Division 1 College Football Player
I recently graduated from Tulane University in December with a degree in business management and minor in legal studies. Unlike most of my peers I did not have an internship with a company because my summers were devoted to football training.
I am realizing that playing football these summers has affected my job possibilities.
But on the plus side, even though I did not have an internship I was able to develop my own business and successfully sell it while in school and playing football at 22 years old.
My questions are, do I have to settle for an internship even though I am out of school? Or will the full time job position just be an extremely tough route? Did playing division 1 football really put a burden on me looking for a job? Is owning and selling my own company a good way to show my ability, even though it may not be in the same field?
I played D1 Ball as well. Was certainly a big reason why I got caught behind the curve. Just utilize it to your benefit from a networking standpoint (especially with you having played down in the South, there will be plenty of people who love football working at boutique banks)
Worked out for me in the end, and the lessons football taught you will be valuable.
I was a D1 golfer in college and my experiences are very similar to your own.
I was very flustered my senior year while trying to job hunt due to the dream of the PGA Tour trending towards 0%. I was expecting every interviewer to laugh at my resume because it was filled with a majority of non-finance pieces. But what I expected to happen and what actually happened were substantially different.
Every IB that I interviewed at didn't seem to mind and actually kept complimenting me on my accomplishment of actually becoming a D1 athlete. I specifically remember an interviewer saying she viewed my experiences learning to compete at a high level in a sport outweigh a SA stint.
I now work at a Middle Market M&A firm, I had no connections, no internship, or job experience (this is my first job).
Point is you never know what a job interviewer will be looking for, just be yourself and good things will happen.
Hey. Good on you man. D1 sports, especially one's that are huge time sucks like football, are generally viewed fairly sympathetically by "wall street". Think most guys know football dominates your life in school, and it sounds like you're an ambitious and commercially minded young guy that, if it were me, would assume you'd have some good internships on your resume if you hadn't been playing ball. I think what people are going to really look at is your major, business school - that's good, and your GPA. Again, I know it's pretty tough to make top grades as a football player, but there are some exceptional young guys who do.
I think you're okay going either route, internship vs full time. Unfortunately, I think you'll probably be disqualified for summer internships with the big banks but certainly not with much smaller banks and companies. Just depends what type of opportunities present themselves to you. I wouldn't get hung up on internship as a graduate, just go with whichever opportunity is better. You've got a pretty marketable story, so don't sweat it. Good luck!
I looked at some of the articles about you, you seem to be a serial businessman, I say fuck working for someone and use the money from your business sale to start another enterprise.