Can't Find a Job in Investment Banking, Don't Know What To Do
hey guys,
I'll be completely honest, I'm feeling outmatched and like I'm going to get a shitty financial job and won't be able to accomplish my goal of becoming an Investment Banker. I really need some advice on what I should do. I truly feel as if I can't break into the IB industry because I'm underqualified. I recently graduated college from a decent college in MI because I had scholarship there, but it's not a very well ranked college. (Oakland University, MI)
I graduated with a 3.53 major GPA (Finance Major), Bachelor of Science in Finance
My work experience includes 1 year Financial Internship at an Automotive Engineering Firm. 7 Months as a Construction Project Manager for a Modular Exhibit Company. 4 Years as Project Controller for a small construction firm that my father owns.
Anyways, I have been applying for jobs and I don't think I'm landing anything that I truly want. I was offered a job as a Project Planner with a major utility company starting at $35 an hour which isn't bad, but I do not want to go into the energy industry. I want to become an Investment Banker and work my way up through wall street. I am applying to any IB internship I can find on the internet, but I'm simply not getting the calls for them wanting to interview me. I feel as if my experience is too strongly waved toward construction and not having nearly enough financial experience or the technical skills they want. Also, a 3.53 GPA isn't phenomenal, it's decent but I feel like they want people that graduated with 3.8's from Major Top Tier universities.
What kind of job should I take in the meantime to accrue decent experience that a major Wall Street Firm would pick up on and be interested in me as a candidate?
Should I pursue an MBA from U of M (I live in Michigan)?
Should I get my CFA?
I need to get into one of these firms somehow.......... I'd truly be willing to do anything become an investment banker. However, I need guidance on what to do based on where I'm at (broke living at home with my parents). What can I do right now to make this dream become a reality. I need to somehow start making money so what would be the best job for me to take in the meantime while I keep applying for internships with these big companies? Also, I am 23 years old, will they think I'm too old to do an internship with them??
Any criticism and feedback I truly need and would greatly appreciate it.
You have 4 Options:
Accept that you won't become a banker
Network, cold call, it's really not that hard for boutiques if you use LinkedIn
Go to Ross, don't screw around with your grades like you did in college, and land a job as an associate
Be Happy with a $35 per hour job
Accept that you won't become a banker. --- Is this 100% certain, couldn't I just make it in to a smaller firm? Don't they offer work for free internships at some of these places?
Do you think Ross will be a strong enough school for companies like Goldman Sachs to consider me as a candidate as an associate?
What are your thoughts on pursuing a CFA or a CMA? Is that of any value toward an investment bank? How high of a GPA is expected to land a job as an associate? I can defiantly get a 3.7 if I grind my heart out but I'm scared I couldn't get a 3.9.
Do you have any boutiques you specifically recommend?
The $35 an hour job is as a project cost controller for a energy utility company so I'd be responsible for budgeting and forecasting large scale electrical projects and hydraulic fracking projects. I feel my experience is wayyyyyyyyyyyy to swayed in the wrong direction and I need to go the financial analysis route instead.
agreed i would go for option 2 - boutiques are really not that hard.
What is your method for cold calling them? Do you have a specific strategy or do you just connect with whoever and ask about internship programs?
I did not cold call - I cold emailed.
You do this - go on linkedin or use your alumni database to figure out who shares the same background with you (same hometown, same school, same ethnicity, same club in college, same major, same interest ... etc u get the idea), and you reach out to them and say you are interested in learning how they made it into banking and their experience in banking and request "5-10 mins" coffee chats and you say you are happy to meet wherever is most convenient for them. You can subtly ask about internships towards the end of it when u feel like they like u or ask in the second email when u follow up to thank them. But always ask about "potential opportunities" when you are about to wave goodbye in person as you are conditioning them to think that you need help or they will think you just "want to be friends".
And if they don't respond, u follow up in 4-5 days and cast a wide net. And you don't give up until you get something.
That's basically it.
OP, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Look at how many years you have ahead of you in life, don't get hung up on the idea that "I'm not in investment banking now, my life is going to turn to shit". I would avoid getting an internship for now and start building work experience in the banking industry (doesn't have to be specifically investment banking). Also, don't discredit your past experience, diversity in backgrounds is considered a good thing.
If I were in your position, I'd target the area I want to live in and look at the job market for banking careers (all of them). Then once you have them all gathered, look at each company/job and what the responsibilities are. They may not necessarily be investment banking but think about what kinds of job can contribute to investment banking (i.e. Analysis). Then just work your tail off applying to good opportunities. I would continue your studies in your leisure time with developing models and understanding the key fundamentals of analysis, evaluation, & dealing making. Once in your new position, I would take time to network around, attending local banking conferences, etc and near the 2 year mark after getting a better feel for the industry, look to move on towards an investment banking position. Despite how it may appear on this forum, not everyone nets a IB job right out of school. Stay focused and you'll get there.
Thank you sir, this really motivated me.
Last advice from me:
If you can't get into IB, many of the IB rejected tend to go to Corp banking and PWM. Worst case scenario, investment analysis. If none of this works for you, use $35 per hour job to get into mba school after 2-5 years. If this won't work, work through the ranks and finish your career as an outside hire CFO
PM me. I can help you out possibly... I used to live 15min from OU and have some connections at the local boutiques.
Better yet, I PM'd you my cell #. Text me if you'd like... I never check My PM
this guy kinda goated for that
You could try asking for a spring analyst internship first since you have no IB-related experience. Leverage that internship experience into full time.
Not all paths lead through IB- what to do if you don't have an offer yet (Originally Posted: 03/16/2014)
This is another post to help those of you who are having trouble landing a FT offer or an internship in finance relieve some of that stress. It is very easy to get caught up in a downward spiral of gloom when things are not working out. It may be that you don’t get a call back after first-round interviews, or that your GPA automatically cuts you out of the pile of resumes which are sent the interview email. Do not despair, and more importantly, do not lose your drive.
Keeping perspective
It is important you have perspective on how you compare with the rest of the workforce, and not just with your most successful peers. I’m certain that most of you reading this are driven, smart, and hard-working, and have demonstrated this through your assorted accomplishments . You know what you want to do with your career (or at least how you want to start it off), which already puts you way ahead of many of the people looking for jobs and internships. I was surprised at the number of people who don’t have this basic requirement down.
To graduate without a job….is fairly common
I attended a large public university and have kept in touch with quite a few alumni who are now 2-3 years into the workforce. From my experience, it is only a minority of kids who have job offers lined up before they graduate. The majority has to go through a period of job searching (and some soul-searching) post-graduation. From the anecdotal evidence I have of people in finance-related majors from my university, almost everyone who had middling GPAs (3.1s-3.6s) is now employed with good career prospects. Some did a year in grad school, others spent months job-searching, but almost all of them now have pretty good jobs. I will share the story of a friend of mine, who had a rocky start but now is earning more, and is (arguably) in a more intellectually stimulating job, than most kids who started their careers in IB.
There are many paths to success
My friend - I’ll call him K- had all it takes to make a stellar first-year IB analyst. He had the smarts, he had the crazy dedication and work-ethic, and he had the obsession with finance required to ace the interviews. Problem was, he had a middling GPA and no previous finance experience going in to his final year. All K needed was one interview to demonstrate that he would make an excellent analyst.
K networked and submitted his applications. He got an early start on the networking, set up informational interviews, met with people, and sent in his CVs. Unfortunately for him, his GPA and lack of experience was too much of a detriment for him to get beyond purely informational interviews. Our mutual friends, who had a better profile on paper but still came to K for interview prep, got the offers and K was left holding an empty bag. He kept his game up post-graduation. He networked hard for months, got a few more interviews and landed an offer for a corporate finance gig three months after graduating. Two days later, he landed another offer at a start-up.
K was torn but he chose the riskier route after being heavily courted by the CEO. This was two years ago, when the start-up was a 12 person operation. Today, the start-up has over 50 employees, K is the head of business dev and drives their revenue growth and user-acquisition strategies. He has been networking with all the big names in the tech space, earns boatloads more than someone two years out of school in IB would, and does a much broader variety of work. If he ever wants to transition into venture capital, he wouldn't have much of a problem.
All of this goes to say- sometimes you have to carve your own path instead of treading the one laid down by others, one you may not be well-suited for. Just remember, don’t lose confidence in yourself and always keep in mind what and how much you have to offer to employers.
If you had a tough start, or have inspiring stories from your friends and acquaintances, please share them! We can all do with more inspiration.
Great post! - Silver Banana
always appreciated about this time of the year :)
Great post- very inspiring!
Love this story. Graduating in May and no offers yet...
Thanks for this - timing was just right.
Great stuff! SB
Having that trouble now securing a 1st year MBA internship. I have had to aggressively network to find two part-time jobs in PE and real estate investment banking to pad my resume. Great story!
Great story, how did you friend get approached for the start up position?
He had a friend working at the start up who set it up. K and the CEO went for coffee a bunch of times and hit it off.
I am a senior in college who is still looking for a job. It is very reassuring to hear stories like this one.
Thank you for this, it was a great read.
I got involved with things related to M&A because it seemed like a highly challenging path - and I had none ideas of a business to start or knowledge that would help someone with one.
I guess that maybe I should network more with small firms and start-ups rather than big firms since I am fairly assertive (that is an euphemism) with a strong entrepreneurial spirit and low regards for laid rules. Ahahah.
Thanks for the encouragement.
A good read indeed !
It's a tough job market and we've all been there. Last year I got really nervous when undergrads started lining up jobs before I could even line up interviews.
It's good to keep an open mind. You don't have to work for Google or take a safe first job. In the US it's ok to take risks; it's even OK to fail, so long as you pick yourself up and try again.
One comment for the freshmen and sophomores reading this and getting nervous is that the STEM, Accy, and Finance majors aren't sweating quite as much as the humanities majors. If you know how to design an engine, or if you know how to build circuits, or if you can run stats, you have more options. Nobody owes you a job, but having technical skills opens a few more doors.
Was in a similar situation. I graduated without a job, and after a while I picked up a retail financial advisor gig and a local PWM firm. Over time I was able to prove myself with some projects and became an analyst over there (picking out mutual funds, designing asset allocations, stuff like that) which I'm hoping can segue to equity research (original goal) or to a top MBA program. It's not where you start but where you're going.
Good story and great that it has worked out for your friend.
However, the reality remains, start-ups are tough. You have no safety if your company fails. The same way self-employed people can't really go back to the corporate world. The key is to ask for salary when signing up with a start-up. Never work for free. If you are getting some salary, at the end of the day, you can say it was a good experience and I got some money out of it. Also ask for a senior position if you can.
There is this guy, really smart, straight out of the university. he went with a renewable start-up company. He was fired after 30 days not because of his performance, but the company was run by morons who went overboard and hired so many people that they couldn't even make the salary payments. They have had zero-income so far (after 2.5 years!). The company now lists a few projects that failed as their past successful projects and the founders are still trying to save the company. The person who was fired now works at a M&A boutique.
A good thing was that he was really smart so he understood immediately that there were no chances that he could get promoted or the company became successful. He started to apply for other jobs 1 week after he started at this renewable. There was no much to do in the office, he told me.
Pay close attention to the management when working for a start-up. You have to meet them a few times before accepting the offer. If they are morons, just say no.
Why was his GPA low if he had the drive and smarts? It just doesn't seem smart to slack on grades.
Most kids on here are driven and will be successful no matter where they go.
Great post! All of us who had to shed blood, sweat, and tears in search of an summer internship could use the motivation right about now.
great post
As a senior in college with only a few interviews and one internship offer this is very encouraging. Thanks for the great post.
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