Just re-joined the full-time working world after two years at H/S/W caliber MBA program. Attended b-school after ~9 years in the US military working in the special operations community. While in b-school, I did interviews for our admissions office and was responsible for leading our vets' club admissions efforts (to include resume and essay feedback). Did IB over the summer but managed to land a buy-side investment professional role full-time. Q&A. I'm probably best positioned to offer thoughts on the b-school application process (particularly for older and or veteran candidates) and transitioning to finance as a career switcher. I've gotten a lot of solid insights via WSO, figured I'd try to contribute.
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Lemme think about how to sanitize them. Was going to share the Rob Riggle "I Killed Bin Laden" video but WSO wouldnt let me
Just a heads up, "what's the coolest/craziest/worst thing you've seen" is probably the worst question to ask a vet. Especially special ops or any other forward deployed person.
How did you find the IB internship, was it as tough as WSO would have you believe?- I don't know that it was tough per se, I didn't feel as though as I was over my head. The hours were pretty tame by banking standards from what I understand (75-80 hours/ week) but I think it was a slow summer.
Could you provide your reasoning why you chose to recruit for buyside instead of taking IB FT?- I worked on a couple transactions for shops similar to the one I joined full time. I liked the sort of commercial/operational diligence they were doing to find/capture value, more than the financially weighted diligence the bank was focused on.
What was the timeline on securing the buyside position, was it in your second year? I was pretty lucky here. I was able to have everything resolved by December. I think most people doing something similar didn't sign full-time offers until the spring.
And could you have got there without the IB internship, on your background alone? Frankly, I'm not 100% sure. I benefited from school alumni contacts as well as contacts with people who had similar military backgrounds. I think that's probably why they called me back after looking at my resume. I think the transaction experience I got over the summer probably lent me some professional credibility and de-risked me as a hire.
How have you found joining finance as an older/more experienced candidate? I have lots of friends who have done it successfully. Banks in particular have no issue hiring older candidates if they demonstrate commitment and willingness to learn. My sense is that most buyside shops aren't looking to train anyone on basic finance skills, which is the biggest impediment to hiring those without finance experience. I think I was successful because I demonstrated commitment to the specific sector my shop is focused on (as opposed to saying "I want to be on the buyside") and had put in time to develop a sector-specific knowledge base (think reading lots of trade publications and blogs).
No questions, but wanted to say thank you for your service and congrats!
Undergrad degree was in Economics, no honors track or anything like that. And quite frankly about as quantitatively weak as you could get with an Econ degree. That said, I did minor in a non-western language which didn't hurt.
Short answer on admissions valued military experience-YES. If you look at the Top 15-20 b-schools, vets trend around 5-6% of each class. Some people view that as valuing the experience, some view it as another diversity wicket to hit.
I can speak directly for my school- they actively attempted to understand what you did in the military and how you stacked up against peers in terms of military performance. What that translated to was a crop of vets that trended older, leaned in favor of military communities with up-front selection (special operations, pilots, nuclear engineers) and who had been very successful by traditional military evaluation metrics. There are a few different schools that seem to demonstrate this preference. Happy to provide more specific insight via PM.
Conversely, there are some schools that appear to place less emphasis on what you did in the military than on your undergrad institution and major.
How elite was your spec ops unit? How does this compare to Israeli Special Forces?
I dunno what the WSO metric for elite-ness is? Halfway between Gordon Gekko and Patrick Bateman?
I didn't want to get too far afield with the military stuff, but I did type "AMA". So to clarify, US Army Special Forces, popularly referred to as Green Berets.
I'm not terribly familiar with IDF special operations forces (haven't worked with them) but the mission set seems similar to some of the Commando Brigade ("Oz?") sub-units.
Spec ops to H/S/W to buyside? Can I have your autograph? (been asking this too often lately...)
I don't think those factors sink your application at all. I'd be lying to you if I said every top school historically accepts a large number of enlisted applicants. That said, a number of the top schools recognize the value that prior enlisted students add to a class and admit some every year. Darden, Booth, Fuqua, Wharton and Columbia fall into this category.
If you crush the GMAT (think north of 710) undergrad brand name is a lot less of an issue. Undergrad brand name is also a lot less important if you have a STEM undergrad degree.
For incoming vets, unless you are coming from a highly technical field (which could be the case given you've worked in aviation logistics), academically their primary concern is that you won't fall behind and/or fail out. Not that they want dumb vets, but admissions committees see leadership and management experience as the value drivers that vets contribute to a class.
Most compelling pieces advice I can offer are 1) ensure your success relative to your peers is very clear on your resume (NCOER rankings) and 2) have a strong narrative about how your experiences will add to the class.
Happy to discuss further via PM.
been said before, but thanks for your service. I grew up in a military town and it can't be overstated what the armed forces do.
with that outta the way, I'm curious about a couple things:
any deployments?
do you miss the military? been listening to some interviews of vets and they all seem to miss combat, miss deployment, and miss the military.
why not be a career Green Beret? I'm unfamiliar with the process, so I don't know if you were pushed out or if this was your choice.
what part of the investment world are you working on? all you said was buyside, so I'm curious what sector you're working in and what attracted you to it.
talk about discipline and how it's helped you. very few on WSO have been through the training you've been through, but I'm a firm believer that the reason vets (especially spec ops) have success in the corporate world is because of their discipline, so I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this.
sensitive subject so feel free to pass on this one. I'm curious about PTSD. I've heard everything from it's a bigger issue than we think to it's way overblown. want to get your opinion.
thanks!
any deployments? Yes, a bunch to a variety of places both inside and outside combat theaters in the Middle East
do you miss the military? been listening to some interviews of vets and they all seem to miss combat, miss deployment, and miss the military. I miss a lot of things about it, but there's a lot of things I don't miss. I miss my teammates and getting to do really cool stuff. I don't miss spending 9-10 months/year away from my wife and kids (well most of the time) and I don't miss working for an large, bureaucratic institution with very mechanical HR policies. why not be a career Green Beret? I'm unfamiliar with the process, so I don't know if you were pushed out or if this was your choice. I got to the point in my career where I was about to become what we referred to as a "Former Action Guy". I was about to spend a lot of time in windowless rooms updating powerpoint slides for senior officers. what part of the investment world are you working on? all you said was buyside, so I'm curious what sector you're working in and what attracted you to it. I'm speaking elliptically not to act cloak and dagger, but some level of anonymity allows for more candor. I'm at a privately held shop backed by a few well-capitalized family offices with both robust trading and longer term principal investing capabilities talk about discipline and how it's helped you. very few on WSO have been through the training you've been through, but I'm a firm believer that the reason vets (especially spec ops) have success in the corporate world is because of their discipline, so I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this. I think discipline is essential, regardless of your background. I don't want to get too dramatic about it though. I guess the way I think about discipline as I've been able to apply it in b-school/work so far is: 1) look at a problem far enough in advance to plan ahead ( or identify likely problems that will arise on short notice) 2) prepare accordingly 3) not panic 4) do what it takes to solve the problem and 5) rinse, wash, repeat. I get that the above are easier said than done, but I would say, everything is easier when 1) you plan ahead and 2) you have a routine.
sensitive subject so feel free to pass on this one. I'm curious about PTSD. I've heard everything from it's a bigger issue than we think to it's way overblown. want to get your opinion. Way too big a topic to discuss here. Short answer is that its a very real thing but it manifests itself differently in everybody who suffers from it.
On a related note, I highly recommend reading "Tribe" by Sebastian Junger. It started as an effort to figure how to better integrate returning service members but goes a lot deeper into social/organizational stuff that I think a lot of people who aspire to leadership roles would benefit from.
Must have been an incredible journey, big thank you to you (and your family) for your service.
After 9 years in the military I'm assuming you're +30 (you don't have to be specific with the exact number).
1.) Where do you think you were in your class with regards to age? 1A.) Were you older, younger, around the average?
1B.) How did the age dynamic affect the class?
1C.) Did you find the older students had more to contribute?
2.) Did you find it hard to pick up academics being older and coming straight out of the military?
Why I'm asking: I've been trying to characterize a timeline for myself.
1) probably 75th-85th percentile age-wise graduating at 33 1B) Age didn't affect the social dynamics so much as being married with kids did. I had a vet buddy who was a 34 year old divorcee. I promise he got his money's worth from the social scene. 1C) I don't know that the older students had more to contribute. I think students with a broader set of experiences had more to contribute. A lot were older, a lot weren't. For me the big surprise was how little a lot of US students from very prestigious undergrad institutions had traveled or were familier with non-North American/Western European cultures. 2) Academics weren't that bad in large part because I committed the time to them. I think my academic experience was a lot smoother than some of my older and non-quant classmates because I put in some hours ahead of my first semester learning how to manipulate excel and familiarizing myself with basic accounting. Those two things are huge timesavers. I also think there's value in reviewing basic stats too.