I’m Graduating in May 26’ and don’t have a job yet. How cooked am I?

usernameladiesman217:

Few things pop out to me. First, you say you have IB and PE on your resume. What I would assume reading a resume with both of those on it is either "He was piss poor at his work and didn't get a return offer" or "He's never going to want to come to a lower tier firm or non IB firm, so we shouldn't bother hiring him". 

I am left wondering why you never got a return offer. As for LATAM and your duel citizenship, it won't help entry level. All work you do for the first few years is roughly the same. Late career when you basically become a client manager, speaking Spanish can help a ton. 

Going back to Venezuela to pursue finance feels like going to the Sahara to sell sand. It's probably one of the worst places on earth to work in finance, as there's basically no institutions there. 

Most firms don't hire too many people in FT because they fill from their summer class. Like this: 

I’ve read a bunch online about my class being the one that has suffered the most from recruiting since the 08’ crisis, Nepo friends not able to secure a job, and connections from coffee chats that have also struggled to get jobs for their family members (all IB btw).

I'm not saying the job market is great, it isn't, but blaming here does nothing to benefit you. Also, IB is currently expanding a lot to fit new deal flow in M&A. It isn't the easiest job market out there, but comparing it to '08 is really disingenuous. I wasn't working in '08, but I was in HS when it happened, and I remember what it was like looking at finance. People genuinely thought that the entire system could fall apart in days. Unemployment was more than double what it currently is. So while it is technically true that this is the hardest class since 2008, that's not exactly a fair comparison to say it's at all similar to 08, just that the 2010s were an astonishingly good period of time for finance as a bounceback of financial firms combined with ZIRP

These things have made me really think if its worth it to go into IB or go somewhere with a similar pay range (lower) and less hours. I’m a little lost as to where I should apply or go into as everything is getting discouraging for me.

You don't really have a choice, if we're being for real here. You gotta apply everywhere. You gotta network everywhere. You don't really have the choice here on what to do. You would if you had return offers, but beggars can't be choosers. 

You could eventually make it back to IB, or even onto the buyside, from a more untraditional path. Just look on linkedin. Do a lot of people who exit to PE or hedge funds come from IB? Yeah, but plenty more come from the most random backgrounds possible, all because they had some knowledge or skills the firm hiring them needed. 

Well said man, thank you for this.

Regarding the Return offer, my IB internship was remote and they didn’t do return offers and my PE internship only accepted one return offer which ended up going to the daughter of the Partner. I understand what you’re saying and ur completely right.

Regarding Venezuela, you have the right idea, but the Salary there is genuinely miserable ($1000 a month). I don’t see myself working there either because I think the same way that my parents do.

I’m also not putting the blame on anyone with regards to my employment and it’s also unfair to point fingers, because at the end of the day, i’m responsible for everything.

I’ll see what happens now until May and hope to god I find something.

Thank you for being transparent and not sugarcoating it.