I'll be attending the University of Washington and majoring in Finance. I'm concerned that a B.A. from UW, though it's ranked 25th in the country for business undergrad, may not be enough to land me an analyst position. That being said, I will be pursuing an MBA after I get some work experience and will be aiming for the top schools.
The ideal path to becoming an associate is BA > 2 years analyst work > MBA > associate.
I want to know what other jobs equate to relevant work experience.
Can anyone share their 'BA > Job X > MBA > associate' path?
2 years at MBB will be viewed as comparable W/E.
To answer your question, I'm currently in the PE portion of the following path: BA -> 2 yrs MBB -> 2 yrs PE -> MBA
I don't see how offering MBB as an alternative to IB is any real help...
Freeloader - can you elaborate?
I guess I'm asking what current Associates used as relevant finance work experience if they were not analysts before getting their MBAs.
Just saying that IB is pretty comparable to MBB. If you can't get into IB, not gonna have that much better shot at MBB.
Besides, from my impression, associates don't necessarily need finance backgrounds coming from business school.
Agreed freeloader. I wasn't offering MBB as a "backup" option, but rather as an alternative one.
Good info.
How competitive are MBA grads who come from a school other than the top 10 or so?
I met a good amount of kids who went to UW and got ibanking analyst jobs. I kept in touch with some of them, and many are now at top PE firms.
I think the proper question isn't "what work experience do top MBA's have that manage to land jobs in banking as associates?" The proper question is "what work experience will get me into a top tier MBA program?"
Let's not put the cart before the horse, getting quality work experience will land you the top tier MBA, which will open up all sorts of doors as far as IB recruiting goes. So to answer the second question, the answer is unfortunately "it depends." Get the best job in a finance-related field that you can - commercial banking analyst program, internal finance at a Fortune 500, etc. and do well there. In addition to your job, demonstrate leadership outside of the workplace to improve your chances of landing at a top tier school. Once you're in the top tier B-school, they will provide the means and networking opportunities to land good IB positions (obviously, being well educated on subject matter and researching the industry is a given). My buddy is at a second tier B-school (1 step below HBS/Wharton/SGB) that is still recruited by BB's. He's the only one out of 65 students interested in banking that has prior banking experience. My point is, to an extent it doesn't matter what you do, but that you do it well and round yourself out enough to land into a top B-school.
Also, to Bateman's point, I wouldn't necessarily give up on banking pre-MBA, if that's what you want. If you can land something that's respectable - transaction services at a Big 4, corporate finance at a F500, for example, you may be able to lateral into some solid MM shops, even possibly BB.
Thanks, GameTheory.
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