Eff Banking. Entrepreneurship?
Personally, I would love to be a banker, but this year is just too tough (especially for someone who is secretly very lazy with little self-motivation like myself). While I consider myself a very strong candidate on paper, I tend to stress out at banking interviews (but not at other interviews) and perform not as well as I could.
I have a few options at this point. In all honesty, I am a little tired out by the recruiting process so I don't plan on recruiting for summer analyst jobs anymore. I do plan on recruiting for full-time though (most likely in China rather than the US seeing as how I will be studying abroad there for my senior year, or is recruiting for full-time in the US still feasible even while studying in China? I speak fluent Chinese despite being born in the US and am fine working in either country).
Realistically, I could probably get without too much effort a Big 4 accounting internship, some sort of consulting job (not MBB or any place too glamorous), internship at one of the smaller pe/hf, or start a small business.
I am leaning towards the small business. It sounds fun, and if it goes as planned, I will net roughly $20k for the summer. In fact, if it goes as planned, I might just work on my small business for full-time.
But in the case it fails, how would this look for full-time recruiting compared to a big 4 accounting, consulting, or a gig at an mm pe?
By the way, I did a banking internship last summer and a number of other internships, all at fairly large firms.
If you want to maximize your chance of FT recruiting for IBD:
Save the small business for post grad. Also, middle-market PE refers to firms like Hellman & Freidman, so if you could land a summer there, you'd be 2 years ahead of all the current 1st year FT analysts :). Haha, I'm just giving you a hard time.
Best of luck.
"But in the case it fails, how would this look for full-time recruiting compared to a big 4 accounting, consulting, or a gig at an mm pe?"
Not so good... if you do it, do it because you want to do it (not because you want to get into banking)
I networked with a bunch of people from my school. One of them took one year off to work on his own business, came back to school and did one of those majors where you usually just can't get a job at all with a terrible major. He interviewed with all the firms on the street, and got 2nd rounds at most places. He ended up accepting the offer of a pretty good bank.
If I had the opportunity to start my own business, I would definitely do it. Keep in mind thought that his business was pretty successful. As far as I know, it is still around today, even though he is not actively working on it anymore.
A few things...
1. the big caveat is "if it goes as planned," things seldom do
2. people say banking is not glamorous, and its not... amongst bankers. When you're amongst lay people, a good proportion of them are impressed when they first find out you're a banker. Do you give 2 shits what they think? Probably not and probably to some extent. In any case, when you're getting shit on at work, and working inhumane hours jockeying an excel spread sheet and getting berated by seniors, there is a little vindication in the fact that when uyou step outside into the rest of the world friends/family acknowledge you are doing well for yourself career-wise.
3. you're secretly lazy and lack self-motivation and you think entrepreneurship is the way to go? You have to be far more motivated, hard working, and industrious to make it in entrepreneurship. Despite alll the other factors, and there are many, if you work in banking its shitty but at the end of the day you're still getting paid and validated by the outside world. Now take a lazy unmotivated person and make them work day and night and they still may have nothing to show for it...
4. when running your own business, you can go weeks, months, or years, and tons of money without any validation from you peers or your bank account that what you're doing is worth it... you're giving up on IBD recruiting because its so hard, you think you're going to make it in entrepreneurship?
You reek of mediocrity. Get some fuckin perspective.
If I saw you in real life, I'd grab you by the back of your shirt, yank you up out of your slouch of mediocrity, slap you in the face a few times, and tell you to get your shit together.
Though I wish you would have phrased it a little more politely, I appreciate your post.
Yeah, this is something that I wrote late at night. Probably shouldn't have described myself as lazy and unmotivated, but as a minor caveat, be it class work or paid work, I usually finish fast enough with a high enough level of accuracy.
As for the small business, I am considering it largely out of curiosity. My idea isn't something too special either, just renting out leasing a couple rooms or maybe a small building and teaching prep courses. I've been teaching prep courses part-time, and I am 10 points short of perfect on the SAT and perfect on the GMAT so I thought I might give it a try seeing how much prep companies charge. Yeah, I admit it doesn't seem too promising, which was why I posted this thread.
If it succeeds, it succeeds. If it doesn't, so be it. I don't mean to say that I won't work hard, but realistically, I am prepared for the negative possibilities.
If this gamble of mine fails though, I am curious how this will put me in terms of recruiting for full-time?
But thanks for the wake-up call Halberstram.
Honestly, if I were interviewing you and heard "oh I tried to start a test prep company, but it didn't really work out...", that's almost an auto-ding. It screams you bombed on SA recruiting and that you are trying to pull some shit out of your ass. Think for a second WHY someone interviewing you would give a shit that you started your own company and why that makes you a better candidate than the next guy. Then think if you can project enough of that to compete with the guy who summered at Morgan Stanley.
Why would you need to lease rooms or buildings for this? Seems like gratuitous overhead. You're still in college, your best bet is 1-on-1 tutoring, which you can probably charge more for and definitely maximize profits by going to your pupils homes to do. As for this being a legitimate business idea, I agree this hardly stands out. It is the type of thing you do on weekends or after classes to get beer money - it's not going to stand out. Now, if you live in a decent sized city, get 10 guys who did well on their tests and will work for $10/hr and you organize a legitimate enterprise with you just organizing them, you'd have actually started a business. Of course, very few guys who get 2400s would be stupid enough to give you a fat margin for putting up a few fliers.
Guts, I am not sure if I understand where you are coming from.
Either A) you are just frustrated at how your interviews have gone and are just posting your random thoughts. In which case, keep at it, if you truely have a good business plan, try the corporate world and get more experience/ take more time to think about it while working.
B) Marcus is right. You are one of those guys that are a dime a dozen and talk about their small business, but have hockey stick revenue projections coupled with the tendency to inflate actual business earnings to your friends. In which case, im guessing you have some kind of hybrid internet/garage business that you have made money from, but isn't viable as an actual long term business that pays taxes, has money for capex, and pays you a salary.
Guts,
Dont let these dingleberries take you down. Please do give up your banking dreams. Youre one less person I have to worry about for competition so please do continue on with your business.
this is really strange.
I've been thinking something along the same lines, and seeing what you guys are saying, I feel a little dissuaded. I actually went through the process this time, have worked my ass off for about a year and a half now, ended up with 8 interviews and 0 offers for SA.
While thinking about other options, I came across a legitimate business idea (that I've already pitched to bankers and VC's, and they've agreed), and have been contemplating pursuing it for this summer and coming back for FT recruiting in the fall after working on it and seeing how it works out. If it doesnt work out, I have a pretty solid res otherwise, but if it does, then I might pursue it.
I am not giving up on banking, I just have another opportunity that is unique that I want to pursue; I am fully committed to working my ass off all of the time and I definitely have powerful self motivation. Do these things even matter come FT, and is this the same as Guts?
It's the same... the entrepreneur thing might help you make your case for PWM, but a banker can usually care less (unless it turned into something really extraordinary). Do it if that's what you want to do-- you probably won't have an opportunity to do it later in life. But don't expect it to really help you.
As long as you arent self described as "lazy", you sound like you have more realistic expectations.
FYI... while in the professional realm a job that last for 10 weeks is called an internship, in the entrepreneurial realm a business that lasts for 10 weeks is called a failure.
I'm not saying that you wouldn't have some valuable experience from launching a venture and it failing... I'm saying that it sounds like some of you think you can spend your summer running a business and be done with it after. My perspective is, if you have a business idea with a 10-15 week horizon, I don't see what kind of valuable experiences you can gain from it. Contrast this with launching a full blown venture and it failing within 10-15 weeks.
I fully agree with you here; If I plan on going through with this, I plan on working on it starting now and at least until through the end of the next year, so about a year and a half ish. In the meantime, I think there definitely is a valid point in continuing to pursue banking-related experience through this year. I'll try and end up at a boutique or at the very least do a corpfin/accounting job. Still kind of upset about not getting anything this year, even though I really busted my ass-non target with 3 financial internships prior, i guess my interviewing skills werent up to par.
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