Investment Banking from a Technical Background

Hi,

I'm a geologist in the Canadian mining industry. I worked in gold and diamond exploration for 3 years after school plus part time during school. I'm now doing my masters in geostatistics and resource modelling with a focus on uncertainty management in the presence of extreme outliers (something that is important in gold and diamonds).

I've always wanted a job in banking; not necessarily investment banking but as a technical person working for the bank. If a bank is going to invest in a mining company, they're going to need someone to review the mining companies data and models etc.

Is there a big market for this sort of position? With my educational background and work experience, how would I go about getting my foot in the door in banking?

 

What you are looking for is sell-side research in metals and mining. It's market focused and not deal driven, and your industry knowledge would get more appreciation than in banking. Research focuses on publishing reports to aid buy-side firms' decision to buy/sell securities. You'll build/review models and publish recommendations. With your background, you'd fit well into a metals and mining research group at a bank, provided that you have the finance/excel skillset to complement your industry knowledge.

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Thanks you. That is exactly the position I've heard of; I just didn't know what it was referred to in IBanking terms.

How is the pay in a position like this? I left a $95,000/year job as a geologist and I'm looking at probably $110,000/year once I get my masters. Resource modelling is a fairly well paid job in the mining industry in Canada.

 
Best Response
cmrocks:

Thanks you. That is exactly the position I've heard of; I just didn't know what it was referred to in IBanking terms.

How is the pay in a position like this? I left a $95,000/year job as a geologist and I'm looking at probably $110,000/year once I get my masters. Resource modelling is a fairly well paid job in the mining industry in Canada.

If you get your masters and somehow get into ER with industry experience, I don't see a BB firm starting you off with anything less than $100k/year base for your first year (roughly equivalent to a 1st year post-MBA associate). After that you would likely get anywhere between $25k and $60k in bonus. I am also not sure if you would get some kind of sign-on bonus or not. I'm talking in USD by the way. Your 2nd year base pay should go up to $125k...ish.

Point is you should clear $110k easy and move up from there until you topped out...probably around $200k-250k assuming you stay at an associate level for several years. If you become an analyst, it could be twice as much or even more, but it depends on a lot of things at that level and I'm getting ahead of myself.

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