Am I cooked ? Please give me your opinion
Hello everyone,
I hope you’re doing well.
I’m currently on a gap year after completing the first year of my Master’s degree (in France, Master’s degrees span five years).
Long term, my goal is to work in Public Policy / FIG Consulting at an MBB in the MENA region. Short term (starting January 2026), I’m aiming for a conventionnaly prestigious IB or PE internship that can open doors, ideally in FIG (or Infra) Investment Banking, Africa-focused Private Equity, or an Emerging Markets IB desk.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on:
- My résumé, strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement
- Your perspective on FIG IB
- Your insights on Africa-focused PE (e.g., Amethis, AfricInvest)
Thanks a lot for your time and advice !
You have a nice resume broadly speaking. With that said for a lot of IB/PE they typically recruit out of undergrad or an MBA vs Masters program. Given size of these firms, long-time formalized processes, and needing to select candidates from thousands of applications your Masters is going to look a bit atypical for most. So while not cooked you clearly did not take a conventional path for these types of roles and will be scrutinized a bit on that (eg if you were so focused on finance why not apply straight out of undergrad etc). There are some firms that have programs dedicated to Masters students but have not seen these typically be front office IB or PE groups. Would focus on networking, nailing a story succinctly around path and longer-term objectives (and not what you shared here but why you want a seat in these roles as a career) and see how it goes.
Thank you so much for your response.
As per the Master’s degree, it’s the norm in France, no one really stops after the Bachelor’s degree (which is 3 years in France), I know it isn’t the case in the US or UK (or most of the world really)
Mate this is completely wrong for UK/European roles. Masters are almost mandatory. No one does an MBA
Again you may know better. But guiding to what I see and looking at leadership for a quite a few global PE and IB firms majority have US MBAs.
And quite a few Principals and Directors I just looked at quickly. European born and raised, US educated, top global firms. May revisit your assumptions.
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Hi thank you. I am by no means an expert, and you would know better, but can say very confidently I worked for a large global organization like the one you are looking at and most of the analysts were bachelors and associates on up were MBAs in our Paris office and some for sure to your point not from France. Not to say there may be others but my two cents. You seem like a smart go getter and will work it out. Good luck man.
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