New here, guidance would be appreciated.

Hi,

I have seen there are a couple of other posts like this so I will try to keep this brief, I am 31 and a year ago decided to start a BA (Hons) in Politics, Philosophy and Economics with The Open University to better myself and hopefully move onto a better career. Within a few months I realised that I might like to work within Finance specifically Investment Banking so I started to do research on how to pursue this career path. In my current role as a manager I have to analyse lots of quantitative data and find it quite interesting which has partially led me to pursue this path.

I understand that competition is very high and I am already at a disadvantage due to my age but was hoping to get some advice on what I am currently doing to see if there is anything else I can do to increase my chances and if I am doing the right things. I have 3 more years left of my degree providing I continue to study full time.

Currently I have applied to a Spring Week Internship at both J.P Morgan and Goldman Sachs and I plan to apply for more as soon as the applications open. I have already done a HireVue interview for J.P Morgan so am waiting to hear the outcome of that and will hopefully hear from Goldman Sachs at some point to see if I have been successful in getting to the next stage.

My plan is that if I was lucky enough to get on one of these it would give me great experience and insight as well as hopefully make it more likely to get onto a Summer Internship in 2021. I feel that because of my situation I am perhaps less likely to get onto even a Spring Week, but it’s worth trying. If it’s any consolation I wrote what I thought was a great covering letter for my Goldman Sachs application, so you never know.

If I’m not able to do this, I thought it would be beneficial to get some extra qualifications in my final year to perhaps give me a shot at getting onto a Graduate program anyway or if not at least give me the skills to work somewhere less prestigious perhaps. I am thinking of doing this anyway if I was successful on getting an internship as it could only help. The two main ones I am planning on doing are the Investment Management Certificate by CFA UK and then the Bloomberg Market Concepts course.

So basically, that is where I am at the moment and what I am planning, I would really appreciate it if people who have experience within the industry could perhaps let me know how that all sounds and if there is anything else I can do to help myself.

Thanks,
Jake