If you don't go to an elite school...
If you don't go to an elite/target school, but still want to have a decent career in finance, would you say that it's basically a necessity to major in accounting vs finance? I've read that accounting majors can often get the same jobs as finance people, but finance majors do not have the option to work at the Big 4 or large, regional accounting firms. Therefore, since it's already difficult to get into i-banking from a top school, would it be stupid, since state school kids have little shot at banking to major in finance versus accounting?
The reason I ask is that, now that I think about it, I really don't think accounting is where my strengths lie as opposed to finance. Finance is IMO more exciting and numbers-oriented, which is more appealing to me than accounting. However, because I don't go to an elite school, I don't want to be one of those people who majored in finance because it's the "in thing" and then end up with a 35k job at some random company. I'm not even looking at i-banking anymore (I think I'd like corporate finance more personally), but would you say that 10/10 times a person from a state school should major in accounting instead of finance, or am I over-blowing how important a finance vs accounting major is.
For analyst level, a lot of times banks look more at intelligence level than relevance of studies. So in some ways, it might actually be to your disadvantage to major in accounting/finance because the target school kids (most who also major in finance or accounting) will stand out right away.
I've seen a lot of bankers on wall street (top banks as well) from non-target schools but majored in something the University is known for. For example, if your school's overall ranking isn't high but is top 3 in Math or Engineering studies, that could be a way too. They know they if you can handle that, banking would be cake.
Not sure if this applies to liberal arts majors though - seems to be mostly quantitative.
Also extra curriculars such as founding your school's investment banking club, playing competitve sports, etc. can help.
I agree with the above post, I go to a non-target and major in finance, just like every other one of these halfwits but I try to take hard classes, like instead of taking some BS management class for electives I take option pricing theory from the mathematics department. I am also retaking my SAT in October, looking to take my math score into the high 700's. Hopefully this will demonstrate that I COULD have gone to a better school, not that I was not good enough.
If I was you, stick with the finance major since you enjoy it. I did extremely well in both my accounting classes, think >100 where the class average was low 60's, but it is boring as hell like you've said. Just try and show that you have challenged your self by talking much harder classes, if your school offers a minor in something like math, computer science or physics, that too could be something to investigate.
yactman is right on. I also went to a nontarget and did Finance because it was way more interesting than Accounting. I chose to minor in Math (which required 8 additional math courses at my school) to set myself apart from the others. This proved to be very helpful. At every interview I had at BBs and boutiques this was asked about and looked upon very favorably. So, I suggest grabbing a minor in a challenging quantitative oriented subject and selling this in your interviews. Also, network like crazy and continue to study the markets and current events to sound intelligent in interviews! It takes more for us nontargets to get noticed, especially from BBs, but use this as a challenge and go into interviews more prepared than the targets, and hopefully you will land a position.
I'm actually not even looking too much into the BB banks. I'm looking at MM, corporate finance, or Commercial Banking, so would a math minor be good for those fields as well? Also, is there another good forum like this for the "lesser" finance jobs like corporate finance and comercial banking? I've tried College Confidential and this, but they are both too focused on BB investment banking, S&T, or MC, so if you have any good forums for the other jobs, I'd appreciate it.
Yes, mathematics will help you in any job, what you do in college is largely just an indicator of your capacity to learn, look up the principal of signaling theory. It's the same reason why you see BB's hiring engineers and physicists, it's not because it has anything to do with banking but because it shows they have a very high capacity to learn.
commercial banking is really easy to get into, my friend got an offer and he dropped out of college after 1 year. He's been a stock broker for 3-4 years, and sucks at that.
So what does a person do in commercial banking anyways? I know it has to do with assessing credit and giving out loans, but when I looked at the description of a "Loan Officer", it seemed like a lot of the job was just cold-calling (which makes it a sales job, something I am NOT interested in at all).
But other than that, how hard is corporate finance to get into?
You do realize investment banking is a sales job as well, right?
Just a few words of caution: Reputable MM banks are not significantly easier to get into than BBs. In fact, some regional MM banks only hire those with geographic ties to the area, so you may find yourself fighting an extremely uphill battle based on this alone.
~~~~~~~~~~~ CompBanker
If you didn't go to an elite school, you are going to work at McDonalds. .............................................................................. http://ittakesanationofhaircutstoholdusback.wordpress.com/ It Takes A Nation Of Haircuts To Hold Us Back.
Wow, I know that I'm not the smartest person around by any means, and I might not end up being as successful as the majority of the people on this board, but why do so many people here feel the need to be so obnoxious just because my degree won't have Wharton or Harvard on it?
And as for the person above me, I knew that Investment Banking requires sales skills, but I don't view it as a typical sales job where you only get paid on commission, and where your salary fluctuates WILDLY based on your performance. When I think of sales, I think of something like a realtor's job in which everything is based on your ability to sell.
Also, since accounting deals with a lot of tax work, could this be beneficial to investment banking companies (in terms of M&A and whatnot)? How do accounting vs finance majors do in terms of breaking into the field?
At a junior level in tax you basically just do corporate tax returns I thought? Not sure how that's going to help an IB (unless you're going to do their tax return?? lol).
IB isn't sales until you hit the VP level. Analysts aren't exactly handling clients, so if the kid doesn't like sales it's irrelevant.
My buddies who tried to do accounting then break into IB at a non target had a lot less success than the finance kids. It might've just been the sample though (accounting kids are tools so I can see why they would've been more prone to fucking up than the finance kids).
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