Imagine going to a target and still messing up
Hopefully this won’t demotivate anyone, but I just wanted to get it out. I’m well aware that I made several retarded decisions.
Back when I started at my target university in the Uk, I was so pumped to get into banking, I joined the finance soc, applied to all the banks for spring weeks (and talking to all my hardo friends about banks all the time) and completely devoted all my time to finance. I ended up getting zero offers. Maybe it was my interview skills, maybe it was the online tests, maybe it was just random. But, like some others at my uni, I ended up getting nothing. In the summer I did some boring accounting work and some volunteering, I had no connections and was too retarded to think about cold calling for experience, and was pretty demotivated.
Fast forward to my second year and I started applying for summers. I ended up getting a lot of vid interviews, 3 ACs and no offers. I don’t know why I left my applications so late, but I ended up not having time to apply to a lot of the boutiques and MMs that take summer interns. Of course in hindsight I wish I did. I got pretty depressed at not getting any offers but I knew a few other hardos at my uni who also didn’t get anything. I focused on cold calling, cold emailing in Feb/March. Then the virus hit and everything closed down, blah blah blah, and I just gave up. No one wanted to interview me, they were all ‘busy’.
Fast forward to today. I’ve got literally nothing relevant to IB and I’m starting my final year in a month. While my friends are interning at BBs, EBs, etc I’m doing some boring irrelevant work at a charity. And I’ll need to drop 30k on a MSc Finance degree simply for the chance to apply for internships again.
The worst part is knowing that it’s my own fault. I had the target school, I had the ECs, but I blew it. I could have done more applications, I could have networked more, I could have practised more for interviews., but I messed up.
I think you are being too hard on yourself. Technically we all could have networked more or gotten a 0.001 higher GPA or done a couple more practice interviews. You cannot underestimate the role of chance in the process since there are far more students who can technically perform as an IB analyst than spots. Some of the savviest, hardest working, charismatic kids I know did not get any offers while some doormat with a mediocre GPA was choosing between several. You never know what HR is looking for, what connection they had at the firm, etc. There are tons of kids at every target school who want to go into investment banking, and banks don't want to have a class that is purely Ivy League/British equivalent so it makes sense that a lot of great talent doesn't get through the door. Not everyone makes it right out of undergrad and I don't think it has much to do with how smart or hardworking they are.
Let me tell you something. I didn't even know banking existed during my undergrad. Applied for a MSc, missed the 2019's recruitment as I applied to like 15 banks out of which 3 dinged me but I was so dead-set on two banks only that I didn't proceed with the other 10 (didn't do hirevues) and ended up getting nothing. At the time of applications I really didn't even want to do banking but saw no other alternative so imagine what I felt when the recruitment szn came to an end, and I thought oh maybe I do want to be a banker.
Now, still being a student, recruited for an off-cycle and in 3 weeks I will be a M&A FT analyst at one of the big banks (not the top BB, though) and will be SUBSTANTIALLY better off that I would have been had I managed to get a SA. Now, I still have one year to complete at my uni and am starting FT in Sep 2020, which is one year earlier.
Are you a brit? Not sure it is a good idea to do a 1-year master without any relevant experience but heard UBS could even convert you right after your off-cycle ends if you don't have to return to school.
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