IB: Australia transferring to Abroad
Hi everyone!
I recently graduated from high school and topped my state for exams (Australia). I've always wanted to go into investment banking overseas, but unfortunately for financial reasons, this year I was not able to apply to the ivy leagues/oxford/Cambridge etc and thus am studying locally.
I just wanted a bit of advice on my options: Should I
1. Transfer to Oxford/Cambridge in my 2nd year [although I really am confused about the course structure as it seems very different to how we aussies do it]
2. Complete my combined commerce/law degree at Usyd, get an IB job here before hopefully transferring overseas or doing an MBA there and then getting a job (I hear it's a big thing in the US; I also hear that Usyd has little to no standing overseas); I'm not opposed to going to HK either as I'm somewhat fluent in the language.
Thanks for sparing some of your time!
Fellow Australian here, congratulations on doing so well in school.
Personally, I'd go with option two. If you can prove yourself at USyd (like you have in school) then you'll easily score yourself a BB offer and can then start looking at a lateral / transfer into another country.
In terms of an MBA, you're apparently slightly advantaged coming from Australia due to the 'diversity' of your profile. Good luck!
If you were actually top of the state and interested to study in the UK then look into Rhodes scholarship. If you are just starting university this year then you have time to work on all the non-academic requirements for it. That would be a better way of doing it rather than transferring across partway through your undergrad degree.
You are at the right uni studying the right degree so I vote for option 2. An exchange semester in the US would be a valuable experience though if you can make it happen.
Thanks for all the replies! I was just wondering if it was quite difficult to transfer to the US - I read somewhere on the forum that it wasn't too hard. Am I also right in saying that USyd doesn't have much presence in the US? Cheers everyone, thank you again :)
Presence is a pretty relative term. Go on LinkedIn and do an advanced search for USyd Alumni working in the United States.
You can be as specific as you'd like. If you nominate 'Financial Services' as an industry, you get 585 profiles. If you nominate "Investment Banking" you get 80 profiles. If you choose "Venture Capital & Private Equity" you get 64 profiles.
Make of that what you will.
Depends on a few factors. As discussed above, the 2nd alternative is probably the one that makes the most sense. The competition would be far greater for you vs. getting in the door in Australia. In addition, if you have had some time abroad, the Australian offices would clamour over you for that.
Firstly, it is by far the easiest to transfer across to the US or other locations within your firm. Here, you are a known quantity for the new office to take a risk on you and they'll have your prior reviews, performance and references to draw upon.
Also, factoring in here is that in the US, in particular, there is a vastly different progression than in Australia. Here, Analysts are only at the firm for ~2 years generally. These departures are offset by the MBA Associate hiring that takes place. In Australia, it is far more common for Analysts to progress to Associate, and attrition is accounted for by those transitioning from Corporate Finance teams at the Big 4 or institutional banking groups.
Given this, there is a natural opportunity to make this move after a couple of years in your Australian office.
This is probably biased from my experience, but I don't see how the transition would have gone while still an ANL. Or if I was going to contemplate your first alternative, above.
On your point / concerns about University of Sydney, this will not matter much in the long run and your aspirations about being overseas - it is a top target for the Australian banks, and by the time you are moving overseas, your experience and reputation will far outweigh that name.
Best of luck!
Great post, would you mind expanding on your comment about Australian offices clamouring over those with time being spent abroad? I'm likely going on exchange to the US and have been told I can be sponsored for a spring gig at a small bank. Curious as to how much weighting this will have attempting BB SA recruitment in Australia.
Hi everyone, Thanks again for the fantastic responses. bullofrage Just to clarify, you'd recommend skipping the MBA path in the US and just go with the Australian path (hopefully to being an associate) instead, before transferring? Sorry about the hassle - I really appreciate the help.
I would think transferring to Oxford or Cambridge would be great. Also for the Rhodes scholarship one has to complete their undergraduate degree with honours. Along certain extra EC's I looked into this myself when I was a undergrad. So I'm not sure that would fit your criteria, and you would do a Masters then at Oxbridge (an additional year, though in my mind this is far more substantial than a MBA, and free!)
As an Australian you could also work in the UK for a few years under age 31 or 28 I believe. As we're a member of the commonwealth, The visa is essentially free and you own it no company sponsors you or etc;
I'd go to Oxbridge and then try to recruit for Investment Banks in London with the Visa and then attempt to transfer to NY. (Note i'm not sure if it's harder to transfer out of London to the US vs. transferring out of Sydney)
Also USyd is probably one of the better represented Australian schools in the US, and I'm saying this as a Uni-Melb grad.
Have seen a lot of Aussie try to study abroad/ apply internship oversea. Do you guys want to leave Australia because job prospect over there is not promising (small market/low recruiting/lack of buy-side/etc)?
Buy-side is very small in Australia and the overall Finance scene is relatively small. I think lots of Australians (self included) just want to move to the US because it's (perceived to be / actually is) bigger and better in terms of opportunities.
Thanks for all the help everyone. I think that I'll most likely stick it out in Australia and then transfer through the firm as it seems to make the most sense. And thanks for confirming the Usyd questions i had - probably what I was most concerned about because I'm unfamiliar with the US/overseas scene and have heard a lot about ivy networks and that sort of thing!
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