Breaking into Investment Banking without a degree?
Hey fellow members of Wall Street Oasis,
I hope you're all doing well. I'm Tom, a 32-year-old with a strong desire to break into the investment banking industry. However, I have some concerns due to my unconventional career path and the lack of a university degree. I would greatly appreciate your advice and insights on my situation.
To give you some background, I spent a decade in the Parachute Regiment before transitioning into the field of cyber security. While my military experience has shaped me into a disciplined and focused individual, I understand that the finance industry often values academic qualifications. I have been learning Python as part of my job for the past four years, and I also actively trade my own capital.
Considering my age and non-traditional background, I'm curious to know if I'm likely to face outright rejection from the investment banking sector. I am fully committed to studying and acquiring the necessary skills to make a successful career transition.
My main question is: Can I break into the investment banking sector without a degree? If the answer is yes, I would appreciate your guidance on the courses and skill sets that recruiters would ideally want from someone like me who lacks a university degree. On the other hand, if pursuing a degree is the best route, I would have to opt for the Open University as I still need to work full-time.
Thank you all in advance for your valuable insights and advice.
Best regards, Tom.
It's possible. An analyst (now associate) at a reasonably well known Middle Market London firm who interviewed me for an M&A role didn't go to university.
Having said that, he went straight from school to Big 4 Audit where he got his accounting exams and then battled to move to IB (which is a fairly common route.)
Your path on the other hand is super unconventional. Although you would have developed many skills such as discipline and resilience in the army that IB professionals would admire, you would need more finance-orientated experience to have any chance at breaking into IB.
In this market, you are likely to be rejected out straight. It's as simple as that unfortunately.The best advice I can give you is to scan LinkedIn and look for London professionals in IB who had a similar career path as you and network with them. Ask them how they did it. If you can locate them, they will know much better than anyone on here.
This may also be possible through veteran networks, although this would not be my area of expertise.
I also think pursuing an open university course would not be helpful.
Good luck and feel free to message me privately.
Thank you for your reponse, I thought as much. Just curious why a Open University degree would not be helpful? Planning on doing Accounting and Finance, aswell as starting down the CFA journey. Ideally I'd like to go to a brick and mortar university, however having to work full time, OU is the most feesible option.
Thanks again for your reply.
Studying for the CFA and successfully passing Level 1 will give you a big boost. Will show your aptitude, interest, and dedication. The open secret is, at the end of the day, finance isn't actually that difficult from a hard skill requirement perspective. Don't get too discouraged by this site. WSO is populated primarily by undergrads doing all the things they think is what is required to break into finance. I will echo other comments though in that networking with Veterans is going to be your best chance. Vets in finance have a strong desire to help other Vets get into finance.
One last piece of advice, if approaching recruiting from a Veteran perspective, don't try to impress your interviewers with your acquired finance knowledge. Of course discuss it, but they'll never be impressed by that. Focus on translating what you learned in the military as a diverse skill set that will benefit you in the role and the firm more generally.
I don't think it is possible from your situation (I mean technically nothing is impossible). You would need to transition to something closer to finance/accounting prior to making the jump to IB, if you choose not to go the traditional school route (not sure on how open school would work). You might be able to transition to a very small investment banking shop that has some ex military guys that you could network with and work there for a few years before trying to lateral to a bigger bank.
Your best bet is probably getting some sort of accounting or corporate finance job and do an undergrad degree on the side while working. I’m sure there are a lot of programs (both in the corporate world and academia) for vets like yourself so take advantage of those while building your network. Will take a few years but nothing is impossible. Having an interesting background can be a plus if you play your cards right.
Even if you don’t get IB there are a lot of interesting corporate finance roles as well and you can make a very good living as a senior manager or director of corp fin at a large MNC or PE back company.
Good luck, hope everything goes well. Thank you for your service.
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