I'm interning this summer (Paid and housing provided) with a regulatory agency (for commercial banks). I know I want to work in finance so I took this opportunity. But for full-time I still want to consider IBD (Or perhaps ER too), but rumors are that going from public to private sector (especially investment banks) can be difficult because people generally perceive working for the government as "lazy?"
Now I've never heard of this but I can see how; my job is a standard 40-hour week and work-life balance is emphasized and the culture is generally too relaxed, but that's ultimately the reason I would to pursue IBD. I don't want work-life balance right now. I want the opportunity to be stressed and work in a fast-paced environment where I have to think on my feet quickly, because I want to prepared later in life when similarly stressful situations arise.
I've never talked to anyone in IBD with experience at a regulatory agency, but would people there see me as lazy and incapable of handling the demanding nature of banking?
I realize what I do now is almost completely separate from investment banking, but I think it's similar approach-wise (e.g. lots of Excel modeling, looking at ratios, editing stuff, etc.). For what's worth, I did intern part-time at a regional boutique during the school year.
I'm also doing lots of networking. One MD I spoke with told me I could fit well in FIG, while another said my regulatory experience would likely have no influence since it's nothing related to IBD. The latter one also said he's personally never hire anyone with a commercial banking experience because they have no clue what they're doing (makes sense though) but still want to consider me to join.
It depends on how much regulatory experience you have, IMHO... If you're talking about a year or two, I don't think it's that valuable. In fact, it might be perceived as somewhat counterproductive, since there's a perception that the culture you're exposed to is all wrong. However, if you have worked enough to obtain genuine understanding of how banks work, it's incredibly valuable. As an example, I know a whole bunch of analysts on the buy side who are ex Fed bank examiners.
Well this is the summer before my senior year as an undergrad, so it's only 3 months experience. So I have only a general perception of how banks work and the regulatory challenges they face.
Do you happen to know any ex bank examiners on the sell-side?
Understand that I am a somewhat extreme example, but when I was in banking, I would toss the resume of anybody with public sector experience. I literally mean that the experience wasn't just not-helpful, it was actively harmful. Congressional campaigns, regulatory agencies, the Fed (especially the Fed!), White House staffing internships, printing shit for your local Alderman when you were in high school, all that shit. We received enough qualified resumes to replace those candidates several times over and I had/have no desire to work with a bunch fucking of cronies who think they're Capitalists.
Again, I'm an extreme example, but there are definitely others like me for whom this experience will be a non-starter topic. Sorry to player-hate, but I felt compelled to answer honestly.
I agree, it's vital to only pursue the highest caliber applicants with only 100% related internship experience. You'd be amazed at how destructive those 10 weeks are to someone with a strong GPA from a target school. It is critical that the current employees for making presentations and inserting commas have the most narrow exposure to said task. Only eclipsed by the standards for a current college student who is applying for an internship. The entire fabric holding the financial industry together would unravel should such infidels even receive consideration for an interview.
Get fucking real.
You're adorable.
I'm not arguing that their experience had to be perfectly relevant or that the actual work they had done was particularly destructive to their ability to do the job at my firm, I'm arguing that the inherent selection-bias for people that thought public sector work was a worthwhile endeavor was a bad cultural fit, which is a perfectly valid mechanism with which to screen a candidate. Also, independent of that issue, it was a Tech M&A group, so even if that experience wasn't something I perceived as negative, it was very low on the skill stack relative to our hiring pool, where both finance and tech experience is valued and a shitload of candidates have tech internship experience in this market.
Get off my jock, bro.
Haha. I've never hired a left hander. They're tools of the devil.
The detraction is in the summer intern to being offered a full time position. I know a women who want to law school, worked for NASD (now finra) and transitioned into a banking role in fig and is doing extremely well. It depends in how you spin it.
A lot of regulatory guys get buttonholed into being their private sector counterparts, not because they were interns but because they spent 5 or 10 years at the NY Fed and they're naturally suited to interact with their former colleagues and know the in's and out's of regs.
Appreciate your honesty, Nouveau Richie, but would you mind explaining why you would simply toss that resume out immediately? It sounds like in your scenario, you would toss out anyone's who's had experience with a regulatory agency, even if they've had plenty other finance and relevant experiences with a high GPA and from a good school. I know you admitted you're on the extreme end, but would you really be that extreme?
If so, then I presume as you stated, it's about cultural fit, which ultimately is a huge deciding factor, so that's a perfectly valid point. But what do you know about public sector experiences that would lead you to think it's not a good cultural fit? If it's the fact that it's too relaxing and 40-hour work weeks, you should know there's plenty of private sector jobs like that as well; I know plenty of folks who worked at in corporate finance at some other Fortune company who worked standard 40-hour weeks and made it to IBD/ER/S&T. My friend who worked at the same regulatory agency as I am is now at a proprietary trading firm.
I've been on both sides of the fence. I am not so sure bank regulators are viewed as lazy (lets not conflate run of the mill government/public sector jobs and bank regulatory ones). However there are reason concerns private sector has about hiring someone with only public sector experience. Regulators find issues, they don't fix it. Finding issues/criticizing is much easier than fixing. There are other working style differences in public and private sectors that make hiring over that boundary a little bit risky from a hiring manager's perspective.
Honestly, I agree with the hiring manager. Few years of regulatory experience is not worth much. You would be almost starting from scratch if you did come over to the private sector. Might as well do it up front.
Very different story if you had 15-25 years of regulatory experience, at the very senior levels, you can jump over and take on very senior role in the private sector (like CRO or head of regulatory).
Working For A Regulatory Agency? (Originally Posted: 02/25/2014)
I'm looking for a new internship and spammed our my resume through my school's career site. One of the interview invitations I got was for the National Futures Association. I've done internships in audit and real estate development. Hated audit. RE dev is awesome. Never tried IB, but I'm pretty sure I'd hate it up until the VP level. Been trading equities, options, and forex for myself for a few years and I'd love to try a prop trading internship. I
I only have a year of college left though... two semesters, really. I'm taking ~half a year off after this semester, then coming back and doing my last semester. Don't really know what I want to do after graduation. Just testing as many different waters as I can right now.
Thoughts on the NFA and on working in regulatory finance in general? Exit ops? Worth testing out for someone who doesn't know exactly which area of finance he wants to go into or should I seek more conventional (best word I could think of) employment?
I'd expect it to be like any other Gov job. 40 hour work weeks (of which you will probably only be working for 10). Pay tops out at GS-15, which I think is like $150,000 per yr. They'll probably pay for grad school too.
Facere nostrum amet voluptas. Earum voluptatem sunt amet corporis alias porro. Fugiat earum quo aut et. Et in ut voluptas est aliquam voluptas et.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...