I'm still deeply concerned about my lack of experience, so I'm trying to minimise its risk. Does joining an investment club help in that respect?
I'm still trying to get part-time internship, but I still have language issues. So for the time being, would love some insight. Thanks!
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Is an Investment Club necessary if you go to Harvard and your dad is an MD at Goldman Sachs? Probably less so.
Is an Investment Club necessary if you're still looking for an internship, and that Investment Club might provide bullet points to talk about in interviews and DEMONSTRATES your interest in finance? Probably yes.
I'll add on as general advice - it is infinitely better to have too many experiences/clubs and have to decide which are the most relevant, than compared to having too little experience/clubs.
yes, as above said. It's useful as a 1st/2nd year to add the relevant keywords to your CV, and shows your interest
agree with this, it's less about who did what at school years down the line vs when you're trying to break in. nobody cares if it was $5M or $250k. it's about interest and understanding of what you're doing and how you showcase that.
Experience > investment fund/club. Unless your school has a reputable fund then I would prioritize getting an internship. My schools fund is eh so I never interacted nor was part of any finance club. I didn’t have any issue because I had a good chunk of internship experience that actually helped me out more.
Yes it's helpful, and yes you should give it your best shot, but don't beat urself up if you don't get in. I know plenty of people at my school and other schools who've gotten rejected from the top investment clubs but ended up doing just fine, if not better than their peers
It wont hurt and is definitely worth having if you don't have any experience yet, but isn't something that will set you apart from other candidates
I'm on the trading side at a BB, so can't speak for IB.
That said, investment clubs are a great way to demonstrate interest in a topic. However, you can't just put in 'investment club' and think its a panacea on your resume. Going back to my college club experiences, investment clubs would be structured sort of like this:
Say you have 30 total members in the club.
-3 people organize and run most of it
-5 others each head a sector to look for trade ideas
-22 barely do anything and are just there for the resume bump.
If you're in the last camp, you're going to come off worse than if you never had it in the first place. Usually whenever I get a candidate with investment club on their resume, I talk to them a bit about the stuff they liked, their general methodology for generating trade ideas, and try to get a sense if they actually contributed or were along for the ride. The ones who can't explain what they did are a massive ding in my book, and probably are out unless they were stellar everywhere else. On the flip side, the people that are really passionate about it not only get major props when it comes time for us to give offers; they tend to be excellent in their FT roles as well.
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