Am I too far behind to break into IB? Former student-athlete and currently at a small consulting firm.
Hello Everyone.
Any and all advice is appreciated.
Quick background. I attended a state school in SoCal with a consistently ranked top 20 baseball program (played in the college world series) on scholarship. I graduated with a 3.4 GPA and a finance degree in spring 2016. I'm currently working at a small consulting firm in the NorCal area that monitors and advises limited partners' private equity investments (think fund accountant). I'm realizing that I need a much more competitive and challenging career, which is why I have been attempting to get into IB. I have been networking my ass off for the past 9 months, but with minimal success due to my non-traditional background and the fact that I have more alumni in the MLB than finance. I've had three phone interviews and one request to build an LBO from scratch in 2 hours, but never heard back. I can't get myself to give up until I land an IB role, however, at what point would you say that breaking in is probably not going to happen? Also, is it reasonable that I am expected to model out an LBO from scratch with my background? Feel free to ask for more detail if needed. Thank you in advance!
What size firms have you been targeting so far? I'd imagine that it's still reasonably possible to get your foot in the door with a smaller shop/regional firms; it's just a matter of figuring out why those other interviews didn't work out and improving where you can. As you alluded to, it's also a networking/numbers game - you only need one to say yes
Regardless, I would consider trying to switch jobs now that you're ~2 years in. Even if you can't land something in IB, transitioning to something that's more"competitive" or "challenging" than your current role can help set you up for a good MBA program and you can break in through OCR then if you're still interested at that point
It may not be entirely reasonable for them to ask you for an LBO like that but that' somewhat besides the point. If they're going to take a chance on a non-traditional candidate, they want to see that it's something you really want and that you can hit the ground running. It might not be fair, but you just have to be that much more impressive than the standard college senior. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot more of the firms you interview with ask you for something similar, whether it's some kind of modeling test or case study
I have been targeting anything that isn't BB, unless I can find someone there with a similar background to mine. I know with the first two interviews they hired people with prior IB internships/experience, while the last one passed on me since I wasn't able to finish the LBO in the two-hour time frame. At this point, I do not care what bank I get into as long as I can get in and learn.
That's good to hear about transitioning. I was unsure if moving to another job unrelated to IB would look bad, but worst comes to worst a damn MBA it is.
Yeah that is an understandable perspective. Out of curiosity, how many hours of practice do you think it would take for someone with no modeling experience to build out a three statement LBO in two hours? I'm just looking for a ballpark number since there are a lot of variables. Thanks for the response though. Its much appreciated.
If you understand all the mechanics of the LBO, and have solid experience in excel, should not take much time (maybe drilling 5-10 or so practice models until you know exactly which formulas to use for each part, and what order to build things in). If you don’t have the mechanics down cold, read rosenbaum until you do. Learning excel is harder to do quickly I’d say.
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