Cornered - What to do?
Occasional lurker looking for some honest advice. I'm a senior student at a non-target California state school with no work experience of any kind, and no internships. I'm a first gen college student from a very impoverished family for what its worth. My GPA is currently in the 3.5 - 3.7 range. I have no idea what to do, and to be quite honest my school doesn't offer anything of value in regards to career counseling.
My goal was to graduate, become an equity research analyst, work work work, and hopefully one day become a portfolio manager. I realized that I am way behind the competition at this point and I'm just wondering if it's too late to proceed with a career in finance. I don't have a resume due to the fact that I have nothing relevant to put on it whatsoever. All these issues are heavily weighing on my mental and it leads to daily anxiety.
Any advice would greatly be appreciated, thanks for your time.
Realistically speaking, at this point I think you should either set your sights a bit lower or consider going for a Msc, although I suspect this isn't viable due to your financial situation. Equity research is currently being screwed by MiFID so vacancies will be more sparse and analyst/intern spots will be much more difficult to get into. I would suggest that you start networking extremely hard and try to get an internship or entry level gig in a BO/MO department at a bank and also try the Big 4 firms or credit rating agencies.
These may not be your dream jobs but if you can manage to snag one, you will have a living wage that you can use to support yourself and you can start building up your resume. Then after 1-2 years you can try moving over to a more desirable role directly or see if you can get into a good MBA program.
There's a lot of advice that could be given to you and I'm sure that others here will do that. But, whatever you do, change this first: your attitude.
Your attitude towards the whole situation just plain stinks. You are only "behind" or "cornered" :eyeroll: if you see yourself as being behind. Don't be a malcontent - there's probably plenty of good things around you, you're just choosing to not see them. There is no way this attitude will help you in any job search, in finance or otherwise.
Thank you for the feedback, but nevertheless I'm not sure how to apply for internships without a proper resume. I'm not sure if I made myself clear but I never held a job in my life. Whenever I create my resume it comes out to be roughly 1/3 of a page; I include my contact information and education. It seems like a self-perpetuating cycle because I believe that more and more experience is expected closer to graduation but I still have none. Would it be viable to apply for internships without any work experience or should I first try to get a job absolutely anywhere? Thanks for taking the time to provide answers, it really is helpful.
If you don't have work experience, try to spin some of your more relevant projects, group exercises, etc. from school and use that to fill out your resume. Also this is why I mentioned the networking aspect. If you can get in front of some people and explain to them that you're coming from a rough situation and maybe this has prevented you from getting the standard amount of experience under your belt, then you stand a better chance of landing an internship or FT role.
Invest in a BIWS course. Save up for the CFA registration & take it. Get a basic finance internship & then go for boutique summer analyst role. This is all just the start.
I guarantee your school's career center has some type of financial job/internship you can get and grind into something meaningful
No one is going to give you anything, you need to "work work work" as you put it. Working doesn't start once you have a job
Also, join or start an investment/accounting club, speak to professors, find classmates who have experience and pick their brains, read books, take self-paced online classes etc. Plenty of work to do that's available to you right now
Firstly, I agree with the first poster - attitude is imperative if you want to truly make it.
I don't know what sort of school you go to, but it sounds no different to mine. We don't have staff advising us of industry relevant opportunities to us, we had to be proactive on our own.
The best advice I can give you is to surround yourself with like minded people. Sign up to the relevant Finance student societies and attend the events. All of them; employer pitches, industry sundowners, mock case studies. Literally everything. Expand your network, even at the student level. Be humble and take the time to get to know people. Observe the common career trajectories taken. For example, at my university in Australia - it was very common to intern with a Big 4 and then leverage this for a summer role with a BB.
If there aren't many students in that position, reach out to local industry professionals. They know how hard it can be and may be willing to lend an ear. I can't promise this will lead to a job, but at the bare minimum - some fueling motivation and relevant advice. Get on LinkedIn and start with alumni. Don't hit up the VP at a BB and ask for coffee, it's futile. Reach out to those who left school within the past ~ 3 years. Sil wrote a pretty great networking guide around the WSO traps, although I never called (just emailed / LinkedIn connect + message) it's a great overview on how to establish rapport with people. You have a decent GPA and you seem pretty determined to get into ER, if you can convey this passion to people - you will get somewhere.
Best of luck
I don't know what senior year is the UK equiv of, but I had a 'nothing' CV a few years back. Taking a year out of uni to do a buy-side finance internship (sent out a lot of applications and frankly just got lucky) helped significantly as it landed me an FO BB SA job afterwards (not through networking, just gave me a better CV and more to talk about over the phone/in person.
Internships can help you to get into the desired field. Your GPA is good, you start a career with entry-level jobs/internships by taking relevant short term course in research. Instead of wondering start networking with the people who already working in the same field and gain information.
You've never had a job at all? How is that possible?
You could also offer to do an unpaid internship over the summer... I understand your family is struggling but maybe they can continue pushing for a few more months.
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