17year old looking for advice into breaking into the finance industry especially trading or investment banking.
Hey i am a 17 year old looking for advice for breaking into the finance industry especially trading or investment banking.
I am currently a Grade 12 student who put my focus in the last year of school to learn as much about the financial markets as i possibly could which resulted in my grades in my final year dropping below my usual average. I have been offered and accepted to go to a univeristy which is NON target. I am determined to perform my best at univeristy and am studying law and commerce and am aiming to get a 3.7+ GPA which i hope will make up for my low highschool grade.
My Questions i have are:
How much does highschool grades affect future career oppurtunites?
When is the best time to look for a intern-ship in university?
What are ways to build my resume which are appealling for people hiring?
To anyone with advice that will help me in any way i really appreciate it : )
The problem isn't your high school grade, the high school grade no longer matters. The problem is that you prioritised financial knowledge over getting into a good uni. A good uni would've done multiples more for your career growth than being 1 year earlier learning whatever you spent so much time learning. You are now at a non target, and your life, career wise, will be much harder as a result.
But can't do much about that now, unless you plan to transfer.
You haven't really specified the country or region you're in which is going to affect the answers to your questions.
Hey thanks for the response, i am from Australia where there are no real "TARGET" Schools. The university i am going to was going to be the same univeristy i would have chosen even if i had done well in highschool. The main reason i asked this question was for my CV and internships, do people actually care about highschool grades?
I think there are some targets in Australia. "G6" if I remember right?
Whether they care or not depends on the region (UK they do, US they don't) and frankly don't know enough about the recruitment in Aus to answer. Not sure what recruitment timelines are either but generally, the earlier the better.
I'm from Australia so can weigh in here. Some banks will care about ATAR, but most won't. The vast majority of BB internships will go to students at Go8 unis - if you're not at one of these, you're seriously fighting an uphill battle.
Well, there's a few things. There's a little book about 100 pages long that you can read in a day or weekend or whatever called How to Get a Job on Wall Street: Proven Way to Land a High-Paying, High-Powered Job by Scott Hoover. It will answer most of the fundamental questions, give you some direction, and allow you to ask more detailed and intelligent questions about getting a job in IB.
Unfortunately, the other poster is right. At your age and experience, there's absolutely nothing you can learn—especially in a year—that will impress anyone on Wall Street so much that they will overlook your school. Your job at your age and grade is to get into the best school that you can and get the best grades possible. Even though you have an uphill battle, many people have gotten offers from non-targets. You're just going to have to work that much harder, network, and you can also transfer.
You also need to learn how to ask better and more detailed questions, especially if you want to be a banker. This question has been asked a million times, you can search, google, and even ask Chatgpt. You want to do as much as you possibly can on your own and then ask well-thought-out questions that are tailored to your situation. It's good practice for when you start networking and interning. Busy people don't like being bothered with basic questions that could have been googled or searched on Chatgpt. So get in the habit of searching before you ask someone. People will be more impressed and respect you more when you can ask them great questions that show you care about the subject, are knowledgeable, and can make them think. It will also show you have respect for their time. Bad questions are a sign of laziness.
I know you didn't ask this, and I'm not trying to be rude. It's just another life tip. People in general aren't going to care why things didn't work out for you. They won't care why you didn't get into a great school or why you're missing deadlines at work. They won't care if a parent got sick, you got depressed, or something bad happened to you and you got bad grades. The most you'll get is an "I'm sorry, I'm here if you need to talk," if that. If it's really bad it may buy you a couple of weeks at work or an extension on an assignment or test or something, but it's not going to help you get or keep a job and get a good GPA. People care about how productive you are and your results. Sympathy and excuses don't get you far in life. There are foster kids that had to raise their siblings and duck bullets every day who still managed to get into a target. There are people who have crazy stories who still manage to figure it out, that's your competition in life. So always keep that in the back of your head.
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