Any past, present or future bankers care to weigh in?
I'm going into my junior year with a 4.0 GPA, 2 years of analyst internships, on campus leadership and a very strong resume including being Hispanic and having a disability. However I come from very little, have no connections and go to a state school (because I am going there for free). I have wanted to get into Investment Banking for years but since my school has no real high finance connections I have no idea how to even get my foot in the door nor do I have any guidance on a career in that field. (It is a good business school but in terms of IB they have very little resources).
I want a demanding high pressure career where I can work 80-100 hour weeks and I know that i given the chance I would be succesful but nothing is happening for me and its getting pretty late.
I spend most of my mornings cold emailing anyone I can find who works in IB in Boston/New York just to ask for a phone call and I never get a response. I have also applied to so many IB SA internships and (aside from JPM which I just did the Hirevue for) I have heard nothing.
Does anyone who worked in IB in the past, present or future have any advice on how I can meet people or network with anyone who could help me out. I am not looking for anything specific but if anyone has any guidance on what more I could be doing besides cold emailing and using all my schools resources.
What were your analyst internships in? Would imagine you would come out of those internships with some connections?
It was in Wealth Management.
It gave me good connections, a return offer and a full time offer when I graduate in 2 years but nothing in Investment Banking or any similar fields.
I go to an extreme non-target liberal arts school with not one single alumni in IB and was able to secure 2021 SA role after two HF internships. All of these opportunities were presented to me through extreme networking and making friends/connections. I agree with the comment below that you may not be writing the proper things when cold emailing as it is odd to not get one single response in my opinion. What worked for me was focusing on quality not quantity. This meant finding people who I had things in common with whether it was sports, hobbies, or any other interest and then focusing on those connections. I think that when you cold email so many people you often are copy and pasting the same email template that clearly is not getting you many hits. Potentially shift to trying to find quality connections rather than going for quantity.
How many cold emails did you send out? Having a 4.0, diversity, full scholarship, and 2 good internships you're a very strong candidate. Either something was seriously up with your email template or you didn't send enough.
With no network your best path is probably to delay graduation 1 semester and start grinding for SA 2022, but you first need to identify what went wrong for you in SA 2021.
I want to second this. Would love to hear more abt your story
At least a hundred in the last few weeks. I didn't want to do any more this month because I didn't want to make the mistake of emailing two people who work together and have them get offended by seeing almost the same email.
I hope my template is pretty strong because I did get help from someone in Private Equity on it who said it looked very good (he has been out of the field for over 20 years so he has no usable connections). I think the reason for me getting no responses was because for now I have only been emailing MD's and I need to start a little bit lower if I want to get a chance at speaking with them.
I would delay grad if I felt it could help my chances, however I am actually half a semester ahead credit wise since I have been taking some extra courses some semesters.
Definitely start emailing some analysts and associates, you can send to the same groups as the MDs you've already emailed. A 10-20% response rate is typical, should be like 300-400 emails by the time you're done but reevaluate based on your response rate every 100 or so. Make sure you attach your resume.
20 years out of PE might be a long time to be the only person looking at your networking template, but still a good connection to have as a mentor. You can post your template anonymously on here for feedback or do a search for commonly used templates to see how yours matches up.
You emailed 100 MDs in the last few weeks?
Et molestiae aliquid nemo perferendis dolorum nesciunt. Delectus earum sunt consequatur et dolor quos. In non ea voluptatem sint qui nostrum. Eos voluptas veniam officiis natus illum dolor recusandae. Voluptates quia sit nostrum sint porro.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...