I gave ChatGPT the prompt “What is the average undergraduate student’s likelihood of breaking into investment banking within 3 years of graduating without an mba” and it roughly estimated a non target’s chances at 5-10%, only slightly lower than a target’s chances of 20-30%, with a job acceptance rate of 1-3%. Maybe a helpful proxy but it’s just random numbers with little context.
Can we get a better understanding of how tough it is to break in? I don’t want this to be a cringy “Deloitte is more competitive than Harvard” moment, but more like “an earnest non target applicant who puts their best foot forward is still very unlikely to break in because such and such” or “I watched 1,000 of my target classmates apply in 202X and only X number get in” or something. Or maybe it’s easier to break in than perceived. Idk.
Looking for an aggregate of real world insights instead of generalities. More specific data would be great, though I’m not expecting much. Personal experiences are welcome, at the risk of inviting bias.
Trying to boost my ego here. I broke in years ago from a non target with average grades and I’ve never truly understood how unlikely that outcome was.
i'm in the same boat feel pretty average at a non target but so far have not ran into too much opposition but i know its just because im incredibly fortunate.
I think the best perspective is the whole "I watched 1,000 of my target classmates apply in 202X and only X number get in" but looking at people from your class at a non target. I am friends with guys who have done recruitment twice and seemingly put their best foot forward and struck out and many many more who struck out once and moved on. A Kid who lived and breathed networking (200 calls in 2 years) and studying while still being active in his frat struck out after only 1 superday in 2 years. Obviously its not all luck right but the old "rather be lucky then good" still applies
Point being yeah its very hard and the luck aspect is a really fat part of where we are today
Think there's tiers - someone who found IB by early soph year, gets an internship, networks early has plenty of chance to make it. Maybe not BB/EB if it's a super non-target, but certainly MM/LMM and work up from there. I see a lot of people disappointed they didn't get a top BB, but most of them land fine somewhere.
Someone who is a senior and thinks "hmm, maybe I should get a job" and applies to The Goldman Sachs has a 0% chance, but there are a lot of unqualified people throwing their resumes into the black hole regardless - that's where firms get the stats of "we had 100,000 applicants for every spot here" - 90% of those are not people who have done any of the work you need to do to break in.
yep. that's how it works.
it is however crazy that in US being in your last year of college is too late to apply for IB jobs. everywhere else in the world people focus on school during the first 3 years and then start thinking about jobs and applying. and even in other fields, not IB, in US it's a completely normal behavior. but for IB you for some reason have to know about it and prepare for it as a teenager, otherwise you'll miss out.
From a non-target it's really hard even for regional/mm shops. Target schools with strong OCR make it significantly easier but the candidate pool is much different so it brings its own challenges with winning top offers.
I think anyone can break in, but it just depends how long you want to grind for it. For me, start to finish, took about ~5 years of dedicated effort
Everyone tells me the hardest part is breaking in, it's harder to get kicked out of the industry
It’s not that hard to get at least one offer. It’s extremely hard to get a highly coveted offer.
Here's my take:
If you are a non diversity male at a non target it is a very very uphill battle. I'm a non diversity male at a T5 and even had a hard time (managed to secure a few EB offers but didn't get interviews at GS/MS). I also was a huge sweat so given that, I would def expect the average non-target person to have a much shittier shot. Have friends at school that came out with a non EB/Top 3 BB offer so just decided to not take them.
How i like to think of it is even if you have a good candidate you have a decent chance of not getting an offer - but that doesn't mean that unqualified people don't get the internships.
What did your friends choose instead of the banking offer? There's always possibility for FT recruiting and lateraling.
I've never gone through recruiting, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the acceptance rate to some of these banks has to be at least slightly inflated (or deflated depending on how you want to put it) with all the applicants who you can automatically throw out due to lack of qualifications who just decided to throw their hat in the ring.
go to a great school and prepare for IB interviews as a freshman in college, then apply for an SA as a sophomore. bonus if you network and get extracurriculars, but not necessary if you go to an Ivy or something similar. if you are not in a great school or not a freshman anymore, i.e. don't have time to prepare and apply for an SA in a sophomore year, then there's not much you can do (other than network like crazy), cause banks will filter you out as someone who doesn't fit the criteria they are looking for.
If you went to a top school (Ivy, Duke, Stanford, MIT) or another target (Ross, Stern, Georgetown, etc.) you have a reasonable chance to break in as long as you have a solid GPA, EC’s, internships, and aren’t completely socially inept. If you don’t meet that criteria, then it’s an uphill battle.
least obvious duke grad
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