How crazy is this mentality? I’ve done an F500 corporate finance internship and can’t imagine wasting my life doing that nonsense. It seems like to get any worthwhile job in finance you have to start in IB or work your way up the corporate ladder for 25 years like a normie to make what a 30 year old banker makes. I dont have an accounting degree so i dont think transaction advisory is an option. A career in credit analysis is about as cool as showering with your dad and equity research is pretty much as hard as IB to get into. If I don’t get a FT offer in the fall i think im going to abandon finance completely. Am I on the right track here?
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Idk man. I don't want to be the 30 year old Uncle Rico still gunning for an IB analyst spot
Here's a tip that will help you; if you're in this to make money or to impress other bankers that honestly don't give a single shit about you then pick another industry. I agree that you should realize when to hold and when to fold trying to break into this industry but if it is the work is what actually interests you (as oppose to being motivated by the money) then you'll do what it takes to get to where you want to be. If you are not willing to grind like hell for a few years to break in and you'd rather just chase an easy buck then go do medical sales or something.
Christ I don't get paid enough to do this. You said in your original post that,
"...it seems like to get any worthwhile job in finance you have to start in IB or work your way up the corporate ladder for 25 years like a normie to make what a 30 year old banker makes."
This implies that you not only think of non-IB finance jobs as "normie" (stop using that word) but also that you equate "worthwhile jobs" to how much money is being made. You would only make that connection or care about that for two reasons; the first being that you just legitimately love money in which case I'm telling you that you can do other jobs and make more money faster without all of the work done in IB, or the second reason which is you want to make a lot of money to compare yourself to other bankers who also make a lot of money in which case I'm telling you that no other bankers will give a shit about you (or anyone that isn't within arms reach of them).
I hope that cleared up your confusion. If I'm wrong then that's fine, I've been wrong before, but do tell me why you think you want to work in IB in the first place? What parts of the job interest you? What is your plan if you leave finance altogether?
Lol, this is like saying "If I don't get into Harvard, I think I'm going to abandon college completely."
It's not the end of the world. You're really young. Stay dedicated and hungry to achieve your goals. If you're not dedicated enough now to reach your goals in finance, you won't be dedicated enough to reach your goals in other areas later.
Also, lose the "normie" talk. It doesn't make you sound cool.
Funny how you don't want to be a 28-30+-year gunning for an analyst spot. I actually have a couple of friends who had a very late start in their career because they were working random jobs for 5-8 years to support their family, then went back to school for a Masters and broke into banking at 30 and 32 respectively. Now, a few years later, one is in PE and the other a VP in M&A, making bank and being considerably better off than they would have been had they not broken in. According to the logic around here they should have rolled over and died at 30 because they were "too old". This just goes to show the intellectual level most of the crowd here at WSO operates at.
I broke in at a later age (though not that late) as well and let me tell you my bonus last year felt as good as it would have at 22! Everybody's life is on a different track and everyone has their own timeline, just something to think about.
The way I see it, the only real short cuts to interesting jobs are:
starting in a services industry job working with corporates (IB, consulting, marketing/pr, law, big4 accounting and ER/CR)
starting a company (or joining early) and scaling it
owning and overseeing a product at scale (Product Manager)
route switching via grad school (top MBA, PhD, MD etc)
getting into a gig that pays extremely well for high performance and innate skill like markets jobs (S&T, HFs, quant etc), sales (all types), software engineering, data science, creative roles etc
starting in a leadership development program that fast-tracks you to management
Otherwise, you're going to have to pay your dues like everyone else before you get to the high level, well compensated and interesting stuff. Tough pickles. Not everyone can be good enough to skip the line.
Tough pickles indeed. These are the pickles of our times really. Im just going to keep hitting the alligator closest to the canoe and hope for the best