Is IB recruiting actually becoming impossible?

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I’m crying. Why would you say HYPD. Respectfully, you just told me you go to Dartmouth lmao

Don't listen to CareerXL, Wallstreet Mastermind, and practically anyone who's scaring you into believing you can't make it without their help. First and foremost the only difficult part of IB is figuring out you want to do it early, there is a lot that you need to understand and start doing in your first year is why they talk about needing a mentor to walk you through a lot of it.

I'll keep it short here you can read the rest if you like. Let's run the checklist to see how you're doing. Are you at a target school, do you have relevant experience, is your gpa above a 3.75, are you a sociable human being. I'm going off on a limb here and you're at par if not slightly over. I've personally mentored several underclassment with backgrounds worse at a non target (5 students a year) and they got multiple interviews and offers at MMs & BBs for TMT and HC.

Long story here for those who are looking to understand the path and reasoning behind their scare tactics.

"However, I’ve been seeing content creators like CareerXL claiming that IB recruiting is becoming borderline impossible unless you have an expert mentoring you through the process or if you have DEI, which I do not."

1. IB recruitment is so far ahead that if you aren't on time which is technically thinking about pursuing IB full time by freshman spring then yes you will be behind.
2. A mentor is only as helpful IF they want to and however much time they want to dedicate to you. Too many times people chase mentors and the mentors will be entirely useless. I'll talk about mentors below so you can understand what information you can possibly gain from mentors.
3. DEI CAN help, but not as much as you believe. I will be speaking specifically for US since Canada/UK has a terrible version of this from what I can read on here. The programs MLT, SEO, Inroads, GWI are all great programs, but they don't help you in the sense of holding your hand through the entire process that a mentor would typically do. If anything they provide a large contact list of people who "SHOULD" be also giving out a helping hand similar to what your alumni "SHOULD" be doing. It doesn't guarantee you a referral or a seat at the table right away, but it does give you a particular group of people to talk to and ask for help, and can boost your chances if the firm you are going for has programs in place to interivew you first. Regardless they DO NOT take up ALL the seats maybe a couple and even if you did the reason you didn't get the job isn't because of them, but because nepotism outplaces all. However, GWI and some other programs that EXPLICITLY place students into programs also do not steal your spot since they're placed into teams who run the program and these are not usually for public in the first place so you wouldn't have had a chance in the first place. The other programs are usually for smaller firms that you could have networked in the first place to get in so again, you wouldn't have had a chance in the first place unless you were looking at these really small firms. Some examples of these are usually small mezz/DL RE lenders or REPE. Even the women founded/owned/minority owned firms don't even give preferences this strong or provide a pipeline as strong as GWI/smaller adjacent ones and they are most definitely not in the MM/BB/EB realm that you are targeting.

"The guy who runs CareerXL seems to know what he’s talking about, as he’s often bringing up his background to support that he possesses high pedigree and intelligence."

1. Don't fall for the appeal to authority making you spend 30k on a program that you can achieve the same returns for free especially at a school as great as yours. If you are at a target / semi-target there are so many firms that only explicitly show up on your handshake portal fyi. As a non-target student scraping through the internet for jobs there are actually a ton that ask for your school name and usually it runs through the list of semi targets+ and then other. If you don't believe that gives you an advantage over 90% of the students I don't know what else to tell you. Additionally, at your school you should have OCR from top firms, a bigger/maybe more responsive alumni base/and firms that hire specifically from your school.

"Is IB recruiting actually impossible now and is it true that the school you go to no longer matters?:

1. If you look at the people who are landing the 2027 excluding FT at top firms you can actually see the range. This year at my non target school we saw EB placements and I think we hit a personal best for the school at 10 students sent to IB. And I can confirm it was non nepo. I think it actually gets harder not because of the school, but rather the influx of stem majors who are coming in. All you guys from AMATH and CS please stop coming to finance and pursue CS exaclty what Frank Niu destined for you guys.
2. The immediate checkboxes, an pursued interest in IB from the beginning, and actually enjoying Finance as well as living life outside of Finance will put you through IB rather than living and breathing Finance and living your life as the person who reps their student investment fund merch like its designer. 

Path to IB & Mentors 

1. People are inflating the necessity of timing more than anything. Just consider it if you missed the train on MM/BB timeline you're already late, there are other careers in the horizon and just accept the fact that you will have to take your definition of a subpar firm compared to your peers. But in the first place you shouldn't be comparing yourself in the first place. So the timeline is super simple. Freshman spring is when you shoudl determine you are going to fullport your interest into IB, by Sophomore Fall starting August/September you should be networking with everyone under the sun, by Sophmore Winter you should be interviewing with the BB/EB. and that's it.
2. Resumes: There's like one template out there that's all you need. Put your club responsibilities and leadership on the bottom, only put in competitions if you need to fill space. Show GPA if above 3.5, SAT if above 1500/34 ACT. Skills IMO useless since everyone is going to write excel, powerpoint, etc but it fills up a line. Competition wins at the top under awards under on the bottom line of your person section. imo top 5 anything lesser don't add unless you're like doing your putnam then why are you  doing IB like please go do something with your brain. There's a funny one I heard from a mentor who said change the color of your lines to the color of the firm so they instinctively like you like what is that?????

3. The name of the game when it comes to networking/getting people interested in you is what makes you special. This could be on having shared interests (club sports), same hometown, highschool alumni, alumni at internships/experiences you had, maybe you both were at the CFA research challenge together andt they won, some networking events that you attended. But when it comes to your networking the whole difference comes from whether they believe you can make it. Are you passing the checklist I listed above, do you have additional accolades that make you different than all the students. 

   Example: If you are a 4.0 student at a non/semi-target why would I talk to you and have the same conversation I had with the last person I talked to? Given that you are emailing someone and sending them your resume.

   Answer: Accolades: You won the pari passu RX case competition, you won some hackathon as a finance major, you are an olympic athlete, you're an athlete at a college, you have something interesting about you that is worth spending the 30m time frame. Standouts: Something resonates with them about your interests, you're a top 100 player on OW (saw this work out for trading) Something just has to be different about you.

   Additionally, you should a good long look at yourself and your future. What are you actually interested in. If IB is the pre-requisite then yes go for it, but you don't need to do IB to have aura on LinkedIn. You are fortunate enough to be at a great school that required you to work exceptionally hard for and you can literally apply that to anything else, there is no need to follow everyone else.

4. Interviewing: Your behaviorals suck if you have no reason why you're doing things. There has to be some level of intention even if you make up an answer. So like a hard one is tell me about a weakness. Let's say your weakness was public speaking, why do you even care so much about public speaking, sure you're bad at it, but what's the underlying reason why it matters to you. It can't be because of the grade you wanted to do better since that's an extrinsic reward you want an intrinsic reason to do better. Technicals just spam them. Behaviorals are also an area where you can shine your personality a little bit, don't use the same internship to show your understanding, but choose some interesting situation so your interviewer doesn't get bored and meshes you in with the rest of the students. It's also super important to care about your cadence, annunciation, and where you're placing emphasis, and ultimately timing. Practice in front of a camera and watch it. There's some other small bits, but I CBA.
5. Mentors: Your mentor is good if they provide their answer and don't fade you given you aren't annoying the fuck out of them. Why is there gatekeeping in how they responded, answered, who helped them, experiences, information?? I think there are too many mentors out there who genuinely don't want to help you and are mentoring for aura or self jerk or outside respect which makes no sense to me please odn't help out if you have no intention of helping out. Not only should they be helping you outline their path, but theoretically they should be passing on their network, firms that are worth noting, experiences with firms, answering questions regarding networkign questions, interview prep, a lot of information that expedites the solo learning process.
6. Solo learning: If you have no mentor, don't sweat it you can still make it on your own, you don't even need the IB club to make it. Just keep grinding at it, take as many free resources online as you can and the cheat code is to make friends with someone who is in the IB/Student investment fund and literally just ask them for their work. Do it alongside with them or for them, which seems stupid, but if you're missing information reps, need case studies, either pay the price online (don't recommend) or split it with someone or make friends with someone who has and just snag their login. Just keep networking for it and maybe do some self reflection on if this is truly a path you want to go down and then understand why.
7. Other: If you're in IB for the money then sure but you will burn out if you don't find another reason. If you are in CS and you are going into IB for the money stop and turn around please. I wholly recommend to find a reason why you are doing this and actually why you are doing anything because then you will actually enjoy the journey rather than crying over the process of going through it. Personally, once I actually started treating Finance as something I found interesting rather than that I needed to get through it, I could actually enjoy my classes, reading the textbooks out there, being a part of the news, and all the networking events because I wanted to learn rather than dreading going to every single thing out there becuase  I "had to do. it". Additionally there are some great careers out there in Finance non-ib that pay pretty well or are just going to be more of your speed. If you are a rising freshman please concurrently apply to internships and then look at the roles in Finance just do everything backwards, find out what you don't like and then go from there.

There's a saying out there that you can outwork your luck. I think it's missing a ton of nuance and you can definitely get fucked even though you did everything right and that's just how life is. Just keep shooting at the wall and eventually one will stick and if that's the case you better enjoy what you're doing or else you're going ot hate it.

Good luck!

no, you're just not good enough lol.

I only have one rule in life, and that's to never take advice from a guy who is 5'2.