should I apply for EVERYTHING?

Im at a semi-target so we'll have a few BBs recruit on campus for SA positions. Because I'm not a finance major, I know that the campus recruiters wont ask too many technical questions.

My goal postgrad is to work at a finance job in a good firm, that's the bottom line. Ideally it'd be a full time IB analyst job at a BB. But I'm trying to prepare for the worst at this point, which is not getting an SA job during campus recruiting.

What should my strategy be in terms of looking for summer positions? I have taken a few higher level econ courses but have 0 experience in finance and minimum experience in Excel.

  1. Should I apply for jobs like in ECM and Prime Brokerage etc if I really want to do IB? This includes taking up jobs in asset management and research. I figured working for Morgan Stanley at ECM is still 100x better than working at John Doe accounting office making copies right?

  2. Do I even stand a shot at getting an SA job at a boutique, coming from a good school with a good gpa but 0 practical skills? I look at boutiques as a mom&pop shop so they wont have the BB patience or resources to teach you. If you cant help them, they wont hire you. Am I right?

4 Comments
 

Make your story a bit more logical.

If you want to work in finance, why no experience or finance related coursework? Think of a creative answer to this obvious question.

Apply to as many placea as humanly possible, so you don't get stuck in "John Doe Accounting"---> On that point, why did you reference an accounting XYZ co., do you think that's going to help you down the line?

Good luck.

 

hey thanks for the reply. I dont have any finance experience because I was under the impression that you dont need prior finance experience to find internships. And also finance internships are extremely hard to find as a sophomore so i did some other stuff like work in a non profit organization. I just mentioned accounting because well it looks like business and i was always under the impression that business is the same as finance. I now know otherwise.

just worried about not getting an SA offer anywhere.

 

that's some messed up logic! You said "I was under the impression that you dont need prior finance experience to find internships". Are you kidding? While its not a prerequisite for doing the work, you are competing with a very dedicated candidate pool much of the time. At the very least it shows your interest in the field. Unlike other disciplines like marketing, finance actually requires some hard skills. You will have a difficult time competing with candidates which have taken a more focussed approach.

 

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