Answering the question "Why Investment Banking?" coming from a poor background.

I'm a first-gen Vietnamese American student, born to refugees who didn't go to college. I really want to frame my narrative around wanting to be financially free, since growing up, I've always had to move around from apartment to apartment, family barely living paycheck by paycheck, and my parents had to sacrifice so much just so I could have similar opportunities to my peers. I had to pick odd jobs while in high school and college just to help my parents pay. To be honest, I didn't even know what investment banking was until I got to college.

However, I've talked to a few people, and while some say that it is my narrative, and they feel like it's personal, it should be an ideal answer, there are. others say that it's not a good answer since it really just gives off the fact that I just want to make a lot of money. I do want to make a lot of money, since I grew up not having a lot, I want to be in a place where I can be not just financially stable, but financially free.

5 Comments
 

If you read the behavioural guides out there, they clearly state that you shouldn't respond that you're interested in IB for the money, even if that fits your narrative. Recruiters already assume that you want money, no one wants to work 100h/week out of interest for Microsoft Excel. They'll prefer people who genuinely appear to give a fuck about finance.

 

be sincere. if that is your motivation you should say so. probably not best to have that as your only motivation and to weave it into a longer narrative. if it is your only motivation you will not be successful long term.

 

The problem is that your narrative doesn't answer the question. Your narrative could be used for consulting, S&T, quant, tech... literally any other high paying job. You need to tie in specific things about the position into your response even if it ends up being more cookie-cutter than what you originally had.

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