Senior ibd analyst with a star studded CV, apart from an undergrad 3.15GPA / high 2:2 degree(mitigating medical circumstances)?
Hi everyone,
I graduated from Warwick university 4 years ago, which is a top target and highly competitive uni for Wall Street, for my undergraduate with a high 2:2 degree (converted to 3.15 GPA). I suffered from debilitating social anxiety and mental health illness and considered taking my life a few times during my degree, which affected my degree results. However, a Big-4 accounting firm took a gamble on me and I joined as a graduate associate at just 20 years old, in London, straight after graduation.
I became one of their best graduate recruits in UK and completed both my ACA(coveted chartered accountancy professional degree) and CFA in less than three years. Became one of their best and youngest, if not the youngest Assistant Manager and look forward to my upcoming promotion to manager level next year. All this happened in 4 years and I am just 24. I am confident about scoring very high marks in GMAT and have excellent credentials from high-school to professional career, including extracurriculars, apart from my low undergrad GPA.
DO YOU GUYS THINK I CAN GET RECRUITED AS A SENIOR IBD ANALYST AT A BB INVESTMENT BANK OR SECURE A M7 MBA PROGRAMME, CITING MY LOW UNDERGRAD GPA DUE TO MEDICAL/MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES?
Woah I was following along just fine no need to raise your voice.
Star studded Cv? You should go into marketing with the click bait title
Exactly what I was thinking haha
Target schools HATE HIM. He lands interviews with this one trick!
Unfortunately its one specific year in university that brought my grades down (although with severe medical circumstances), I skipped a grade once and started uni at 17 and also played sports at a national level along with highest merit in my professional degree while in Corporate finance. But most of those become irrelevant as you get older.
Warwick has a policy where if you get 2.1 +I n a certain number of modules, if you have just below that overall they bump you up to 2.1 from 2.2. If you smashed 2/3 years would this not have been the case for you?
TBH, big 4 auditing would not be considered "very fruitful experience" in the job market or application to business schools. It's usually more of a jumping board to start at junior level in the finance industry. You have a reasonable explanation for your GPA and it can totally be remedied by GMAT. I'm sure you've done some fabulous work, but I'd suggest to stay low and be humble for now.
I work in Corporate Finance but was hoping to move into an analyst role into a MM boutique or BB but again its the GPA I am worried about.
With four years' working experience, you should be fine with your GPA. 3.15 is not too bad to remedy.
As someone who's also struggled with mental health, I would completely omit that part when as you are applying and networking. Not everyone understands what it's like and some people will certainly ding you for being mentally "weak", even though you are probably stronger than most for having successfully overcome those issues.
The fact is that if you struggled with it once, you are more likely to struggle with it again... hence the omission. Just say you had medical problems or something.
Agree with this completely. If you admit mental health issues outright, then the reaction will realistically be that IB is harder/more stressful than college and people will wonder if you will be okay on the job. "Medical problems/health issues that are now resolved" is the correct phrasing and legally they can't ask you about specifics.
Being a manager at 24/25 is a nice feat. I personally would wait for that promotion and try to head into IB, at that point if you have a good GMAT score/target school you could by then omit your GPA from resume. Bschool will still want your GPA, so MBA business schools">M7 is not likely without some more job experience. It's hard to break into IB after several years in accounting, and you'll need a good reason for the switch - might have to start in a MM and then lateral to BB as an analyst, but doable.
Thanks for the advice but with all the banks advertising their diversity networks and mental health awareness programmes, dont you think they could give me a decent shot? But I recovered from mental health illness and again its the GPA that I was most worried about, I work in Corporate Finance so was hoping to make a shift to a MM boutique or BB before going for a MBA business schools">M7 MBA.
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