Definitely likely to regret asking, but I need some honest opinions on how one may perceive my job candidacy.
Hello all,
First post on WSO here & I just wanted to ask what your initial impulse is when reviewing my qualifications.
Before I get into the details of my academics, I just want to say that I come from a lower middle-class family in the suburbs of Chicago and am a first generation college student. During my time at school until early HS, I was put into high-level math and reading courses (2+ grades above), but I made friends with the wrong crowd during HS and ended up finished with a GPA in the low 2s.
After taking the ACT (29), I decided to go to UIC since I was unable to afford DePaul or Loyola & needed to commute to save cash (UIUC was out of the picture). I'm doing better here, but not spectacular. I'm majoring in Economics and minoring in Finance and have around a 3.2 GPA. Although I know I can do better, I had to work 20-30 hours per week back home while going to school and that really took a lot of motivation to study out of me.
After finishing up my Junior year, I landed a great internship at William Blair & Company in their PWM/IM department through networking. Although this internship was originally supposed to be just a summer analyst position, I was offered an opportunity to work part-time during this upcoming school year.
Although I would love to work at Blair, there's obviously no gaurntee they'll higher me. The only things that truly set me apart as a candidate is that I'd say my pretty damn well-spoken and have paid about 1/3 of my tuition via work & options trading during summers & the school year.
Look, I'm not looking for any sort of empathy or validation, I just want to know how competitive of a candidate I am. I'm also not looking for any voices of hindsight, I know I fucked up and I will work my ass off to get to where I want to be. A career in AM is something I absolutely love to do, and I'm just looking for a little bit of guidance as to how I can make my journey a little easier.
Also,
anyone who says some bs about going to a 'non-target' school or not graduating cum-laude can fuck right off, there is a lot more to intelligence than what the academic community believes it to be, and I think many firms are beginning to reconcile with this notion. I get it's a game of statistics, but there are people at community college that can run circles around some kids from UIUC or IU.
Apologies for that last little bit, swear that doesn't represent my attitude but sometimes the level of arrogance on here makes me cringe. Thanks for reading.
A few obvious things you could do spring to mind...
1) Do the CFA level 1, this won't make you an especially outstanding AM candidate but will show commitment and help overcome reservations about your low GPA when you pass
2) Can you show/prove your track options trading track record? Being consistently successful over a long timeframe in options can show you have talent / financial acumen.
3) Work at William Blair and try to massively outperform on any task you are assigned no matter how menial, try and impress them by showing initiative. Even if you don't want to work there long term applying for any job from a job will be much easier, and it sounds like you would get better recommendations from them than your college professors.
Appreciate the advice dyjokoniak, would you recommend CFA before MBA? I was told I have to get my series 7 and 66 upon hiring if I were to be hired & hear that process takes about a year or so if you're working full-time (usually around 55ish hours per week give or take). I know some are able to get it done quicker, but I like to enjoy life a bit too since I'm in my early 20s and don't want to be studying all weekend. So it'd likely be around 1.5 to 2 years before I'd go ahead and take level 1.
Did you get the return offer or at least some incredible references that say they would have hired you in a heartbeat if they had capacity? Depending on this, we can give you a better idea of how competitive you are for FT AM.
Edit: Not sure why this was hit with MS, this is possibly the most important 'on paper' metric to consider.
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