Q&A: Non-Target -> Big 4 IT Audit -> Boutique Investment Bank
Hi All, Graduated from a non-target that places a select few (~10) each year. During college, I worked at a small PE fund in my junior year summer and senior year winter but ultimately did not receive any interviews for IB for FT/Junior year summer. Due to my lack luster effort and quite frankly a lack of confidence that I would be able to secure something by graduation, I accepted an offer for IT Audit (Advisory) at Big 4. Once I secured employment at Big Four I began to stress about the nature of the work - I was a finance nerd academically and it became clear that I would not be using any of my perceived skills. I began to reach out to people from the PE fund I had worked at to see if I could secure some work for the intermediate time between graduation and beginning work - luckily I found a SMALL no name shop in need of analyst work. I worked temporarily, gained a small amount of deal experience and accessed their network as best I could. Upon my start at Big 4 I began cold emailing and was having approx. 3 networking calls a week (underwhelming compared to stories I have read on here) with Transaction Professionals at Big 4 and Banking professionals. Most of the people I spoke with were very negative about my options, suggesting I shoot for an MBA or stick it out for 2 years and try to move internally. I took the best of each persons advice and continued to make calls - I'd say the networking was beneficial in more ways than one, it humanized professionals, helped build up my confidence and helped me to refine my story. A couple of weeks into my new role, I was selected for a phone screen at a boutique bank, prior I had been practicing my behavioral and studied up on some hand-me-down materials. The call went well and after 2 more screens I was selected for a super day - I went a bit extreme for this as it was my first and only super day, I did a ton of research on the sector/deals, read practically all of the published research produced by the firm and created a pretty intense 'review sheet'. I came in cool, collected and confident as I had felt prepared and won an offer. Happy to answer any questions and hope this brings hope to people who are in non-finance related jobs currently that are looking to break in. TLDR: Title.
What would you have done differently in college so make sure you had an investment banking position after college instead of being stuck at the Big 4?
First off, I made a huge mistake by not getting involved in my school's finance/economics focused groups - this caused me to be unaware of important alumni for breaking in, timelines, boot camps, interview guides, etc. and generally left me feeling inferior to the more prepared students with involvement in these groups. Next was networking, I had not done much networking at all, which is crucial especially coming from a university without OCR. Beyond the obvious benefits of networking, I also think it is super important to help you get comfortable speaking to professionals. For me, it did a great job of humanizing people in the industry that I had been a bit intimidated of. Lack of confidence was a huge barrier for me, and networking, research, and general preparation helped me get over it. Also, when recruiting I would set out to apply to 'x' number of jobs and feel accomplished but in retrospect that was a huge waste of time as not one of my online applications was met with interviews/next steps, rather I would suggest applying but make sure to have a plan to reach out to someone at the company to get some traction.
Networking, Joining Groups, and Job Research
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I was in the exact same boat after college. I found audit (especially IT audit which I did a few projects of) to be the most soul-sucking and mind-numbing work I've ever encountered in my life. That being said, when I was at Big 4, I was very interested in transferring internally to the Transaction/Advisory side of the business, and even had the support of my partner, but there didn't seem to be much traction on the Advisory side so I ended up looking at other opportunities. From what I understand, the Advisory teams place fairly well in the US and supposedly much better in Europe. Do you think you would have pursued an internal transfer like that? Congrats on getting your current opportunity!
Something I considered, and I did interview internally for a transaction-focused role but ultimately I knew I wanted to get into an analyst program so held out on going through the entire process. I did not want to have people pull strings to get me into the different service line just to jump ship when a banking offer was presented. If I thought I would be in Audit longer than a year I would have likely chosen to pursue a transaction-focused service line to add valuable experience.
That's a good perspective, makes sense completely.
Didn't know there were so many other people previously in the same IT audit boat as me. Desperate to shift to IB but I'm halfway through my qualification so figured it best to wait until done.
What would you recommend if it isn't possible to make an internal transfer to TAS any time soon (i.e. in 2020)?
Not an expert by any means but I think it's a harder sell as you get further into the role but as long as you have a comprehensive story and your transition makes sense to the people you speak with it is certainly possible. At this point you'll need to build out a network in order to get into any process and be willing to take a step back in terms of superiority if your Senior(coming in as Analyst).
Of course it goes without saying that you'll need to have your technical and behavioral interview materials down pat and you are likely to be quizzed technically for when you do end up in a process given your background. One thing I noticed about B4 is even if you don't have the ability to transfer you can reach out to TAS professionals, especially if you're in an office where they are prevalent, and get involved in their work (during slow times in Audit) /access their network. Additionally, I would be honest with your team/partner when you are ready, depending on your relationship they may be willing to help you (mistake I made was keeping it private).
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