What am I doing wrong? - Attempting to break into Wall Street
Hi everyone,
For the past few years now, I've been attempting to break into Wall Street via a summer internship, but, despite dozens of applications, I have yet to even get an interview. So, naturally, I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong.
I went to a highly ranked public college in the Mideast, where I was a political science major (3.7 GPA). In my junior year, I became interested in finance and investments, but it was too late to change my major (admittedly, this might have been a mistake; the extra year in undergrad may have been worth it). So I decide to go to do a lot of self-study and go to graduate school, where I am now. I'm currently a second year MA Economics students at a different, large public university in the Mideast (4.0 GPA).
Like I said, I've applied to dozens of summer internship across the spectrum, from the big investment banks to boutique firms, but I haven't even gotten as far as an interview. So I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong. Plenty of my classmates (more so the Economics classmates) work at these banks (one just got a FT analyst job at Goldman, "I just went online and applied"). My cover letters are always at least decent, though I doubt they get read at most firms anyway, and my resume has been critiqued by a VP at an IB and she says it's perfectly fine.
Any help is appreciated, and I can give more info if necessary. Thanks a lot.
It's difficult to say without critiquing your application materials closely... But do you have any work experience? Often this can help your application stand out. Also it might help to join a finance related club at your university. Perhaps consider doing a financial modelling course and putting that on your CV (if there's nothing else that might jump out as being related). It can be tough, keep at it and you only need one.
Are you just going online and applying? Analyst is a universal term in banks for junior level positions, so your friend may not be working in a front office role. If you provide a little more information, we can be of more help.
How much networking have you done?
Thanks for the responses,
I'm honestly not sure what division the classmate is in (I only used him as an example of being able to get a foot in the door, which is all I want to do).
I don't have any FT work experience, since I went straight from college to FT masters. I worked throughout college in a legal office, but it was mostly trivial tasks (although it is still on my resume). I'm also a Research Assistant co-authoring a paper with a professor in Economics (not finance-related, unfortunately), a Teaching Assistant for two undergrad statistics courses, and I taught an undergraduate Macro Theory course this summer (all on my resume). I've recently made an attempt at joining the Investment Banking club on campus, but it is an MBA club, so I'm not sure I can (still waiting on a response).
Some of my past coursework: Undergrad: Calculus, Micro, Macro, Accounting, Financial Methods, Management Principals Graduate: Macro, Game Theory
Current Courses: Advanced Micro, Linear Statistical Models (MBA course), Investment Analysis & Mgmt (MBA course) Next semester courses: Financial Institutions & Markets (MBA course), Econometrics, American Econ. History, Statistical Inference with Financial Applications.
I haven't done much networking, only because I don't know anyone in the industry to start with. I've begun networking with past classmates who are just starting (one at Goldman, one starting at Goldman in June, one back office at BofA), and trying to get some advice from professors in the Business School who used to work on the Street.
If I can give any more info, let me know. Thanks again.
Network, network, network. You're not likely to get into finance without networking. You need to go to career fairs, company presentations, etc, and get your name out there. Then when you apply online or whatever, they'll recognize you can be more likely to invite you to interview.
What kinda large public MW school are we talking about? I'm also at a large MW uni.
Large (44,000 undergrad, 15,000 graduate) public research university, decently ranked but not too high, although my undergrad (about 6,000 undergrad, very few graduates) was pretty well ranked.
GoIllini, admittedly, I haven't networked nearly as much as I need to. I've been to my school's career fairs, but they don't get too many IBs there, despite being close to NYC. Nearby schools do much better with this, but despite me emailing their career services to see if I could attends, I wasn't able to (not surprisingly). I've kept an eye out for IB career events, but so many are campus-specific, and again, my school doesn't do nearly as well with this as it should. On top of that, I don't know anyone in the industry, so I'm not sure where to start.
Also, I've attached an image of my retracted resume in my original post, if that helps.
Thanks again.
A few things...
Revise resume - ask WSO users for advice Even if you ask VPs or MDs to critique your resume, hardly ever will they say "it sucks, you should do this" unless it is glaringly bad. You'll either get "wow you have an amazing resume" (if it is) or "I think it's fine" if it's anything in between - people aren't going to give you the cold hard truth because most people don't want to be negative. What you need to do is get people on WSO to critique it and help you frame everything you've done to be as relatable to banking as possible.
Applying online = mostly blackhole You can't just "apply online". Hardly ever does that work (yes, sometimes it does and some firms actually review) but a lot of times, it's just a blackhole. Or when people apply online and get interviews, it's likely through their school's OCR and they are a target/semi-target school. What this means is you have to network, in addition to online apps
Start networking - go on LinkedIn and see if you can find some alums that are in the industry. Figure out their emails, reach out to them, try and get a coffee meet or a phone call. And from there, try and get them to help you expand your network. If you're close to NYC - you should try and organize some trips over there
Don't ask for permission / check out finance/PE organizations in city If you email some other school's career services and ask if you, someone who is NOT their student, can attend their info sessions (and potentially take away any prospective job from one of their actual students), then of course their answer is a no. I'm not condoning this (and if I was some target school kid and I realized someone not from my school is at our event I would be peeved), but if you are going to go to some other school's info session, you're going to have to crash it.
Alternatively, you try and see if there are organizations or associations (like VC/PE/finance associations) for young professionals, or in general for the city or state and try and attend those networking events.
Kanon-
Thanks, there's lots of good advice there. I'll throw my resume up on the resume forum, because you're right, they wouldn't be over critical right to my face.
As for applying online, I hear it's a blackhole often, but it's the only option I've had since I don't know anyone. But I'm going to have to start networking better.
As for emailing to ask if I could go, I never expected them to say yes (why would they?), I just figured I had to try.
Lastly, is there a better way to offer to work for free? I've made this offer before by emailing smaller firms, but never got any responses. I know it's an uphill battle for me, which is why I am more than willing to suck it up and work for free, but I haven't gotten any responses to this.
Thanks again, I really appreciate it.
The thing is offering to work unpaid... I think if you offer to do so outright in the first email, it could come off desperate. (Weird right? I mean what's the harm of having free labor?) Something like proposing to work as a free intern could be better accepted in person once you've already had their attention (when you've already had the conversation about internships, they said they aren't hiring, and you propose free interning). Instead, maybe in your cold emails you should stress the desire to have a conversation with them to get career advice, learn about their experience, and potentially discuss whether there are internship opportunities - and that you are happy to intern in any capacity.
For this part I would suggest doing a skim on WSO boards to see how people did it, and also whether you can improve your cold emails or cold calls.
Otherwise, do try to look to see if there are also jobs outside of finance. Because another alternative (aside from lateraling) is building good experience in a different field, getting your MBA and then going for IB. But not sure how much you want to do this (depends on your budget and preference).
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