I'm a Sophomore. Want to help me manage my existential finance carrer crisis?
First off, hello all! You guys have quite the community here.
Now, I should probably get to explaining the title. As should be evident, this is my first post here. I, like many other you have all probably met, am a Finance major who thought he was more or less on track to secure a decent internship my Junior year, work hard, accept a decent job offer after graduation, and then apply for an MBA.
I got a decent dose of reality a few days ago after talking with a friend of mine who is WAY more on top of his game than I thought people had to be. In every Finance society I could imagine, likely getting into a elite group on our campus that has 100% placement at BBs, and has an internship set up with the SEC this summer. I had asked around before at our career center and with my business advisor if I needed a sophomore internship. The common answer seemed to be "It'd be great if you could get one, but it's pretty hard seeing as how you haven't taken any Finance classes yet. You won't be behind without one."
So I had gone about with the assumption that I'd be fine. But after talking to my friend and being a little put off by his assurances that I needed to be doing similar things to him, I did some research on the internet and found this website. Needless to say, that was a humbling day.
After reading a fair bit, I'm convinced I'm miles behind. My school is a non-target (a word I discovered on this website, although I wasn't exactly assuming recruiters would flock to UGA...), and has a Junior-Senior year business school, which I was recently accepted to for a Finance degree. As a result of just getting into the school, I've never taken a Finance class. Just the usual; Accounting, Econ, Business Stat, etc. My friend told me about his time at the beginning of the year attempting to land a job at a MM bank, and simply not knowing enough in the interview. He said he's basically had to teach himself to get to this point. I don't have a terrible GPA, but it's nothing to write home about. (A result of growing pains freshman year; it took some time to adjust to where I was since I'm from way out of state.) However, I'm doing quite well this semester and should pull it up just under the 3.5 watermark. I should be over a 3.5 by the end of my first Junior semester.
The only experience I have is from working at my family business, which is a municipal valve manufacturing company. I started working on the shop floor and cleaning bathrooms at an early age, and I spent this past summer working in the Accounting department. Nothing fancy; AR/AP, Invoices, some Purchase Orders, and shipping. I had basically intended to spend my summer working there again, and maybe work with a congressional campaign in my state. Now, I'm feeling nervous about everything. So, I'd like some help figuring out what I can do to make the best of my current situation and play catchup,
After some reading, I've put together what I think is the best I can do with the situation I'm at.
This summer:
-Work at my family business to make as much cash as I can, try to do something related to Finance
-Work from home for the Congressional campaign. I saw that this can be a decent story to tell in the FAQs on this site about Freshman/Summer internships. I'm actually quite passionate about politics; it's my minor, and I think I can spin the story that you need to understand Politics to better understand Financial Markets. The internship is supposedly in Campaign Finance, but I'm fairly certain that just means cold-calling and other money-raising efforts.
-Find a decent crash-course on Finance, perhaps one from this site. Read everything I can get my hands on. Learn as much as I possibly can in preparation for Junior year.
-While working/studying, try to get lucky and find some unpaid work with a local Financial Advisor or something small of the like. I'm not aware if there would be any internships that would be still open, or run for a month later in the summer. My uncles have some connections. I'll try to leverage those while networking my ass off.
Junior Year:
-Use my theoretically gained Finance knowledge to attempt to get a job or internship with a local bank in my college town.
-Take my Finance classes, go to as many networking events as possible
-Prep like a madman on interview questions, and try to hustle my way into the best Junior summer internship I can
That being said, I have no illusions that I'm going to fix a few things and then I'll have no issue reaching the top. I'm not dead set on a one-in-a-million shot at IB or anything of the like, I just want to put together the single best Finance career I can given how far I am behind.
If anyone has suggestions, please let me know. I'll be attaching my resume if anyone wants to see the full picture. Sorry for the wall of text, by the way.
Please try to stay positive, I'm a bit freaked out at the moment.
Sincerely and with gratitude,
Crispy
Fixed the attachment, Resume was a bit screwy.
You're not posting anything "wrong" but you may want to remove the personally identifiable information from the resume posted on WSO since people on the internet can be crazy in ways you'd never imagine.
It's a little late to get the best internships for this summer but it's great that you already have a plan. The good news is that it's a family business so you can be a bit more flexible with your role this summer so long as it doesn't get in the way of operations. Talk to your parents and see if they'll let you learn more about operations management and forecasting. Learning about ANSI standards could be something that is of value from a "talking point" standpoint as well.
If your goal is to graduate -> 2/3 years -> MBA and you are still exploring career paths, you can get the most value from building a well-rounded resume. With an understanding of manufacturing operations and finance, you could be a good candidate for ops consulting or try to intern in a smaller PE firm (possibly unpaid) and land a junior role. I did a 30 second Google just to see what is out there in your part of the country and have already found a small shop that you would be particularly well-suited for given the areas they focus on... if you can swing a few days a week during the school year (see if they will allow you to intern for academic credit) or don't have anything lined up for next summer.
Next summer I'd target the typical internships of people here, but also target Big 4 advisory and audit as a safety (never target both at the same firm - they'll just stick you in audit which should be your super-safety). If you already have the goal of getting an MBA, the Big 4 can still get you accepted to a top program with a stellar GMAT (in a pinch).
Sure, there are plenty of people like your friend... but there are plenty of people who do perfectly fine without being nearly that neurotic. I know a guy that sounds like your friend (apologies for sweeping generalizations, it's just that most people I've met who are like your friend have a common theme with their personalities) - he was super high-strung, focused on doing everything right in college, and was wound so tight that he bombed out of most interviews he landed since no one would want to work with him. He's been fired from both of his prestigious (on paper) jobs since he was great at preparing for them but is terrible at doing the actual work.
I've also interviewed those people before and they're the ones on the internet that angrily post about the system being fucked because they did everything right and weren't handed an offer - totally missing that there is a huge interpersonal component to the recruiting process. They aren't the bulk of the people getting the jobs (unless your friend has somehow learned a healthy balance of constant drive and determination combined with personality). The way you're approaching it is good - you want to do all you can - but please don't think you need to do everything that your friend is. Those things help but only if they are not at the expense of other things they are looking for.
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