29 Comments
 

You're late to the party.

Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the Gate: "To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods."
 

Yes, why wouldn't you? Your grades are good, sounds like a relavent and challenging major and you have good experience. Just network as much as possible and take part in any on campus recruiting and info sessions. Obviously there are no garauntees in this industry, especially in this environment and coming from a not-target doesn't help, but your chances are only as good as you make them.

 

@ first poster:

Trust me, I've tried long and hard to figure out what went wrong with my college apps. Spoken with deans, etc. etc. emailed people

It's almost sickening that I was rejected across the board, (except for where i'm currently at)

Maybe it was lack of leadership in high school? I've certainly worked on that at college, but i'm sick of the fact that I'm being "downgraded" because of where i go to school

John Wikowski
 

Coming from a Semi-target with a much lower GPA I'll give you my 2c. The alumni I've spoken to have said that in this type of environment cast your net far and wide and don't get tunnel vision. Explore Hedge Funds, Equity Research, Inter-Dealer Brokers etc etc. Make sure to spend a good amount of time in the career center searching the alumni database for anyone relevant to finance. And in all honesty, you are a sophomore. By the time you are graduating we will hopefully be bouncing back from this mess.

 

Most people ignore the writing part, including potential firms, so likely he just dropped it.

Jack: They’re all former investment bankers who were laid off from that economic crisis that Nancy Pelosi caused. They have zero real world skills, but God they work hard. -30 Rock
 

Sophomore, lower GPA (overall: 3.082), but simply listed my major GPA (Math: 3.7, Econ: 4.0) and that got me interviews. Also, I attend a US News top 25 school, for whatever that is worth.

I received an S&T offer at a European BB, but I will say that I got turned away from many places simply because I was a sophomore.

It's possible, but as someone who had gone through it first-hand, I will say that it was very difficult.

 

I was considering taking C off since I haven't coded in ages and I'm not a nerd :(. And I said lower tier ivy so how could it be Princeton? ;) and seriously behavioral psych is mad interesting, don't hate, but please I need more serious reviews!

 

Dude your username is Cornellian. Why don't you say that, so people would be able to provide more information. As someone who reviews resumes for my desk, I can tell you that I don't like your resume. You may think it's cool, but if someone told me that their outside interest was behavioral finance I'd raise and eyebrow. Ever hear of fit? You want to at least sound like you're normal. If you aren't a wizard in C, take it off. You'd probably get one of our programmers as an interviewer asking tech questions. Post a serious resume and you'll get serious feedback.

 

6 things: - don't put both dean's list and 3.9 GPA, cause it makes you sound like a nerd. If you have 3.9 GPA, of course you are in Dean's List. - relevant courses: make sure that you know all of the stuffs from these courses fairly well. Cause once you list them in the resume, it's a fair game for the recruiter to ask you questions related to those courses. If you're not sure about any one of those, don't list it. - The investment experience should be the first one. - Tech skills: list only things that are relevant to finance (e.x. MS Excel). How comfortable are u with C? Anw, I don't think C is really relevant tho. - Activities: portfolio management?!? Philanthropy ??? smh - Interest: don't put behavioral psych and market research in. Put in something non-academic instead. All of us know the reason, rite?

 

You sir are a nerd...try to sound like you're not. That is all.

The answer to your question is 1) network 2) get involved 3) beef up your resume 4) repeat -happypantsmcgee WSO is not your personal search function.
 

Have connections at a few bb and some smaller boutiques. Tough market out there and target schools do have edge, but I like helping the candidates who deserve a shot at least to get their hat in the ring. I remember when I got my first break. Feel the right thing is to pass it along.

 

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