Am I too old/poor to get into investment banking?
I am currently 24. Following highschool, where I was an A/B student, there was a family incident. I had to start life on my own and I did not go to college. After a few years of working in retail as a manager, and deciding what to do with my life, I found out about investment banking. Despite all the downsides I hear about, I feel passionate about getting into it, but I am scared it may be too late.
I have a little saved up, and I make slightly over minimum wage with my job. I'm not near any ivy league schools, but I'd be willing to go to college when I'm confident I wouldn't be putting a lot of money/time/hope into something that I wouldn't see any return on. I understand that not coming from a lot of money, family prestige, and being older than most people when graduating with a bachelors degree puts me behind.
However, I am driven, ambitious, and would do whatever needs to be done to achieve this. I am a quick learner, and have expierence in a leadership role and office setting. Do you have any helpful advice on what I should do?
OP - in short, it can be done. It won't be easy and it may not happen but it can be done. It won't be straightforward but it can be done. One thing though... You need to find a champion. Someone above you or senior to really push for you.
Question (to ask yourself): Where do you live and what's the angle? You want to increase the number of possibilities as much as possible.
Idea 1 (networking): If you are in a more tier 2/3 city (can be done in tier 1 as well but tougher since its so much bigger), an idea may be to see what foundations, rich families, charities there are... For instance, who are the prominent donors to the local museum or symphony or university? Get those names. Look them up. Ok, who are those people? What do/did they do? Where else are they involved? How did they get there? You may find some of them came from nothing or scrapped it out as well. An idea could be approaching a mutual contact (if you can find one) to try to get some of their time. But let's say you don't have a mutual contact... And if you don't, maybe you volunteer/join those organizations and meet those people or those who know them. If you do well and are liked, you will be surprised how quickly people can try to connect you, or that you will run across said people. Those people will ask you about yourself. And you can tell them the story you have told here and the path you are taking... Some or many will say "wow" good luck. Others will say "wow, that's awesome, I love this, you need to meet my spouse/cousin/neighbor/friend etc, let me connect you"... All you need is one.
Idea 2 (education): You probably need to get an education. A poster above said community college. Why not? If you can juggle that with your work schedule, community college can get you credits, an AA, maybe even the potential to temp/work as an exec assistant/temp etc somewhere in financial services, while you work towards that BA. You will probably make more money than in retail and a number of these organizations will be small. And as you get to know people there and tell them your story, you may find sympathetic ears... As you are known as a nice person, hard worker and grinding it out, you may be seen as lower risk and thus get internships and after graduating, a job...
Now you are in the space. You have a job. Work, grind , network, to try to make it into the big leagues. It may never happen and frankly, as an older guy, I often feel that the big leagues are overrated and the life span for many is short. But I understand the desire, so go for it!
Plenty of people will say you can't do it. They may be right. But if this is what you truly want and are willing to work for it, do your best to ignore them. You may not even end up in banking. You may find an industry/company/profession that you love and excel at and amazing colleagues that you want to work with for a long time. And that's what we call winning. Oh and you may get lucky and make a ton of money if you catch a wave or trend or fall in with the right people. Bonus and AWESOME.
Of course I could be way off my rocker but these are just some ideas and hopefully they will encourage you. It will be uphill and take time and energy. But it can be done. And you will learn a ton about yourself, the world and a number of industries in the process.
Good Luck
All these people telling you it can't be done are exactly the reason it can be done; people like that are the majority and self-select out of the race if everything doesn't go their way. So they thin the pool and if you're a strong competitor, your story is unique enough to leverage it.
I know of this guy who dropped out of undergrad, became a drug addict and homeless, cleaned up, got a job as a (very junior) trade assistant, finished his undergrad at night, got promoted to trader and then went to Harvard or similar. If you crush everything from now on, it'll actually make you a standout candidate. Top B-schools love unconventional candidates, as long as they can walk the walk.
Edit: also, no-one gives a crap about how poor you are in terms of breaking into banking. as long as you show up to the interview dressed like a normal person (borrow or rent the suit if you have to), no-one's going to check your family tree to make sure you're descended from the Rockerfellers. Sure, if you have connections, that would help but most people don't.