INVESTMENT BANKING FAILURE, PLZ HELP!
Hello fellow monkeys,
I'll start with a bit of background about myself. I am in my final year of economics degree at semi-target (Bristol/Nottingham/Durham), averaging a very high-first.
Upon graduation I wanted to enter the Investment Banking Industry, but realised how much time and effort I wasted on my degree instead of gaining experience. In my second year, I decided to go on a one year jolly abroad, instead of focusing on my career. I applied to around 140 internships this summer, ranging from Goldman Sachs to Tesco BAME diversity program. I have been rejected from 95% of these firms and have not had a single face-to-face interview.
I have no corporate work experience except two years cleaning pig fat out of a grill in a restaurant, which no employer cares about. I'm got decent extracurriculars including editing and financial modelling for the investment society as well as tutoring first-year university students. I am about to graduate with no corporate work experience, but still want to enter investment banking.
To top it all off, I want to move to Australia since I preferred it there, and so would like to find a firm that would facilitate this. Any feedback and advice is appreciated.
To be completely obvious, your current goals are unrealistic. You aren’t going to land a role at a top-name bank with 0 work experience. Have you been networking? I would target smaller shops close to your area or in Australia and start there. Or maybe you go for Big4 valuations or something else that is a stepping stone job into IB. You need to be brutally honest with yourself at this point. Continue to network/apply to IB roles, but you need to cast a wider net to have a plan B if you don’t get anything.
Thanks for the response,
I have been quite realistic and applied for all the big 4, tier 2 accounting firms and other finance related jobs other than IB. I'm not expecting to land tier 1 BB from day 1 with no experience. Also, based in the U.K., so networking is pretty much redundant.
Networking in UK is definitely not redundant. It might not be the only way to get an interview but it sure as hell does help. I went to a target school and basically 50% of the people that got interviews did do some networking and had most certainly a flag by an analyst or associate. Networking is also very helpful when navigating the interview stage and firm-specific info questions. To me it has also revealed key in the industry team choice.
If it helps I'll tell you how my recruiting season went: I had a really good profile when applying (target school, high GPA, lots of extracurriculars, lots of sports, relevant work experience) and still only got called by 3 banks, of which 1 was through a referral (didn't know the guy that referred me, I just arranged a call and he liked me). In the end I was lucky enough to land at GS/MS (no referral) where I'm an incoming analyst. Recruiting in 2020/2021 is tough and I would advise you to use all the help you can get, especially if you are not eligible for any sort of accelerated recruiting (women, minorities etc). The sad reality is that there are enough LSE, LBS, Oxford, Bocconi, HEC Paris students to fill all the spots of most good firms, and everyone at these universities (including me) wants the same generic path and is willing to fight for it, so you always have to approach recruiting with a knife between your teeth.
You need to apply to every MM and boutique bank in Australia. Not Goldman.
Totam quidem quia rerum unde enim. Qui sint delectus optio numquam quia. Similique laudantium id cum molestias. Alias provident ut ad accusamus. Amet omnis sequi officiis in optio modi ut.
Cumque voluptatem aut sed cum. Dignissimos aut quidem aut numquam voluptas id aut doloribus. Magnam ut nihil quod ut et error officiis.
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...