Lateral help, need advice

I just graduated and failed to break into IB. I networked with over 300 people, but with no prior experience I was a long shot. I ended up taking a job outside finance at a F250 financial services company doing data science. I know my modeling, technicals and etc cold.

Would getting my CFA 1, SEI, and series 79 help me change industries to IB/VAL? If not, is there anything else that could help me?

Thanks ahead for any help!

Sorry for any typos, wrote on my phone.

9 Comments
 

I was in a similar position to you broke in (MM). I had finance internship experience at a F100 and ended up in a non-IB/val finance role after graduation. Took a lot of networking and went through a couple processes before breaking in ~8 months after graduating. Try to "bankify" your resume as much as possible. If you can get any exposure to working with NPVIRR, pro forma, etc. then put it on there. Maybe try and reach out the corpdev team at your current company and see if they'll give you access to past deal materials or if they'll let you help on anything current.

As for the other things you mentioned: I didn't take any of those prior and know others that didn't either and were able to break in. Maybe since you're in a non-finance role then it could be a good idea to take CFA 1 just so that they know you can handle the technicals and it shows dedicated interest in finance. I personally think it's overkill for IB, but there's so many hardos that like to make the barrier to entry really high so they can feel better about themselves.

 

Lateral- I mainly targeted banks that had postings out but also started reaching out to people in the coverage I wanted at all of the MMs. Ended up getting one that was posted through networking. I've never had success with just applying online. In theory I don't see why you couldn't join a class like FT 2022 (I've seen it done for fldps), but banks seem to have the requirement that it's only for people graduating that year. Idk, maybe while networking you could ask and they might make it work.

Honestly since you have your techs/modeling down cold, I would say your story is going to be the biggest thing for you. Make sure you have something good and I'm sure they'll pass your resume along. Always remember: it's a numbers game. A lot of luck involved, so the more you get your name/resume out there, the better your chances

 

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