
My firm had a June start for the first time in history for my class and due to my school having a late graduation date I had to miss senior week. Fucking blowed and I'm still salty about it.
Backpacked Europe for 2 months.
Jumped right into sales. First 6 months was like jumping into the deep side of the pool.
Manager is really on you when you are working on big deals.
Oh man. That's what I want to do but in IT.
Have any advice for the first year?
IT is straight forward. Jump into a BDR role and go from there.
you may have to start at a small shop cold calling yr 1 and slowly make your way up to enterprise.
It was weird.. Going into my final semester I only needed about 6 credits to graduate, so I moved back home and took online class at community college rather than paying another semester of tuition. I worked mon-thurs at my old internship and took my online classes at night, which was total bullshit and an easy A. Usually every other Thursday I would go back to school to hang out with my friends for the weekend. Then once I officially graduated in May I left my internship because I didn't want to work there FT. Ended up getting a call from a recruiter around Mid June for a back office job and regretfully accepted. About 3 months in I knew I was barely going to make it the 1 year mark without jumping out the window, so I took a 2 week vacation in March and traveled all around Europe with my kinda girlfriend, which was sweet. I quit In September and now I don't know what to do with my life. So it goes.
Had ~6 months off, slept in every day and enjoyed time with friends and family. (I moved away from everyone I know).
Got married and moved to the west coast, began building a network while working a part time job. Had almost no connections at first, but persistence always pays off.
I graduated from college in the spring of 2008, so I took one look out the window at the End of Times, shit my pants in terror, and escaped to a graduate engineering program instead of trying to find a full-time job.
In between college and grad school, I spent two weeks road-tripping, interned at a medical device startup, worked out to try and keep my baseball career alive, got in a bike wreck and cracked a few vertebrae and ended my efforts to try and keep my baseball career alive, and had Shaun Alexander try to get me to join his church.
YMMV, I guess.
Traveled for 2 months to South America, then came back and worked at a grocery store until I found a job as a cost estimator at a F500.
Shit sandwiches was my experience.
If you can travel, take a crack at starting something, or spend time pursuing something you've always wanted to do but never had the time to, do it.
Nothing extravagant or profound. Just tied up loose-ends before moving on to the next chapter of life.
Graduated in Dec. 2014, then in April 2015 started my MBA in finance... now, 1 year in M&A department. For each person life takes a different route. I have tons of unemployed friends, here in Brazil things are scary. Finding what you really like to do I think is during a real experience. Travel, do your internships, then in a daily routine you will check what you hate and love
I secured my job in the spring and spent four months traveling throughout Europe. I was reaching for the stars and interviewed at a few places because I really wanted to land a FT analyst gig on the buy-side. Long story short, I got a call while standing in front of the Colosseum on a sunny day with the HR lady telling me that I got the offer. I'll never forget that!
Traveled around Asia doing whatever the F I wanted for 6 months and ooh boy what I would give to go back to that time
Re: taking a couple months off to travel
Serious question: how is this financially possible, especially for people with student loans? You can't just go to the bank and take out a loan to backpack Europe, can you?
(I ask because I would love to do it.)
Everyone obviously has a different budget, but with some planning and creativity you can easily plan a trip for under $1000 or even $500.
Europe would be on the pricier side, but North/South America are totally in the realm of possibility for someone on a budget. Look for cheap flights or even consider a road trip.
Check out South America on a Shoestring or lonelyplant for ideas
Going on 7 months of unemployment, monotonous days, life coming to a screeching halt, rambling on WSO instead of reddit as a way of keeping that "finance focus" and not fall complacent with the current state of thinds. The usual.
The lack of success in this thread is shockingly different for WSO. It's refreshing.
.
GPA was poor so grad school was not immediately an option. At some point in college I felt hopeless and trapped, gave up, mind was not on academics, and just started drifting. Accepted C's as good enough because I could pass and the upper level sciences were rough, at the same time, I didn't have the cojones to tell my stubborn parents, who did a lot to push me into the science field I had no passion for, that this science degree will lead nowhere. Thought that if I graduate with a degree, I mean it was in the sciences (life sciences), then at least I would have some options.
Moved back home with parents after graduating college and it was hell. Parents had pushed me into a science major that wasn't very employable, kept me in it even though my grades were low, but then got mad at me when I could not find a job after college.
I ended up finding temp work at a local research lab that paid just a little over minimum wage while looking at other options. All the while, friends that majored in accounting, finance, and more employable majors were getting jobs in big cities and growing up fast. I was living at home with parents, miserable, fighting, but eventually it got to the point where they no longer bothered to push me in any direction. At some point, I started standing up to them and they backed off.
Realized that at the age of 24, time was not on my side so I better get some sort of a plan going. Came on this site asking how a guy like me could get into IB, got a nice dose of reality as that section of the site hazed me. Made some other post about recovering from a low GPA in undergrad and found some good options in it. Spent my off time coding and looking for entry level roles in business.
Soon I am going to be 26 but it feels better now that I have a plan to get out of the house and get a career going in something I like, a more business related role because lab work is driving me insane.
Now I am still doing temp lab work as I attempt to break into sales, looking for that first entry level sales gig. I've had a few promising interviews and feel that some should fall through.
I've had a rough time ever since graduating but I will remember those rough depressing times any time I get lazy at my job, really feel that they will push me to work hard and do the best I can possibly do to avoid them.
Eventually I'll try to get into some sort of graduate program if I feel like I truly want to break into finance.
Moral of the story, the sooner you take control of your life (however tough it might be), the better off you'll be!
Sup man.
Entry level sales jobs are pretty easy to get. I was in a similar situation to yours and was thinking of sales, so I sent out some applications. Business Development Roles are pretty easy to get, and they're posted all over linkedin. One click apply all day on everything and you'll def get some interviews. The role itself is cold call intensive, but they have a ok base pay and you can make a bunch in commission.
I got a pretty useless bachelor of arts degree in college with a mediocre gpa. Interned at a ton of nonprofits. I realized right before senior year that this path was fun while my parents foot the bills, but it would be pretty depressing living on my own on less than 40k.
I applied everywhere. Mostly got dinged but 1 insurance company came through. And so it was written, I was going to be a monkey.
After Graduation (Originally Posted: 01/06/2008)
I will be graduating this May, and have had a couple I-banking interviews. None of them have turned into full time offers, and being from a non-target we only had those few banks come on campus. I am determined to get into the securities industry (IBD, S&T, ER, etc.), even if it takes some time.
My question is, do any MM banks hire graduates as interns? This will allow me to 1)See if I like banking or trading 2)Leverage it into a full time offer down the road.
If not, does anyone know if there are any MM banks still hiring analysts (Chicago is where I would like to end up). Thanks you for your help.
Although I wouldn't rely too heavily on it, changes happen and spots become available up until the actual start date. I know one of our current analysts got hired in the spring before his start because we liked him, so we made a spot for him. Keep up your search as any bank, regardless of a class being full, could potentially take you on.
As far as hiring graduates as an intern, I don't know how common this is. Some boutiques certainly do it (I worked alongside a 25yr old intern who turned his internship into a full time offer). I haven't heard of it happening too often otherwise though.
Awesome, thanks CompBanker... The dream lives on
I know of several people who got hired at boutiques in the spring of 2006 when they already had most of their full-time hires... and some of these hires were sourced in VERY random ways, e.g. job boards, Vault, online resumes, etc. while banks do not normally use.
It is a bit more difficult now that we are approaching a recession, but I would continue to pursue opportunities, especially at middle-market/boutiques because:
1) Middle-markets/boutiques haven't been hit as hard by the credit crunch/downturn/end of big LBOs. 2) They tend to hire more people from non-traditional backgrounds.
Where to start after graduation (Originally Posted: 01/27/2015)
About to graduate from a non target school where should i begin to get into IB?
get a job?
Obviously but I wanted to know if there was a certain position that is best to aim for?
how about one in investment banking? whats your gpa? at least get a job in finance
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