Been lurking for a while now and finally decided to start posting.
Background: I'm currently enjoying a 4-month hiatus between graduating from undergrad and starting at one of the Big 4 (cheers from a hammock in a small town somewhere in Europe with my laptop and some awful local beer). I'm starting as an Enterprise Risk Services Consultant (Tech Risk for the most part) in early fall. I came out on the other side of undergrad with a BS in Accounting and a BS in Finance, which allowed me to meet the education requirements for a CPA without taking an additional year for a masters in accounting. I interned for a BB last summer in an IT analyst role. It became apparent that the positions available in that location were all back-office IT support and far too detached from the BB. I might as well have been doing server support for boxes holding data for a flower company. I declined the full-time offer. I held a remote contracting position for the first 2 years of college for a hosting company based in Cali and an accounting internship during my first summer, an IT internship during my 2nd, the BB IT internship my 3rd summer, along with an accounting/IT admin role for some time during the year. For whatever reason, I was fixed on IT during my last year of undergrad (Information Systems concentration in accounting). I went through fall recruiting and ended up accepting an offer as an ERS Consultant.
Basically, my last semester was spent regretting missing the entire finance recruiting season. My question is:
How do I move into a PE, Corp Dev, or IB type position with so much IT fluff on my resume? Should I try to get out as soon as possible (feasibly in a year since it'll take me that long to get my CPA cert)? Should I work a few years and then try Corp Dev for a tech company? My only experience with finance is my actual finance degree and whatever CPA/accounting you all classify as finance.
If big blocks of words scare you let me know and I'll reduce and bullet.
Why do you feel like you need to wait a year and get your CPA first to get into IB? How does CPA help you there?
First thing I saw when I looked at this post was IT, IT, IT, IT, IT, IT, IT,...kinda made me nervous.....
Just get an MBA after 3-4 years.
Yeah I agree with the above. Do MBA. Your IT background (without a Comp Sci/mathetmatics degree which could possibly help you with a trading role at least) and your CPA will probably not be enough to get into banking or corp. development. As for PE, I would put your expectations for that one on hold for the time being. You will either have to do some crazy networking and get lucky or get into a top b-school.
I figured a CPA might help if I'm able to get into some kind of finance leadership rotation that (corp dev, corp fin., etc.).
I know it's IT IT IT IT...which is why I want to get away from IT IT IT IT and make it more about what I want to do. My school is a target school for BBs in roles that aren't necessarily finance (read IT, Operations, etc.).
Any more short-term steps I could take to get me headed in the right direction/find someone else to foot the bill for my MBA? I'm fairly certain I can box with the big boys from target schools once I get into the interview process based on my unique personal background, other resume credentials regarding grades, awards, leadership, saving babies from burning buildings, etc., and my charisma /brag brag brag
What's your unique background?
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