Q&A: Charting your career

Introduction

So I'm relatively new to WSO (clearly) but have been following the forums and social media for a while and considering my own experiences in this industry I figured I might be of help to anyone fresh out of college or a few years into their career trying to figure out where the hell you want to go. This is quite literally a Q&A (emphasis on the second "A") and I try to be as open of a book as possible, but I'm also going to write a lot here that hopefully answers a decent amount of questions to begin with. I'm absolutely stealing the below template / format from other posts (thanks to @"masterz57" mostly, your post about Cornell MBA came up as a suggested reference point) but it's a far better format than just spewing words onto a screen and I'm someone who needs structure in his life.

Personal history / background

I grew up in Long Island and have spent the vast majority of my life in and around NYC. I graduated from Michigan in 2011 (couldn't get into the Ivy League but all's well that ends well) and for those old or experienced enough to recall, you probably remember that the job market wasn't what it is today. I majored in Econ for the sole purpose of making myself marketable after graduating (and because at the time, Ross undergrad students couldn't study abroad, which was a deal-breaker for me) and I didn't have much of an idea of what I wanted to do beyond working in sports marketing or management. The summer before my senior year (as in, the really important one where everyone tries to get a BB internship or land on someone's sales desk) I worked for free at a tiny sports marketing company that was started by a former ATP tennis player and a Columbia MBA. It was a cool gig but it was clearly not anything that was going to develop into a real offer (or at least one that would afford me a decent life in NYC) so I went back for senior year and didn't really think about what to do career-wise until second semester when my parents were up my ass about life after college. I graduated with a 3.4 (the platonic ideal of "doing fine") and went back home without a job offer or any prospects. I fired out my resume to what must have been 30 companies, family friends, and anyone who might be looking for a directionless 21 year old, and eventually I got an offer at an immigration law firm to help all the companies I thought would be good places to work (BofA/Merrill, JPM, BlackRock, Blackstone, etc.) get US visas for their international employees. My experience there is a topic for a separate conversation, but I'll leave it quite simply at "it was awful." I moved after three months to a different law firm, a diversified corporate law firm you've probably heard of, and spent a year there. I took the LSAT, stared into the abyss of law school and being an attorney, and realized that taking out $250k to get a degree I didn't want for a job I didn't like, was probably not a good decision.

Pivot! to financial services

Shortly after taking the June 2012 LSAT and getting enough feedback from attorneys I worked with and respected deeply that I should do "anything else," I started sending around my resume again and talking to recruiters. Obama was up for re-election and a lot of Dodd-Frank was either in place or ramping up, so all of those financial services companies I mentioned before (and thousands of others) were in the process of hiring junior people in legal/compliance to handle projects, internal working groups, etc. I went on to a few companies' career pages and applied online. By some small miracle I got a few call backs and started coordinating in-person interviews. To my knowledge, I am the only person who has successfully gotten an interview by applying on a firm's careers page, and I unequivocally do NOT recommend doing so in your own career. It is not a replicable or sustainable strategy. The first (and somehow only) place I interviewed was a large global buy-side firm where I was supposed to meet with two people in compliance - the woman who would be my manager if I were hired, and one of the MDs. I met with the hiring manager, and we hit it off great, but the MD was out sick, so after twenty minutes of twiddling my thumbs waiting for someone to come interview me, her office-mate walked in. He was an attorney, not in compliance, and didn't know why I was there or the position for which I was interviewing. Needless to say it went awfully and I walked out and assumed the next interview at the next firm would go better. A week later Hurricane Sandy happened and all of New York was suddenly dealing with a full-blown crisis. I took it as a sign from the Lord that it wasn't meant to be, and focused on helping the law firm get off the ground (they're based in the financial district and their office was absolutely destroyed by the hurricane) until about a month later when the hiring manager emailed me saying I was the only person they wanted to bring back for the final round. I ended up getting the offer and so began my career in financial services in January 2013.

Today

I spent about five years in compliance at that firm covering more teams and projects than I can properly iterate, and to this day I'm still pretty close with my first manager. I'm also eternally grateful to the entire firm for giving me enough opportunities (and chances) for me to figure out how I wanted both myself and my career to develop. Along the way I took the GMAT (decided against b-school for the time being) and started the CFA curriculum (I passed level 3 last year and happily have my charter). But, you know, all good things come to an end, and after my manager moved out of the department and I was reassigned to a different team, I eventually realized that compliance wasn't my calling and it was time to find something else. Having spent several years at the firm I had developed a pretty solid personal network, and a good friend of mine on one of the sales teams suggested I apply to an open role on his team. The team focused on bringing in new investors for the firm's alts strategies (HFs, real assets, private credit / PE, etc.) and I thoroughly enjoyed being involved in the sales process, so I applied. Wouldn't you know it - the team decided that I would be a good fit, despite having extremely minimal experience in sales and not having any of my FINRA licenses, and they gave me an offer. I didn't last particularly long on that team for reasons that I will not get into here but a number of factors ultimately made me decide it was time to look externally for new opportunities. Last summer, the day CFA level 3 results were announced, I applied to a job on LinkedIn that had been posted by a recruiting agency, and I got in touch with a recruiter who had a bunch of IR / business development roles on his desk; he ended up connecting me to the firm where I'm employed today. The firm is a European-based PE firm with a decent office in NYC (about 40-60 people) and is looking to expand into other alts product lines. The culture is incredible, partly because of the unique / unconventional ownership structure, and having spent almost seven years at my last firm, I could easily see that being the case here. I hope it is because it does seem like the type of place where, at 30, I can see spending the rest of my career, although who really knows, I have at least 20-30 years left if I'm being realistic.

End

This was a lot to read obviously so if you skipped to the end I don't blame you. The TL;DR is "there's no correct way to get to where you want to go and the road is long and winding." Happy to answer any questions.

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