U.S Citizen studying finance at a top school in Australia. How hard is it going to be for me to break into US IB?

As the title says I'm currently 2 years into a 4 year double degree at a top Australian university in Finance & Information systems. On track to graduate with a distinction and will have around 2 years of part time work experience at a big 4 in their M&A team (basically tech consulting/due-diligence for carve-outs and integrations) by the time I graduate. I have a US passport so getting a visa won't be an issue for me but I'm aware of the preference of IBs to hire from US target schools and I feel coming from overseas (unless you're going to OxBridge or similar) is going to be much more difficult due to that preference. My question is what do you guys think is going to be the biggest challenge here? Is it going to the fact that I'm coming from a non-US university? And what do you guys think I can do to overcome this?

3 Comments
 

I know a dude who did top BB in Aus (GS/MS/JPM) and lateraled to another top BB in US.
So I would say recruit for IB in Aus and lateral a couple years later. Getting a straight role from Aus is a lot less likely. 

 

Firstly, thanks for the reply. This is kind of where I can foresee the following issues:

1. I have no right to work in Australia, so me breaking in here would require a work visa and most companies hiring for graduate roles specifically state that a PR or citizenship is a must have.

2. Less of a concern than previously but I've also heard that due to the nature of IB in Australia (being very Australian and/or APAC focused) it can be easy to get pigeonholed here if you are not able to lateral out within the first couple of years. Not to hate on Australia but this place is not exactly my cup of tea and as my family is in another region of the world my mid-term goal is to get out of here. 

 

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