No Graduate Program; Stress, Doubt, Anxiety. Sounds Familiar?
Hi Chimps,
Often, on this forum, one would be led to believe that if you aren't on the BB/MM/EB IB Graduate Program > PE/HF train fresh out of college, the "prestigious" (for what that's even worth) high finance dream/career is over. The "BB or bust" out of school is a sentiment that is ripe throughout the deepest depths of the WSO thread chambers.
I'd like to hear opinions from experienced monkeys on the "real world" of an up-and-down career that, unfortunately, (probably more often than not) starts off with a down, as I'm sure there must be countless in the same position as me.
I attended a top university in the country; however, not being motivated/even remotely concerned about my career during COVID-19 lockdowns etc, etc, resulted in subpar grades (Sub 3.0 GPA). While unreflective of my ability/potential, the number is stuck to my name. Graduating your degree with abysmal marks is a position quite challenging in the world of high finance. This is no sob story, however. There's no excuse for bad grades, as others who were switched on during their degrees more than deserve opportunity as a payoff for the hard work and dedication they were willing to put in early. After realising my potential and arriving at a conscious turning point in my life to work towards my high finance dreams, I knew I had to combat my subpar grades with what I could control (as results; I could not).
I completed the Financial Modelling and Valuation Analyst Certification from the Corporate Finance Institute, a long course with 200 hours of grind in my room, personal practice building timed 3-statement models with DCF valuation, and 5 months interning (with no pay) at a really, really low-level "no-name" M&A boutique. That experience helped me land an intern role at a boutique "no-name" PE firm with <10 employees (circa. $50m portfolio), albeit a well-run organisation with board governance and experienced individuals on the board and in management. While interning at the PE firm, I made it to a second last-round interview at an investment bank graduate program; however no success, which was honestly crushing for a few weeks.
I have since been promoted to Analyst and, due to the small number of employees, have been exposed to M&A deals with the responsibility of building DCF financial models, Multiple/Precedent transaction analysis, creating board investment-positioning papers, modelling debt/equity funding structures, liaising with acquisition target executives, due diligence, debt covenant reporting, and commercial analysis. The deals reside in the $5m to $20m EV range for context, and the firm seems to be constantly pushing to either bolt on companies or expand into new markets, so the flow of deals seems stable.
Now that I've given the context of where I am now, my 5-year dream would be to land a role at an investment bank - whether that be in their Asset Management private markets arm etc. (not necessarily IB). My reason for this dream is to experience a portion of my career in a large organisation and the benefits/experience that come with it. That may sound shallow to some but it's a goal a wish to prove to myself that I can do it. Would staying at my small PE firm and gaining deal experience for the next 2-3 years help me achieve my goal and make the jump? I'd love to hear anyone in similar positions/have gone through comparable situations.
Nevertheless, I feel I can't be in a unique position amongst the world graduate pool, and I spent the time writing this post so someone else having the same stress and doubts about their dream of high finance can read the replies to this post and (hopefully) see that anything is possible (even is WSO makes you feel like it is not).
- Driven Monkey
Thanks for sharing this - I had a similar experience, started the recruiting game late and cold called/ emailed hundreds of different places for a junior year summer internship. Then similar to you I found more resources online between interview guides, ppt deck templates, modeling courses, anything I could get ahold of to further improve my knowledge and skills during my internship. I tried to learn as much as possible about all the deals I was on where some I knew well, but others not as much. I should’ve been more resourceful initially with learning about the projects I was on. Eventually figured out more and was able to lateral to a good middle market bank after over a year where I probably spent a good 6 months prepping for interviews while working. All I’ve realized is that nothing comes easy and everything takes hundreds of hours of prep and learning, tons of revisions and small incremental improvements and plenty of rejections in order to get to the next destination. You just have to make the most out of the experience you have currently and whatever resources are available to you and then try to emphasize any transferable skills that you can bring to the table at your next job.
I think overall it comes down to being passionate about what you do, having strong work ethic and perseverance, learning from mistakes and improving on yourself regularly, and building better perspective:
Regardless of what you choose to do with your life or your priorities, it's highly important for you to be passionate about them. You may not be always singing your way to work everyday but it will definitely help you keep things in perspective, act as a foundation for your goals and push you to push past your boundaries. I know I didn't enjoy every single moment of my time working but being passionate about finance and various projects I was working on helped me past the tough times and stay level-headed during the good ones.
Even if you're passionate about something in your life, you have to work extremely hard in anything to do well in it and be consistent in how you approach stuff. You need to want it more than everyone else and work towards that goal. In any field, if you want to be great, there are rarely any days off, and you have to have the discipline to work hard on days where you feel tired or disillusioned or both which can be the toughest part. It's easy for us to marvel at successful people in our world, but we rarely see or recognize the ridiculous amount of work that they put in.
Also, treat prior setbacks and failures as learning opportunities, you basically have to learn and adapt. Our successes are rarely as great as we make them out to be and our failures are rarely as devastating as we make them out to be. If you have the courage to stay level-headed when you're experiencing success and if you have the courage to dust yourself off and get back up after your worst defeats, chances are you'll find a way to your goal.
Once you truly understand the above lessons, you'll be gifted with a sense of perspective. Regardless of your career choice or personal choices, if they follow your value system and if they're centered around some or all of the above lessons, you'll realize that nothing matters more than the fact that you're living your passion and working hard towards your goals and priorities and that they align with your values. No job or positions at a top company can outweigh that feeling of self fulfillment.
Thanks for the long response and many valuable lessons.
If you don't mind me asking - how was your pathway to where you are now? Was it a traditional, well-known pathway or a more unique route?
Not the commenter above but everyone seems to have their own path into ib, whether it’s from a different field or from boutique to middle market. Just network and learn as much as you can
Fuck ya man, never give up. You got that dog in you
Recruiting is just about amount of effort you put in, quality of convos, transferable skills and perseverance
Anyone who's tried either internship, fulltime or lateral recruiting, and there seem to be hundreds of posts about this on here, likely knows it. Build skills that can be useful for numerous functionalities and you can speak about how your current abilities can be relevant for the next job, banking is more or less the same type of work regardless of where you go
Have you had experience in off-cycle networking/recruiting/lateralling? If so, any advice around the experience?
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