Investment Banking Associate without Work Experience
Is it possible to become an investment banking associate without any work experience? My school (strong semi-target) offers a five-year MBA-undergrad degree program. I'd have an applied math major and an MBA coming out of school. With a 3.9 or a 4.0 and good internships, good alumni and wall street connections, and strong performances at investment banking / financial modeling competitions, how are my prospects for becoming an investment banking associate without any real work experience besides summer internships? Thanks.
I’m sure it’s happened before but very difficult from what I’ve seen.
Had a guy like this in my MBA program. Did a 5 year undergrad/MBA degree and ended up having to recruit for analyst and associate positions just depending on the bank. He struck out with associate recruiting.
Another guy in my program had 2 years of work pre-MBA, and he also wasn’t able to land anything (I think largely due to his lack of work experience). From my experience, 3 years seems to be the minimum that banks like to see for associate roles (again I’m sure it has happened with 3 years, but that is just what I have seen).