Boutique private wealth management/operations or Summer Business Program?

I am a recent college grad, and am trying to get into Wall Street. You can see my situation from previous posts: I went to a non-target private school, tho I did well, have a ton of extracurrics, I majored in poli sci, minored in economics and Spanish. I've been applying to places left and right. I did get an interview, and even made it to a second round for retail wealth management. I didn't get an offer.

I hear wealth management and operations are the easier parts of WS to get into. However, I would love to do something better than sales or bitch work. If I were to get into say, NYU's or UChicago's or Dartmouth's business summer or winter programs, would it be a better investment than taking ops/WM at a boutique because I could learn all the finance/valuation jazz and have a better shot at IBD, PE, VC, HF?

5 Comments
 

Hey I just want to know when you go to interviews do they give you crap for being a poli sci major? I'm at a non target in nyc that is mainly a business school, I'm wondering if majoring in poli sci will raise eyebrows when I go to interview for something like wealth management ?

 
Best Response
chuck001

Hey I just want to know when you go to interviews do they give you crap for being a poli sci major? I'm at a non target in nyc that is mainly a business school, I'm wondering if majoring in poli sci will raise eyebrows when I go to interview for something like wealth management ?

Dude, I see u been bumping ~2 year old topics, but I'll answer you anyway. Depends on what your story is, ie how you decided to try finance. Boutique PWM places didn't ask. Tho here's a piece of advice: you want to do PWM because you want to someday own/run your own business, NOT because you wanna do PE/HF/IBD cuz few ever go from PWM to those. If u give them the latter answer, they'll respond: "so why didn't you go be a financial analyst?" And you don't wanna say "I didn't get recruited/I couldn't get one" because thats like saying "I wasn't good enough." Remember, in PWM you are little better than a salesman in a Best Buy selling to mom, pop, and grannies.

You might also look at a trading arcade. Arcades might ask how you got interested, and know your market (levels of indeces, prices of stocks/commodities, etc.). And some places did ask why poli sci, an ops position. Have a good answer, and have a good backstory about why you majored in it in the first place, what you wanted to do. And don't let your answer be "because no one would hire me at a think-tank," or "law school was too expensive for me" because that makes the discussion about money.

 

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