I have been lurking the forums here for a while and finally decided to make an account. I will probably get more negative responses than good, but I am just trying anyways because thats my nature.
So here goes, I am currently at a NY state school that gets some recognition for our business school. We get nice recruitment for accountants and finance fields like PWC and EY, but I am still very confused as to how to establish a career in ibanking. I am currently a sophomore who will be graduating in 2009 with a B.S in management with concentrations in finance and possibly marketing. My gpa is not stellar, around 3.3, and I do not have a large amount of clubs and leadership positions. I defend this by working almost all the time I am not in class. I pay my own tuition and coming from out of state instantly doubles the price of going to school. I have read from many threads and forums that getting into ibanking is incredibly hard and that if you don't have perfect grades and come from a ivy league you are basically screwed. Is that pretty much true?
Also, I am trying my best to take everyone's advice on this thread. I am attending the job fairs and recruitment opportunities offered at my school (next one is in Feb.) and hope to meet people. I am confident in my "people skills" in that I have been told by mock interviews setup by the business school that I am very approachable and my ability to engage and hold a conversation is very good. I am not mentioning this in any cocky way, just saying what my strengths are. This brings me to my next question, which is about my resume. As a hobby and passion I am very into computers and related fields. Two of my jobs involve as a trained and paid technician for my campus and as a webpage designer for one of the departments. I also work as an office assistant in a different department. When I look at my resume it looks like I don't belong in the Financial field, will that be a problem with getting people to take a serious look at me aside from the resume? I would think that they would understand that coming out of college, it is hard to find a job related to my field so soon. One last question, anyone recommend good sites/books/etc for anything that they think would help me get ahead? I love these forums and the information that comes with it. Thanks for reading and I appreciate responses.
We should also have some kind of ibankingoasis networking forum, where I can meet my future potential employers and not have to stress about finding a job out of college :D
A few things..
1) You need to raise your GPA. The good thing is, that you have 3 more semesters (including this one...study for those finals!!) before you apply for a post junior year internship to do this. Try to get it at least above a 3.5, although the higher the better (this is especially true for a non-target student)
2) Put that you financed 100% of your college education through working part time on your resume. This is a very nice thing to have on one's resume.
3) Do you have any good test scores? I'd actually recommend taking the SAT now and trying to get above 1400 (math + verbal) on the test. This will be very helpful (it shows banks that you're smarter than the school you attend). If you have a > 1400 SAT score (or comparable ACT score), put that on your resume.
4) Your work experience is fine. Banks realize it's difficult to have finance-related work experience. Any experience is good experience, so put everything you do on your resume. It is more important to have finance related work experience when applying for a full-time IB job, but it's still not totally necessary.
5) Apply to a bunch of boutique I-banks. Your NY location is an asset - it means you are easily available for an interview (I'm assuming you're located close to NYC). There was a thread a while back with lists of banks besides the bulge brackets. I contributed a bunch to that list as did other people. Go look at that thread.
6) For ib interviews, the Vault Guide to Finance Interviews is sufficient.
7) Are you black, hispanic, asian, latino, or any other form of minority? If so, apply to the SEO (sponsos for educational opportunities) program. I voiced my problems with the program in a previous thread, but if you get into the program, you get a guaranteed internship at a bulge bracket investment bank. SEO takes plenty of people from non-target schools.
8) Make sure to apply to the Big 4 Accounting firms for internships this summer too. These are good jobs at big, well-respected companies. An internship at one of these firms will be helpful for full-time recruiting next year if you can't get an ibanking internship (or you may even like accounting and just decide to stay; it is a good career).
(9) Your ability to interview well will help you enormously, if you can get interviews. You have no idea how many socially-awkward but smart kids there are at my school - they are completely unable to get offers at any decent banks. Fit is very important at a bank, in addition to being smart and hardworking. I found most of my banking interviews to be largely fit based (although my college doesn't have a finance major, so the finance questions that I could be asked were limited).
I would suggest networking a lot and getting your GPA up. I have a 3.2 GPA and go to a little known Midwest school but was able to land a job at a top bank. I was able to do this through some great alumni. Send me a message if you want more details. I received help from a lot of people and am willing to give back to others.
Do I-banks look down upon repeated classes? I had to repeat two classes but I got high grades in them on the 2nd time around... hopefully I want have to repeat accounting :(
what happened the first time? you went to the final and said income tax was a sham?
One was history... had to handwrite essays in class for tests (if that's not fucked up enough).
One was math... I was lazy and didn't study.
Accounting, well I need a 84% to get a C, and finals are this week so I'm scarred shitless. I hate this class with passion.
Somehow, despite all this, I have a 3.0 GPA.
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