In a dark place after failing in FT recruitment, need advice.
Hey guys,
The fund that I summer interned at is closing shop so I started the FT recruitment process a few months back for IB. From what I heard from mentors, the best way to get back into HFs is with IB experience; problem is that this FT cycle was absolutely brutal. My internship at a distressed HF did distressed buyouts so I had some experience with modeling and also being able to talk about deals and high level corp finance stuff. I got RX interviews at some EBs and also interviews with a really good TMT bank/group (Q/Allen & Co/GS). Also got some growth equity interviews similar to a (Insight/GA/Summit).
Currently sitting at no offers and FT recruitment is practically done. Now that CS bros are also looking to get out it seems there aren't any seats left; feeling real anxiety and not sure what to do.
For background I'm graduating this fall with a 3.8 GPA from NYU/UVA/USC type school, started my own fund in college (just 1m AUM) and ended up making and saving up ~850k all in (including from PA luck) which I have sitting in cash. Not too worried about paying the bills right now but very worried about my career. My fund manager spun off our HF's venture platform and I am currently working for that to avoid employment gaps; but it doesn't look like he's gonna be hiring anyone else other than a few of the original associates.
Could really use some advice; I'm feeling pretty lost. WSObros gave me some good guidance in the past; I think I just need some clarity and motivation. I want to make it to IB and in finance. I'm too hungry to give up now. I strongly believe in myself and my willingness to succeed.
You’ve got nearly $1mm in the bank and strong internship experience, I would try to be less hard on yourself, keep hustling/networking and things will work out
.
You may have committed some slight money laundering
The well-known "path" to finance/business success (something like target > IB > buyside > H/S MBA > more buyside > baller) is actually not common. Fast forward to the 40-50 y/o age group that you want to be a part of . . i.e. the most successful people 20 years into a career . . and you'll see that very few of them had the standard first few moves that people have.
So why do we believe so much in the path when it's not common? Because it's the mode . . you know, that term from day 1 of stats class that was never mentioned again. If you pick the 100 people 20 yrs out of college who's career you most want to have, you'll see maybe 10 of them followed that standard path. But the other 90 people followed 50 different paths, so we have this false illusion that one path is the right way. Even though only 10% follow it.
This myth of the common path causes people to overlook the fact that your most straightforward move (i.e. getting into IB right out of school) was merely your first available opportunity of many to come.
So what you should do next? Too many right answers here, but if it were me, I'd just grab any role where I can learn something about how a business operates. The goal would be to then leverage that experience to either a buy side role or a lateral move to banking in 1-2 years. But again, there's 50 right answers here.
What's more important is to realize that all you missed was the first on-ramp. There's many more coming.
Probably the best post I’ve seen in this site