Advice for Incoming Sophomore (non-target)

Hello everyone,

I will be attending a non-target this upcoming fall after doing 3 years at CC 3.4 GPA (due to a previous health issue). I will be going in as a sophomore since I plan on double majoring in Finance & Economics and would like to have a good amount of internships under my belt. I would also like to point out that I have a moderate to severe stutter but have recently been accepted to receive speech therapy to better my fluency. Not sure if the stutter will also affect my chances but I have never let it hold me back from anything. After researching all the career paths in finance and interacting with someone who works in IB, I strongly believe investment banking is what I would like to do as a career. Everything about it fascinates me and I would really love to make it. I am new to all of this and given my background, I wanted to ask people in the industry what steps I would have to take starting NOW and also how to better my chances in terms of landing top notch internships. Any advice is deeply appreciated.

Thanks Everyone!

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Hi OP, I appreciate the hustle and transitioning from CC. Like yourself I go to a non-target (rising junior) and have accepted a SA banking role for 2021. While I may not have the on the job experience like others on this forum I believe that I can shed a little insight on the process of going from non-target to breaking through via getting a SA gig.

To provide a little background I go to an extremely non-target school, I am talking 0 people working in Investment Banking right now. Hopefully you have a few alumni working in IB as these people will be your best opportunity. What you need to do now is run through all the alumni from your school on LinkedIn and find what alumns work in Finance. As well, get in touch with your schools career office and have them help you reach out and connect you with alumns from your school. Try to connect with as many as possible as you never know who will be in the best position to help you. Once you have gotten in touch with these alumni try to connect with them and hear about their careers, do not be pushy and do not directly ask for a job the first time that you talk with them. You will want to build relationships with these alumni and then they will be much more willing to help you out.

If you are like me and your school has no IB alumni then it's going to be a lot of cold emailing. The key to this I found was reaching out to people who you have similar interests. This may be a sport, a country, hobby, whatever it may be you are going to want to connect with them about this particular thing.

In the end for me it was about getting enough shots on goal, reaching out to as many people as possible but making sure that you are building strong relationships and not just going through the motions. Having as a many quality connections as you can manage is going to be the key for you.

 

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