New Monkey Needing Advice

Hey Josh, thank you for your service. I am just a Freshmen and am still learning myself, but I can try my best to offer some advice. First, I'd look into some of the larger buldge bracket banks. I know that some if not all have opportunities to help veterans break into some of those positions. Some of the smaller middle market banks might have the same, but I am not to sure. Goldman Sachs does for sure. Then I'd do everything you can to get your GPA to above a 3.5. Get it up to a 3.4 first and then shoot for a 3.5. A lot of banks have cut off GPA's and it tends to be either a 3.5 at the low end or a 3.75+ at the higher end. Then I would also suggest buying a LinkedIn Premium. Its a pain in the ass as a college student barely working right now to have a subscription for $30 a month, but at this point I'd cancel Netflix before I cancel that thing. It allows you to dive deeper into people's contacts and lets you search more. My method is just looking up different companies in different area's and just shooting out a ton of connection requests. Before you know it, it will start suggesting only people in IB. Then you just keep shooting out requests. Then once you get a connection I immediately put down their email into a spreadsheet if they have it on their profile. If they don't though, I will just shoot them a message directly on LinkedIn. You should make this nearly a full time job. Everyday be sending out emails, messages, and connection requests to set up 'informational interviews' either over the phone or in person. If you do all of this I think you will have a good chance. My general rule of thumb is for every 10 emails I send I will get 1 response that turns into a phone call. If you want to have 3 good connections at 30 banks and expect 1 good connection for every 2 phone calls you will have to reach out to 7 bankers a day M-F for about a year. It might not actually end up being like that, but I've heard its a general rule of thumb, and it seems to somewhat hold true for me. Also, WSO has great podcasts to listen to, if you're into that, on Apple Music and YouTube. Just look them up and there are a litteral ton packed full of great information. I hope the best for you Josh. Like I said though I'm just a Freshmen and am pretty new on the forum as well. I bet there's a lot more people out there with better information than me. So, keep posting and being interactive on here and I bet that you will come out on the other side great. If I can help you in any other way at all don't be afraid to PM me. I will try to help as much as I can.

bump I would really appreciate any advice that can help me in this situation, as I am stressing out from lack of career options and direction. Thank you in advance for your time

-Josh

Anyone?

all the large US banks have veterans hiring programs. each is slightly different...so you will nee o spend some time researching each one. different application timelines and career paths. Sometimes these are hidden under the "Diversity" section of hiring programs.

off the top of my head, i know these large US banks that have veterans hiring programs. However, you will need to spend some time with google and searching thru each banks websites, looking for how their various hiring programs work. There is no consolidated platform...each bank does it differently. This will take you some time...i suggest making a spreadsheet and collating all the relevant details yourself. Then once a month go back to their various bank websites and look for changes to the programs (otherwise, you will miss a program announcement). Its annoying that the process is this disorganized...but from the banks perspective, only those willing to put in the work to find the programs will benefit...so there is a self-selection process going on here.

All these banks have veterans programs:

Goldman Sachs MorganStanley JP Morgan Bank of America Citi Wells Fargo

foreign banks also have veterans programs, but some are only for MBA internships / post MBA.

Credie Suisse UBS BNP Paribas Soc Gen Credit Agricole Deutch Bank Barclays HSBC RBS

regardless of the veteran programs...each of these firms are very competitive....its not like the govt where there are unlimited jobs for whoever wants it.....you are competing against hundreds (in some cases, thousands) of other applicants...for only a handful of jobs...so even if you apply to the veterans program at all the above firms, there is no guarantee of getting a job there.

I would suggest you also look at the big tech companies (Facebook, Apple, Google, Amazon, Twitter, Pinterest, etc...there are lots of big tech companies...just look at the nasdaq 100) There are many careers within these companies that have nothing to do with writing code (but if you can learn how to code in Python and JavaScript from some online courses....that is highly recommended). Perhaps not your "dream job" but they pay well and have good quality of life vs many finance jobs...for many people, these tech companies are indeed the "dream job" and can still be competitive to get into.