A little background:
I want to know some cold, honest opinions. I am the type of person who wants and demands the truth so please don't hold back.
I always wanted to be in IB (who doesn't... right?). Well, I just recently graduated from a top 50 public college in the states and I gave it my all to get into investment banking. Maybe it was my grades (3.6) or my internship (commercial banking analyst), who really knows right? Long story short, I didn't get it.
After needing to pay bills and get started with my student loans, I accepted an offer at a commercial bank (like my internship) doing commercial real estate analysis. I do like it, but I don't make that much and I feel that I am in the stage of my life where I have the drive and motivation in order to pursue a more demanding, more interesting job, such as IB.
It should be noted that I do have a family member in investment banking (don't know why he wouldn't help me so don't even bother) and I ultimately have always viewed that as an "in", but apparently not everything works out as it seems.
I wanted to use this job to get some relevant finance experience and hopefully transition into IB in 6 months to a year (depending on how things go). Can someone help out and tell me how fucked I am? Can I get into investment banking? Is my job going to limit me? If so how can I help my self. Also, what would be the best career path (in your opinion) to follow knowing the little that you do about me.
UPDATED Another question: Is it worth studying and taking the CFA level 1 in December? Will it significantly increase my chances of getting into IB or just moving out of real estate? Also, will I even have enough time to study and pass while working?
Bump. Interested in hearing responses
I don't see your situation as totally lost. As a starting point, did you make contact with any bankers while you were networking in undergrad? Keep in touch with the ones you had a good rapport with, stay on their radar and let them know you're still interested. Study up on IB concepts (WSO guides, Rosenbaum & Pearl, etc.). Your best in will be with boutiques. No recruiting cycle, no disposition toward # of years of experience. Anything goes. As an example, I interviewed with a boutique PE shop last week, despite having been out of IB for 5 years so never quit trying.
Where are you located? Naturally living in a larger city will offer more banks and chances for contact.
Your best bet would be to bust your ass in the CRE role and apply to top MSF programs. This gives you a stab at OCR Analyst recruitment. It's a bit longer timeline, but less risky than trying to network your way in.
I don't think you are too screwed. I have seen many analysts get into BB IB from the weirdest backgrounds. Some examples that I remembered were: working for a non-profit in some finance role, working as project manager for a small no name consulting shop, working as a retail store manager (not kidding).
I think you need to take step (no matter how small) to show that you are interested in IB and go through every recruiting process you can.
I don't think you are fucked at all. And you are just getting started.
You don't mention a lot on why you want to get into only investment banking or which specific sector of it, but an investment banker doesn't make the world by himself/herself. Within real estate itself for example, a deal requires REPE folks, investment bankers, brokers, asset managers etc. Its wrong to look down upon any one particular aspect of the industry, since all go hand in hand. Also, if you are talking from the perspective of making money, Im sure there are plenty of brokers/ asset mangers/etc at the top tier who make much more than IB.
Second, within finance and investments, there is a lot of overlap between fields in terms of fundamentals and concepts. Sam Zell is a perfect example of this. (
) Though RE is sometimes viewed as highly specific, you can always transfer concepts across disciplines. There are other examples such as Andrew Farkas, who built an empire in brokerage, or Barry Sternlitch who started off in Architecture.At this stage, I feel its more important to identify what you like doing, and understand what are the different moving parts in that particular industry and how they work. But for now, unless you don't like real estate, you are more than fine!
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