I just transferred to Western from the middle of nowhere. I was in economics at Bumpkin State University essentially, thankfully Western graciously accepted my transfer to their economics department.
However, I just learned that while Ivey is a target for Canada, recruiters basically don't even care about the rest of the campus.
I'm doing an economics honours degree. What are my chances of breaking in from this position?
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it's practically impossible to break in from any school in Canada if you are not in an business program (BBA / BComm.). Unlike the US, every university has an undergrad business program so it makes sense for banks to target only those. Can you transfer into Ivey?
It would take me another year if not two more years on my degree to transfer into Ivey. I haven't taken a single business class, only economics, mathematics, and assorted social science and humanities courses. I'm an older undergraduate as it is at 22, I've already got a very high opportunity cost of foregone wages.
Could you possibly take some of the business classes or are they all restricted? If not I suggest doing that and or joining any business clubs on campus. I'm also in Canada for undergrad and I have had friends who couldnt get into the business program, but worked around it.
Ok, but how do you think you can be competitive against candidates that have done 4 years of business classes? I understand this is not perfect, but IB / finance is an extremely competitive field and having that business education is unfortunately considered a pre-requisite for a finance career in Canada.
You're right that it is not perfect and business education is considered a pre-req. However I've spoken to many professionals that also mention they've hired many without said business education. Many from biology to economics and math. It really would just amount to how hard you work to be on par with students in these programs. Before transferring into the business program at my University, I was in social sciences. I would find out the lecture times of the business classes, and simply walk in and take notes. Made a friend in the course and he would send me any materials I had no access to. There are ways to work around it, but it's obviously much more difficult and time consuming. I personally think you CAN compete against candidates that finished 4 years of business classes, if you find ways to learn what they have learned. Sadly each school is different on how strictly they enforce class restrictions. If you really want the job, then find a way to switch in regardless of the time/money commitment.
Nothing is ever impossible, but it's infinitely harder if you are not a BComm and really need outstanding achievements / experience in order to stand out. I ran recruiting for one of the top CDN banks for 2 years and 100% of the SA / FT hires had a BComm / BBA. As a matter of fact, unless a school forced us to open posting to the entire school (which we hated and would have HR make separate resume books so we didn't have to review the non-business applications), we would normally restrict OCR to the business school students. And the % of student recruited who were involved in student funds keep rising as a non-business student, you don't have access to those.
To me this type of recruitment strategy just seems absolutely senseless. How the hell does a Bachelor's of Admininstration or Communications prepare you for a career in finance more than a degree that is entirely focused around analyzing the decisions companies should make and the way that the macro economy functions?
Let alone all the extremely bright and talented students you would be cutting yourself off from who are taking mathematics and computer science degrees. I do trust you because of your experience but honestly this seems like a non sensical recruitment strategy.
BComm = bachelor of commerce. If you wanted to hire a doctor, would you rather someone who has studied medicine or someone who studied biology? It's kind of the same here. A BComm / BBA allow you to pick up applied skills (most importantly in finance and accounting) in addition to a broader business education (which always include a pretty robust economic education) that is extremely relevant to a finance position and which someone doing a B.A. majoring in Econ wouldn't have picked. As such, Canadian banks only need 2-3 weeks to train their new analyst classes since they've already covered most of the relevant material in school while US banks need 3 months for training since most analysts haven't had much finance / accounting, etc.
I actually thought I'd be better off relatively. An Econ degree from Western is heavily quantitative and frankly I felt like an Econ major would prepare me for a career in finance better than any degree other than a finance one. I felt it gave me more options too if I couldn't break in, a very strong possibility even for a finance major.
I mean you look at the stats for the incoming recruits for places like Morgan Stanley they take in more economics majors than any other type of degree.
I have to say I agree with mtnmmnn on this one. In respect to Canada, the recruitment of most firms is focused on the business programs at an undergrad level. Especially at Western, the majority if not all of the recruitment and focus is on Ivey students (speaking from experience). That is not to say it's impossible to break in from Econ but you will have to grind very hard and network like no tomorrow. I agree with everyone above discussing that the US market is very different and many of the Ivy league schools and top liberal colleges do not offer BBA/Bcomm degrees whereas in Canada that is the norm. My suggestion for you would be to try and spend the extra year and aim for Ivey if you can because it will pay dividends in the long term. Also I know of students from Western that were Non-Ivey but were accounting majors who had to take the long route to banking, ie Big 4 audit -> Transaction services -> IBD.
At this point though wouldn't it just make more sense for me to get some type of MBA or some type of masters rather than spend one more full year in undergrad?
Western and U of T have pretty good Masters of Financial Economics programs, and shit I mean there are countless US schools where I could get an MBA.
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