Hey guys, I'm a non-target incoming IB SA for a BB coverage group. Before I ask for advice, I want to give a brief background on myself.
I played D1 college basketball for 2 years before having a career ending back injury. I decided to study finance (I was undeclared previous to injury) and knew little about the industry. I bumped into an old friend during winter break that had finished his SA stint in banking and told me to give it a shot. I networked and studied like crazy for a year and luckily was extended an offer.
Before my first superday interview, they had all the candidates sit in a conference room for 45 minutes. There was about 18 of us. There were a handful of kids from Columbia, Yale, MIT, Stanford, and a few other Ivy Leagues. A few guys asked where I went to school and literally laughed when I told them. My confidence somewhat dwindled as I sat in the room and listened to all these guys talk about the classes they were taking, the people that they knew, internships they had, etc.
I am extremely grateful and relieved to have received an offer. However, I'm a little nervous for the summer. I've read every thread on here about how to prepare for the SA position. My plan moving forward is to: keep GPA high, stay up to date on everything going on in the industry I'll be covering, enjoy this semester, and get more familiar with power point and learn the basics of modeling.
What else do you guys recommend for me to do to be able to feel confident leading up to the summer, if anything? After preparing as hard as I did for the interview season, I feel a bit idle and lost now. I want to avoid feeling like I did before that superday with all the other candidates.
I want to develop the skills, and confidence to not only secure a full-time offer, but to position myself well to have good exit ops post banking for PE or CorpDev (I know they're extremely different, but I'll most likely decide which path to choose after the summer). Obviously, securing a full-time offer is priority. Any and all advice would be more than appreciated. Thanks everyone.
Edit: This post isn't for me to complain about a few guys laughing where I went to school. I want to see if there is anything I can be doing to develop more skills and confidence to before heading into the summer.
If your bosses are any good, they'll appreciate humble people with good work ethic over cocky kids who had a free pass into the Ivy League (unless their parent is a CEO in the industry or something).
Someone laughing at you based off of the school you went to should make you feel good, not bad. As one of my MDs says "that's their problem, not yours". When you're both making pie charts, the guy who cares about rowing teams will think he's too good for it while you're grinding away (ideally).
To the other kid's credit, there's a chance they just don't know how to handle hearing someone's from a non-target. Not all IB recruits are social butterflies. Give them some more time to prove to you that they're awful.