Help answer some questions from a (naive)18 yo highschool senior
First post on here. I'll get right into it:
1. How actually important is Linkedin? Is it something that I should bother to fill out and put my info/effort/time into? How often do you guys use Linkedin for actual work related things?
2. I am going to a target school this fall, what should I focus on and what kind of opportunities should I look for? What did your progress into and after college look like? What do you regret not doing/getting involved in while in college?
3. For now I want to go into equity research. How easy or hard is it to branch out into other fields in finance from this? I know most people change focus after realizing that its really what they wanted or expected. What is your experience with this?
4. General advice for contacting people for advice/insight. Looking through some posts I see a lot of frustration with kids like me being annoying and dismissive. What's the best way to reach out to you guys? What are some good ways to contact professionals for interviews and etc?
5. How sound is advice here really?
Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for responding!
Answer to #1 is #4 and #5 is not very
1) You don't really need a linkedin profile until you're actively networking/applying for internships. Even then, your profile shouldn't require much effort - it's not like you have much of a work history. It just needs to be professional/appropriate to check the box.
2) Do things you're passionate about. It's college and that's what this time is for. It will show on your job applications the same way extracurriculars showed on your HS transcript.
3) Keep asking questions about the different disciplines within finance and what they actually do. Understanding how the various players in the financial world intermingle is complex and sometimes confusing. The more you know now, the better the odds you pick an early path that's personally satisfying. Take a breadth of courses and try to meet a variety of people. It's great that you've got equity research as a goal, but keep an open mind.
4) Understand that this is a numbers game. When trying to connect, expect more rejections or non-replies than successes. Your stated goal for meetings should be to make a connection and to ask questions. That will often help you find a job better than networking towards a specific role, imo.
5) There's a lot of pretty good advice on here, and plenty that's pretty bad. Unfortunately, experience and knowledge is the best tool to sift through what's what. Treat what you read here as a data point, and try to gather as much data from as many sources as possible.
It's one of those things that most people have but no one really uses or relies on. You should take the time to fill one out (no reason to go all out - a brief LinkedIn is fine) so that someone can search for you if they want to and so you can use it to get background info on individuals during your job hunt/interview process.
Focus on being a well rounded human being. Since you are someone who got into a target school, I'm assuming you're intelligent and capable of getting good grades. Do that, but for the love of god don't ONLY do that. Get drunk. Have casual sex. Fall in love. Go to parties. Work out. Go on road trips. Join clubs you're interested in. Take electives that sound cool that have nothing to do with your major or your future. You will be infinitely more interesting as a human being but also as a job applicant than someone with a 4.0 whose only talents are studying and forgetting to bathe.
My biggest regret was not studying abroad. I actually turned down two opportunities to do so - one for a girl and one for a part-time job. Don't be an idiot and bounce ideas like that off of other, preferably older, people. I didn't stay with that girl and I didn't stay at that part time job, but I wish I would have studied abroad. What seemed very important at the time simply wasn't.
Not an expert at this.
Do your homework. It's ok to not know things, but you need to read as much as humanly possible and THEN ask if you can't figure it out. That applies to life, but specifically, to this website. There are years and years of content and yet people keep asking the same questions over and over again. That's typically what inspires the dismissive responses.
Individually it can be lacking, but collectively it is very good. A star beside someone's name means they're a certified user, so at least their info is coming from in-industry. Also, a post with a ton of banana points is usually a sign of quality (or humor, but hopefully you can tell the difference.)
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