Breaking into IB as 33 yo

Hello All,

I am 33 years old and currently pursuing my Part-time MBA specializing in Finance. I am curring working in Fortune 100 Software firm (Germany) where my job is to implement software for the company's FP&A process.

I am interested to work in IB but feel like it might be too late to enter into the industry.

Any advice on how to break into IB at this age?

What possible skills (Excel, PPT, knowledge of Finance, etc) you need to have before going into IB?

What's the upside and downside of entering IB at this stage?

Any thought/option is welcome.

WR

AB

4 Comments
 
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Graduates in Germany can, on average, be a little bit older than other nationalities due to the German structure of education. If you were born up to a certain year you might have been exposed to certain structural elements that increase your age by the time you graduate. E.g. Entering school system at seven years of age, instead of six. 13 years of school instead of 12. If old enough the mandatory draft to the military service (or equivalent), starting university at 21, the bachelors and masters combined would be up to six years. So I have met German professionals around 27-28 with zero professional experience. Time plays a different role in Germany, which seems to be a bit more traditional than the UK or the US market.

33 doesn't sound that crazy if you are working towards your MBA. What does seem like a bit of a challenge is the total lack of FO experience though.

What internships are you planning during your MBA?

 

Hello Cyberpunk:

Thanks for the reply. I had my education in India. I  did my Engineering (12+4 yr of study) and now pursuing MBA (2 years) and will finish next year in June.  

I do have some experience in Pre-sales and have extensive experience in advisory/consulting. That being said, I feel the opportunity to switch over to IB can be slim.

We don't have an internship option in our MBA, just a Master's thesis. I am thinking of writing something like "The Mathematics behind stock market" or "Financial valuation with algorithms".

Finance specifically about company finance and evaluations is something of my interest hence a career in IB or maybe a hedge fund is of my interest. Any pointers on what shall be the next step?

 

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