Am I SOL
Backstory: Graduated from a non target school in the midwest with a ~3.3 business GPA. After my undergraduate studies I started working on my MBA full time. I focused my curriculum on investments (derivatives, hedge fund construction, fixed income, bond portfolio management, etc). I completed that program with a 3.63.
My undergraduate GPA was low but I attribute that to the fact that I double majored in Finance and Accounting with a minor in IT. Outside of taking 21 credit hours the majority of the time, I worked upwards of 4 jobs at certain times. One of which was running a small business for two years. In addition to that I ran two marathons, participated in intramurals, various clubs, SGA, and ROTC for 3 semesters. Last piece of relevant information is that I was in the student investment fund where I learned a great deal about Bloomberg and using Excel to model.
I realize I have a monstrous task ahead of me trying to get into IB. Is it possible? What should I be doing? Anyone else in a similar situation succeed? Would I be crazy to drive 5 hours to Chicago to cold "walk-in?"
Honestly since you already used up your MBA, yes you are likely SOL.
What was your objective in getting some (presumed) no-name, random MBA post-undergrad? That's probably your kiss of death.
The objective was to build on my undergrad finance curriculum and to have a higher GPA to put on my resume. Additionally, I had a financial incentive to complete it right away.
You do have a fairly monstrous task ahead of you but it is not impossible and you need to make baby steps. I've had a lot of people reach out from weaker backgrounds asking what they can do to get into banking and if I were you here's where I'd start.
1) Change you attitude. Going on the defensive to describe your shortfalls is an immediate turn-off. Instead positioning yourself as I went to a bad school, had a bad GPA, etc. talk about what you did do (ie the investment club, the 4 jobs, ROTC, etc). I know you are just describing yourself on a forum, but I've seen so many people write like this and its exactly representative of how they sell themselves in real life.
2) Read the Rosenbaum investment banking book. There is no better resource for learning what investment banking is than this book. I recommend this to literally everyone who reaches out to me from a non-banking background and invite them to have another conversation once they have read this.
3) It is not impossible to jump straight to banking, but a related job while you are prepping could be a big help. This could be anything from an FP&A role at a company, a wealth advisor role, etc. Something to signal to banks that you have some real world experience in finance.
4) Target boutiques. What I mean by this is true boutiques, aka places with maybe 5 bankers total. You will not be able to jump to Morgan Stanley from your background, a reputable middle market bank, or really any place with a structured program. You say you live in the midwest and to be honest Chicago is somewhat of a 'target' city where spaces tend to be filled from a fairly competitive pool. But other cities like St. Louis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Cleveland, etc all have a lot of these types of banks. I just googled "Milwaukee Investment Banking" and found this place http://www.clearygull.com/services/investment-banking-firm/team/associa…. Know nothing about it but you would get relevant experience there. Find more of these and start networking
5) Experience matters. The idea of working for a no-name boutique may not be the most appealing thing, but it is a great platform to start on coming from a weaker background. The important thing to remember is that transaction experience is highly valuable and highly transferable whether the EV is 100m or 10m. Of course there are more complexities around bigger deals, but even experience at a no-name place will be attractive to the next tier up of banks and you can easily build a career that way.
Best of luck
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