Undergrad Investment Clubs and their impact on recruiting
I noticed there wasn't a comprehensive thread on undergrad investment clubs and was hoping to start one. Personally, my schools investment club was crucial in my SA 2020 recruiting (early access to processes, networking, and mocks) but have noticed from conversations with friends that club structures and influence vary heavily across schools. I would be interested in learning more about other schools.
How is your school's investment club structured? (exec recruiting, responsibilities, club size, alumni network, how much money do you manage and how do you allocate etc...) How influential was being a part of your school's investment club in your recruiting? (SA, FT and beyond)
E.g. from my school My school has one main club that manages $100k+. About 40 people on the exec team but the club is open to non-exec members for educational purposes. Execs are recruited each fall to a specific sector and generate investment ideas and educational presentations over the course of the year. Very strong alumni network, and many sophomore and junior year SA positions are recruited for through a closed club process. Pretty low nepotism in the exec recruiting so the entire team tends to be quite strong and places at top firms each year.
Thanks guys, hopefully this thread can be interesting and helpful to all.
I’ve seen companies exclusively hire from these clubs; if you’re not a club member your resume is discarded. The logic being if you're truly interested in banking you’d be in the club.
Second this.
This seems more common at non-targets than targets
Some of us don’t have the luxury of knowing what happens at targets ;)
This is debatable. I have friends at multiple targets that are in clubs that can "pull" for students, or at least provide a solid mentorship/learning experience to propel students to a firm. For my interview processes, I was directly referred by previous summer analysts, and they held top positions in finance clubs here. They're essentially a guaranteed 1r or super day.
Yes obviously networking helps. But being a member of an investing club is no different than any other club or even frat in that respect.
Plenty of the people from targets going to top BBs, EBs, or buyside had no investing club experience.
At non-targets, investing clubs serve as more of a direct funnel because fewer people from those schools go into finance (hence fewer networking opportunities outside of those clubs) and because firms are simply going to interview fewer people from those schools so you need to clearly demonstrate a strong interest in finance
I was a general member in my club (anyone can do this), and my biggest regret recruiting-wise is not being more involved. The kids on the exec committee all do amazing recruiting wise and there's a solid networking aspect- if you are on the exec board as a freshman and work with a senior who has a full-time job at GS and show you are capable, that's a great connection two years down the road when you are recruiting.
Even if you aren't involved, you 100% need to be on the email list/slack channel/facebook group/whatever communication channel they use. Banking info sessions, networking opportunities, and even job opportunities are often emailed out by the group, and if you aren't involved then you miss out on a ton of important recruiting information.
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