Breaking in Tips
Hello everyone,
I am a Canadian non-target junior year finance student, and recently decided I want to pursue a career in high finance. I have some extracurriculars with leadership experience, but they are not directly finance-related. I have a decent GPA (3.98/4 when I convert it from Ontario GPA to USA GPA), and I've had a few internships, but they are government finance roles, not banking. Because of my course schedule I have two internships left, one in fall, and one in the summer, and I'm hoping to get better ones. Are my chances of landing a high-finance role pretty much none because I decided to pursue it so late, or do I still have a shot?
What should my next steps be? I would appreciate any honest and practical advice.
Thank you!
How non-target are we talking here?
Quite non-target. Think Carleton/uOttawa/UdeM.
Are you fluent in French? You could try to go for Montreal roles since you’d be competing against a smaller pool of applicants. Still going to be hard.
I am fluent in French. Are Montreal roles really less competitive though? There are less applicants, but also less opportunities.
Your school isn't doing you any favors, but you could be in a worse place.
Pros: Excellent GPA, lots of work experience that is somewhat related
Cons: School isn't doing you any favors, in your 3rd year already, and your internships are government roles.
Landing a high-finance role right out of school is likely not going to happen, but landing one in the next 5 years is very doable.
The tough part is that lots of recruiting for summer '25 is already complete. Otherwise I would recommend you laser focus on networking to land a gig at that, and then slow down your pace in school to delay graduation by a year.
I'd recommend taking a stab at trying to get a middle office role at a B5 or anything better (corporate / commercial banking). Then after you land that you can work to move over to a front-office role a year or two after graduation. Keep that GPA where it's at and network well and I don't see why you couldn't make it.
Thanks for your advice, super appreciated!
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