Hey guys I'll be graduating next year and want to prepare for FT IB recruiting since the timeline is becoming super accelerated. For some background, I'm in Canada and go to a "target" school in the country but I'm assuming US and internationally people don't give a fuck about Canadian school prestige. I have solid work experience from a global bank (think BNP/Nomura/HSBC/SocGen) capital markets experience, and also has a private equity internship from a pension fund here (they don't give return offers). However I have a subpar GPA, and I don't want to be auto-dinged by HR or online systems.
I was wondering what is the best way to overcome this? I already tried networking but that wasn't too fruitful for my past internships, so now I was thinking should I look at options like the GMAT/GRE/CFA level 1?
Hi _money511, hope I can help. Do any of these links cover what you're looking for:
If those topics were completely useless, don't blame me, blame my programmers...
Network more. For undergrad roles I doubt anyone will care how you did on the GMAT or GRE. If you wanna do research, go for the CFA but still networking is by far your best move. Just reach out to everyone. Some MD or VP at XXX Bancorp will be most likely more interested that you worked for a competitor than call you out on a low GPA. Unless your GPA is in the absolute shitter, you should get some bites.
it's a bit in the shitter but I was wondering does work experience not negate that? Also why would a GMAT /GRE not be relevant at an undergrad level?
just wanted to understand the rationale, thanks for the help!
I don't think there is much reason for the lack of interest surrounding those test scores but from my experience (and I asked when I was in FT recruiting last year) everyone told me they won't matter. Work experience definitely helps offset grades (my GPA wasn't stellar but I was able to get interviews) but I suggested networking more because it can only help. GPA can hurt though because some banks have literal GPA filters on their applications that can screw you over right from the start.
agreed, don't think testing's going to be a good use of time. the best way to avoid the autoding is to network a bunch and hope someone directly passes along your resume
Nightman Cometh okay thanks for the advice! I'll just focus on networking in the interim...it helps I'm fairly social
This is the dumbest post I've ever read. How can we give you help about your GPA if you don't even tell us what your GPA even is?
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