How To Start

lul reminds me of the following courtesy of "The All Nighter" on Blogspot - here ya go breh;

"You know what posturing is all about. You see everyone around you do it. Rupert is an example in case, with his wide pinstripe suits, Hermes ties that scream “In your face!”, braces that he probably only wears because he saw Gordon Gecko wear them in Wall Street. The know-it-all tone and the over-chewed piping-hot-potato-in-your-mouth English accent are all part of the show. Male i-bankers can’t get away with lipstick and mascara (at least at work, anyway), but they sure can posture their way to peak of investment banking showbusiness.

10% of being a BSD (Big Swinging Dick) is knowing what you are doing. This is by no means an absolute requisite, as even if you have no clue as to what you are doing (like many BSD’s), the remaining 90% of your skill-set will kick in to overcompensate. The other 90% of being a BSD is posturing. It’s simple: if you present yourself as a BSD and keep up the show, you will be perceived to be a BSD. A simple example.

Rupert interviews you and acts like a BSD. You conclude he is a BSD. You tell your intern buddies that he’s a BSD. They tell their analysts that this Rupert guy is a major BSD (interns like to exaggerate). The analysts start telling their associates about this BSD in M&A called Rupert. The associates are always keen to get on the good side of important people (the “ass” in associate in not there by chance – it’s in fact part of the job description – kissing ass is what they do) so they go out of their way to treat Rupert (should they ever meet him) like the BSD he is rumoured to be. The VPs see everyone crawling around Rupert, and here’s where it gets interesting. Most VPs are promoted associates, and whilst you can take the ass out of the associate, you can never separate someone who’s been an associate from the ass. The rare few who question the “Rupert is a BSD” rumours and try to test this for themselves are in for a surprise. The Ruperts of the world are very well aware of the existence of these dangerous independent thinking VPs, who will usually try to come up with a smartass challenge to a point Rupert is making (usually via email, copying half the bank in an attempt to uncover the fact that Rupert is a dumbass). This will usually be done at around 6PM a day before the meeting, in an attempt to give Rupert as little time as possible to manoeuvre himself out of the situation.

This VPs, my friends, has sown the seeds for a group all-nighter, also known in the business as a clusterfuck. Rupert will have every associate, analyst and intern work through the night ion every possible combination and permutation of the pieces making up the matter at hand, to be able to see every possible scenario in the morning, before the meeting. If what the smartass VP mentioned does crop up (Scenario 1), he will staff his army of followers on finding ways of discrediting the VPs assumptions (i-bankers are very good at discrediting assumptions). If the scenario doesn’t crop up (Scenario 2), Rupert can comfortable claim that the VP does not know what he’s talking about. In either case, Rupert will reply to the VPs comment (reply to all) after the meeting and regardless of whether it’s Scenario 1 or Scenario 2 that takes place, will make the VP look like a complete muppet.

In short: Rupert is not really a BSD. Rupert postures as a BSD. Rupert becomes a BSD. "

PortfolioAnalystAZ:

What educational background do you have? If you're not ready to jump head-first into advanced LBO modeling (or Macros and PivotTables in Excel just scare you), you can try to move into a more FP&A style position in your own firm (whatever field it may be).It would give you more of an idea of the modeling and forecasting of operations for a firm, which is helpful.

There are also plenty of discount brokers hiring phone reps where you can get your FINRA licenses and get a taste. It also would lead more to private wealth management or AM if you're lucky.

It may be a slower start than going target undergrad to IB Intern to Analyst to top 5 MBA to Associate, but it's a start.

I know one gent who got hired on at Goldman who was a Humanities major at a non-target. He's also brilliant. And I mean fricking learned R programming in a week brilliant (apparently he dabbled in math a little more than bein a Humanities major would allude to). Extreme brilliance can make up for lack of opportunity (or rich parents, or ability to take on student loan debt, etc.)

But it's rare, of course.

So, the precanned answer is: you probably won't jump into an IB internship...most likely. However, you can try. If you BLOW AWAY the interviewers (yes, multiple...potentially over a dozen), you may stand a chance. Wall Street Prep has some materials that can help with prepping for technical questions, or you could look into trying the CFA level 1 (it's fairly basic, but a broad range of finance topics that gives you exposure to stats and quantitative methods, financial statement analysis, corporate finance, equity and fixed income valuation, basic macro/microeconomic principles, and portfolio management)...the endgame for that may also be more AM aligned instead of IB.

You can always apply to a target school for MBA if you move up well enough in another field. Diversified perspectives are important in a program like that, so you don't NEED to be an IB analyst to get in, but getting out of Wharton or HBS with a rec from your professor can be pretty helpful.

Great advice. However, I'm going into first year university at a Canadian target (I know, I'm Canadian, sucks right). I know it's still kind of early, but I just want to get head start. To be honest, I've never really had a proper job before, and my resume is basically blank. For this fall, I plan to join several finance clubs and be more involved in my university. Is there anything else you can suggest?