Q&A: I Found the Side Door to Investment Banking
About Me
- Currently an Analyst at an IB firm serving middle-market companies
- Spent 1.5 years as a leading business development analyst in the M&A team and worked with the execution team that developed strategy and portfolios
- Graduated with BA in Business Administration in Managerial Finance
Ask Me Anything
Landed an Analyst job at an investment bank despite my low GPA. Happy to answer questions about this or anything else.
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WSO Podcast:Side Door to Investment Banking
Member @WSOmentor1022 reveals how even with a low GPA from a non-target school he ended up at an investment bank just a few years after graduating. How he successfully interviewed for a crucial internship when he had the flu, the most important reason he was able to land multiple offers and how much he's getting paid now...
Hey, great podcast. I am interning at a role similar to your first FT gig. Hopefully, I will have an offer to return FT. I am not dead set on entering this kind of role out of undergrad, but it is a possibility.
You mentioned briefly how you put in a little extra work in order to land those offers from banks, but I was hoping you could elaborate more on how that role was viewed by not only banks but other places you may have been interviewing with during that transition?
In other words, what exit opps were made available to you or did you see as possible out of the FT role?
Great question
1) The role was viewed as "semi applicable experience" after a thorough explanation of what my everyday on the job looked like. Moving into IB I am starting as a "Second year" analyst despite 1.5 years of work experience so I had to discount it slightly, but not starting at 0 as others have done. I interviewed primarily with banks but had other interviews that I ultimately recused myself from due to other reasons. The job was viewed more or less the same.
2) Exit ops from the role were okay - however I was getting contacted for several sales / recruiting type roles that I had no interest in, and some financial sponsor / investment analyst roles. To make the jump to IB / other higher end roles I had to source most opportunities through networking or finding open spots via company websites or linked in.
By investment analyst and financial sponsor roles are you referring to public markets and the asset management world?
Based on posts on WSO, it seems that the IB recruiting process is pretty structured with SA and first year FT recruiting. What is the process like for someone looking to come into second year analyst? I would have to assume that it is pretty unstructured and that you would not part of any specific analyst program, right?
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