Mia Culpa
Hi guys, first time poster, I'm going to try and keep this short, not make it my life story. In a nutshell, I am a non target graduate with limited options. Went to a partying state school (think top 10 as far as chics go) and did just that, partied for 3 and a half yrs. prior to that I attended a local uni for 2 yrs (screwed up there so I transferred). Graduated last December double majoring in finance and economics (3.2 at state school, 2.98 overall since I messed up badly at local uni). I learned about IB pretty late (last semester of senior yr) and since I graduated the job search has been brutal (have a few interviews coming up, none that look to pay more than 45k yearly) with only 1 f500 corp fin chance (screwed up the phone interview). I have literally no work experience except a brief stint at w-mart and as a cashier in HS. Essentially, I am the bottom of the barrel when it comes to ppl on this site (which I started reading a few days ago). I honestly wasn't ready for college and my parents didn't go to uni in the US, being the first born I was basically the test subject. Now u have the negatives.
As for the positives, I do well on standardized testing (2000+ SAT 1 try minimal studying), I have almost no student debt (11000), I live in a low COL area (Texas), and my parents are very supporting (though I don't deserve it). I got that 3.2 going to about 30-40% of lectures! basically I'm saying I'm not dumb just lazy.
My goal moving forward is to basically erase the stink of under-achievement from my life forever. I want to break into IB but it isn't as important to me as staying in this low COL area (corporate and commercial banking as well as high paying corp fin would be fine with me). In my opinion, what is the point of making 120 k in NY if u save as much of it as someone making 50k in Texas. I have been assessing my options (law, going back and doing engr, msf) and decided I want to pursue finance to the fullest, while staying in Texas, thus saving enough income to start my own business (idc wat it is but I do know I have no intention of working for someone for the rest of my life) hopefully by 32, I am 24 now. I didn't apply for fall MSF programs because I need work experience to effectively recruit during MSF but I am currently studying for the CFA while mastering excel. I am basically posting this for advice on how to continue with the directive I am already set upon.
Now I know I deserve no sympathy for lazing through uni, I'm not asking for it, but for the elitist trolls, understand that negative comments towards my post won't phase me, so don't bother, or do, it's whatever. I am really looking for constructive advice; constructive criticism is also welcome.
It's "mea culpa"
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Thanks but it wont let me change it lol
Here's my impression:
Stop deferring, man up, and take some responsibility for the way you've been living your life.
... and a litany of other excuses.
A CFA won't improve your resume. Not for the entry-level positions you are seeking. You shouldn't pay for a MSF if you're only going to attend "30-40% of the lectures."
You graduated last December and have been unemployed for 4 months.
What are you doing right now? It doesn't matter if you're waiting tables or picking up garbage, you need to get a job.
Post your resume here: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/Resume-Review
That's a start.
I don't really know how much you've changed, to be honest. It's hard to gauge much about someone from one post on the internet, but it doesn't seem promising.
You seem to think that attending less lectures yet maintaining a 3.2 GPA somehow makes you intelligent and therefore more qualified. Getting a high score on the SATs without studying also means nothing. First off, a score of 2000 only puts you in the top 10%. If the top ten percent of applicants were accepted at BBs, that would be like an intern department instead of an intern program.
A 3.2 is not the end of the world, but a bad attitude is. If you're not willing to work hard and dedicate yourself, you will not get hired. For instance, a phone interview is pretty straight forward. There are very easy ways to prep for it. Search the company on GlassDoor, for instance, and look at the previous interview questions. Practice mock interviews with friends. Of course things happen, but you really should not be screwing up a phone interview. From what you've posted about your undergraduate experience, I'm assuming you were simply under prepared for it, which is inexcusable.
Most work you will be doing, unless you somehow make it to a significant seniority, will be grunt work. It will require next to no thinking, fifth grade algebra, and a third grader's reading ability. It is more important to exhibit qualities of a hard worker than someone inherently intellectual. Here's a good quote for this situation: Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.
You need to prove to people that you are hard working. That is THE most important thing. If you are not in a financial death spiral, I would suggest looking for some unpaid work, even if it's just a month or so. It will give you the experience you need and the evidence that you have changed. You can get a great letter of rec and possibly be recruited full time from whatever company decides to hire you. I'm not sure how simple it would be to find unpaid work at 24 post undergrad, but it's worth a try and I think the best option for you.
Solidarity, I appreciate the candid response and advice. I am currently unemployed but looking, I get about 1 job opportunity a week. I apologize if I was coming off as making excuses, I understand my predicament is of my own doing, hence the title "mea culpa" (through my own fault). I do not plan on going to less than half my classes if I do an MSF. I understand the importance of the MSF in my situation which is why I want to be in a strong position when I apply in order to get the best admission possible, leading to my fall 2015 decision instead of 2014. again, thanks for the response.
Sorry for the misspellings, iPad and it's autocorrect. Also, I don't think I'm overly intelligent, I'm just not dumb, and the reason I posted my sat was to inform u guys I can probably do well in my GMAT so all is not lost as far as grad school. I can assure u my experiences since I graduated have been sobering, change is not a sudden but gradual process and I hope to continue changing. Also, I wish I could get even unpaid work, in fact, I'd welcome it. I was nervous for the phone interview, I can assure you, I've been better prepared since that screw up.
Everyone replying to you thus far are a bunch of tools, don't listen to them. I get that you're offering up what they're referring to as "excuses" in order to signal that you're not dumb and you can be high achieving if you apply yourself. You have to understand the people posting on these forums (and working in this industry) have measured their entire lives in balances of GPA points and standardized test scores and the idea that someone can be less than stellar in these measures and still be very capable rocks them to the very core of their being.
Tangent aside...
I have nearly an identical background to you, except my GPA was slightly higher and my SAT was meaningfully lower (score was in the 50-60th percentile maybe), and I graduated with a huge chunk of debt... and I graduated at the opening coin toss of the financial crisis. I ended up working my way to banking and then to PE, where most of the fuckers that went to Wharton/Princeton and then Goldman and are now judging you for typos and low SAT scores got rejected. Having done that last step, I finally felt I had gotten rid of the taint of underachievement, as you alluded to as well. Free from the burden of proving something to myself, I went on to do something completely different.
Back to you. Can you get into banking? As in do you have the ability to, yes, absolutely. Will you? I don't know. That comes down to personality and determination. I will say that banking is very competitive to get into. You're competing with very driven and focused people. I would not call them smart. Some are, some aren't. The median is of average intelligence and through social/societal pressure and ambition they focus all of their actions towards achieving something (e.g., getting a banking offer) and they succeed. Once you're in banking, you see how truly dumb some of these people are. They've graduated from the world's most elite institutions with near perfect GPAs, they're working at preeminent firms on Wall Street and they can't intuitively do something unless they're handed a syllabus explained how to do it and what is expected of them. And they're just plain dumb.
Banking is not difficult to do. What will determine if you break in or not is whether or not you are driven to the same (preferably higher) degree as the guy next to you and if you have the discipline and determination to focus your efforts towards that singular goal, no one can tell you the answer to that and you won't know the answer to it until you try it. You'll go through rough patches and re-assess whether this is what you really want or not, as others will also, some will decide it is and some will decide its not.
Lastly, practical advice... get some/any type of finance experience. Network, network, network. Friends and family, alumni network, cold calls, trade associations. Teach yourself corporate finance, financial analysis and modeling. There are tons of free resources out there. It may not seem like it, but you're at an advantage in Texas. In NY you have so many alpha, super-drive Wharton/NYU-types trying to break-in, in Texas its much more low intensity. If you're very hungry and driven and sharp, it'll be much easier to differentiate yourself and break-in.
silver banana to u sir. great advise for any kid reading this site. It's all about perseverance and dedication to make it any where in life
I get so hard reading posts like this. Fuck this is beautiful.
This is gold. SB'ed after reading the first paragraph.
Start networking your ass off.
CFA isn't very helpful in banking so if that's what you want to do, don't waste your money.
MSF or get involved in a case competition if there's one in your area.
Get a finance related job, even if you have to leave Texas.
Also, if you have a business you want to start, why not just start working on that now?
You want to stay in TX and make good money? Why not try oil and gas? Get a job at an oil co in a finance role and work your way up. My buddy started as a land man and is now backed by a PE fund to buy up leases.
Halberstrom is a ledge, take this as the most valuable advice you'll read on this thread.
I was in a similar situation; here was my path:
May not happen overnight, but there is certainly a path to get there if you are willing to take the time and set intermediate goals.
Tech banker I wish it were that easy to get into O&G. I have applied to Valero, Tesoro, Enterprise product partners, Sunoco, Entergy, Cameron, NRG, Phillips 66, direct energy, genscape, enervest, spectra energy, DCP Midstream and a few others for mostly financial analyst roles, a few on trade support and risk. I don't even get rejection emails, got 1 interview (35k...). Idk if I'm approaching it the wrong way b/c I'm applying online but idk how else to do it. OG OCR at my school was for engr. there are very few (talking less than 30) OG finance people from my school on LinkedIn. If you or a friend have advice on how to break in id be happy to hear it.
Marcus, your post gives me hope, but how can I best network with limited alumni being where I want to go? Should I pay for the extra stuff on LinkedIn? How do I go about getting contacts to cold call/email? As for free modeling courses I'd appreciate some links, I'd rather not pay half a grand for Wall Street Prep. Basically how do YOU guys network so well? Full disclosure, I'm black so idk how this affects networking.
P.s. I totally agree with u about high gpa not meaning you're intelligent or even knowledgeable, I had a gf that finished near 4.0 undergrad and masters in engr (works for a top oil company now) and if I asked her who Doug Christie is she'd most likely be dumbfounded.
"I don't even get rejection emails, got 1 interview (35k...)." Does this mean you received an offer but don't want to work for $35k?
What a dumb broad. Those early 2000s Kings teams were the stuff of legend.
"I want to break into IB but it isn't as important to me as staying in this low COL area (corporate and commercial banking as well as high paying corp fin would be fine with me).”
This is my sentiment too: I want to always stay in Texas. Right out of school, with two insurance underwriting internships, I worked for a couple of years in two non-banking related positions low paying entry level positions to pay back student loans and after 6 months of applications landed an interview at Comerica. I didn’t get the credit analyst position but called the interviewer to ask him if he would meet with me briefly to give career and interviewing advice. I wanted to get advice from an interviewer’s perspective regarding what parts of my resume I should emphasize in commercial banking credit analyst interviews. He agreed to meet. He gave interviewing advice and put me in contact with one of his other banker friends whom he worked with at Comerica who was looking for an analyst but had not posted the position anywhere. I got that position and worked there for a year. Towards the end of this tenure I reached out once again to a corporate banking credit analyst at a BB whom I had met a year earlier and bought lunch for in exchange for interviewing advice. At that time I had no relevant experience. After a year in commercial banking, I sent him an email and it so happened that his bank was in the process of accepting applications. Since I had been on so many interviews and now had a year of relevant commercial banking experience, the interview went well, and I accepted the offer at the BB. This path is not best for IB, but is how I broke in to CB. If I were you, I would recommend applying for commercial credit analyst positions if you have at least 12 hours of accounting. If not, try starting as a teller and moving up to credit analyst after a year. I did not attend a target either and had to learn early that no job was beneath me, but taking the initiative to learn and networking hard will allow you to rise from your current plight.
Non offer as I'd have taken it, just saying it wasn't a prestigious oil job like me just saying I got an interview would've implied. About credit analyst roles, my 590 score (don't really have credit) is dinging me. Doing my best to rectify that error, as well.
After reading all this OP, you sound so god damn entitled. You should be attending ALL lectures assuming you get into a masters program. This post pisses me off. You scoff at anything lower than $40K, but your statistics are bad and you have no marketable experience except being a WalMart cashier. Why should a company hire -- let alone pay -- you? I mean come on. Also, $35K in Texas goes a long way (I know because I lived there for a bit) and you can grind for a few years, kick ass, then progress onwards. Mountains aren't climbed in a day.
My advice: Google the word "humility". Think about t, study it, practice it, use it.
Broadstbully I have no idea how u think I sound entitled but it's whatever. Why are u talking about money? I would take an unpaid internship at this point. Hanky, good job on catching my Chris Christie miss.
Of course you don't. Looking at each of your posts in this thread, each job opportunity you list is classified by the starting salary. Nothing about career development, job quality, etc. It's just "corp fin job (35k)..." Also, your user name "paidoff" refers to money. Then the false sense of entitlement continues by saying you'll only attend "more than half of the lectures"....?
This might not be correct, but you come off as the type to stay up all night watching the Wolf of Wall Street, sleep all day, dream about money, then wake up and have inaccurate representations about the steps you need to take in order to achieve these dreams.
I don't sense the hunger to succeed at whatever cost; I see a "please give me a COL-adjusted high paying entry level job because I can do a good job while being lazy" attitude. Humble yourself, sell yourself to anyone in the financial industry who will give you a shot, then kick ass at whatever the position, whatever the starting salary.
Best of luck. Not here to bust your balls. PM me if you want some more specific advice.
Dude can u read? I said I attended half my classes in UNDERGRAD (haven't even applied to masters programs). how the hell am I supposed to classify a job in terms of culture and work/life when I've only been to 1 interview there, is this a joke? Me speaking dollars and cents is me trying to give ppl exactly what I'm working with, AND I ALRDY SAID ID TAKE THE JOB IF OFFERED (I wasn't). Again, is this a joke?
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