Tips on breaking in from London target
Wanting to get some feedback on what to do/next steps in regards to breaking into London IB. Will be going over my university prospects, work experience and 'other' things. I acknowledge BB/EB is not a guarantee for anyone. I will focus mainly on IBs/AM (mainly ER or IBD)
Education:
10 A* 1 A GCSEs from state-grammar school in the North of England. Looking like I will be getting A* A* A* A*results at A-level (fingers crossed)
Hold an offer to study a non-engineering/CS STEM course at UCL. Didn't apply Oxbridge (regret) but did get into Imperial(rejected my offer). firmed UCL which is widely considered a target but I have seen a certain user on this platform with JB as his pfp claiming its seen as a second option to LSE/Imperial.
As I rejected Imperial and really do not wish to attend the university is it at all worth reapplying for Oxbridge? Most have said no and I wouldn't be able to apply to LSE. I will likely get into Imperial again but as I said i don't want to go there unless it significantly makes me more competitive. I doubt this though, if I can't break in from UCL with all the socs/student ran funds/networking events there, I probably wouldn't break in from Oxbridge either but ofc other opinions are welcomed.
Work Ex:
Have some virtual internships offered by JPM (markets) and IBD (M&A) as well as IBD from Citibank but I've heard these aren't respected. Got onto brightnetwork but again I've been told its not too respected. Did some medical work experience (2 things) which I can spin to demonstrate teamwork/leadership and other important qualities so advice on this aspect is appreciated. N.B: have applied to MS pre-u work ex and some other work ex at start ups but this is not confirmed. I have done an econ summer school at cambridge + a science competition there and did a student investing challenge.
Little sidenote: applied to SEO London but these guys are fr just not getting back to me ahahah.
Other:
I have mentors who have broken into MS/JPM/GS internship and spring weeks. As a result of reading around and stuff they've told me I can say I'm comfortably ahead of my peers in terms of industry knowledge - I want to press this advantage on paper so its tangible without being too much of a hardo lol.
Also; there is a certain controversial thread on here about not being able to break in as a straight white male. I have read a lot of the responses and honestly as someone who has no experience of apps yet; the many different opinions is quite overwhelming and I cannot conclude anything from it. I will mention this: I am a British male of South Asian descent, I am also a member of the LGBT community but do not particularly wish to back door in at this stage. That being said will being Asian disadvantage me? I won't get dinged for it but will I face the same hurdles a white straight male would? I've heard we do not get access to any diversity pipelines (I'm aware UBS have an LGBT spring though but I guess being asian male LGBT is quite common so not rly that feasible). If you know an programs like SEO london (aside from RARE) that i'm elgible for pls send my way.
leaning towards ER as Im loving the market reports I get to read and the research elements align with my STEM background, that being said I'm aware it has/is consolidating leading me to ask these questions too: Is ER more competitive than S&T and IBD due to the consolidation? It might be sensible to apply for the others for summers and once my foot is in try network/lateral over. Haven't decided on ER yet as its too early but can you apply for it specifically for Springs? Or are the apps for springs more general? I heard Jefferies lets you choose divisions ( ig i'd choose markets?)
Thank you!
a bit long m8
UCL is considered a target university - doing a simple Linkedin search, you will quickly notice that UCL graduates have entered plenty of various EB and BB firms.
You will have suitable credentials on paper but will need to distinguish yourself in other aspects to be successful during the recruitment process. It is highly likely a significant number of candidates will have undertaken the virtual internships you mentioned. Highlighting the medical work experience is a good idea, however it will depend on how you would like to present yourself in interviews.
Being from Asian heritage will not disadvantage you - you will have access to exclusive BAME programmes. ER is relatively less competitive in comparison to S&T and IBD, but this is marginal. There are a number of firms that will hold spring weeks specifically for ER.
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The best approach to this is to ask those in the positions you want to be in.
Make a blog, pick a stock you like (not an obvious one like AAPL/MSFT) and write a research report on it alongside a valuation model and post this on your blog - this would be helpful to distinguish yourself IMO.
Also do not forget grades - make sure you are getting ideally a (high) first in your degree. This I cannot understate
BAME includes Asian males in the UK, but as you have rightly mentioned, Asian males are not a minority at the workplace at all. In fact, I have made more Indian friends in the UK than any other race!
LGBT route might be an advantage for you, but can understand if you don't want to disclose this.
Your school is excellent though, don't see any huge problems with that.
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Most large scale employers have specific LGBT hiring pipelines, there is either a HR portal or events or informal sessions you can dial into.
If you are happy to disclose, you'd discuss this with HR.
Re reapplying - up to you really speaking from personal experience (at an EB) there is very little gain in terms of careers, so only do it for the student experience (I heard the oxbridge college system makes it quite fun plus you will still find plenty of people to grind apps with)
You could potentially reapply whilst at UCL for all the other ones you mentioned and restart bachelors - the pro is you get to do spring weeks again when you start again provided money isn’t a problem
Re back door in via BAME or LGBT - I get your point it’s not nice to feel that you only got in cos of things you probably have no control of - but then again as long as you get in I personally don’t think it matters how - think of all the people who got in through nepotism or they just know people who give them referrals, not everyone has that
connection so use everything to your advantage
At the end of the day it’s good yorue already thinking about it and right now it doesn’t matter too much what work experience you have cos the number of people who have actual IB experience before uni are probably so small so majority of the competition will be people like yourself
Make sure you flag the virtual internships (albeit not real work experience but heavily shows your interest) on your CV - one addition thing you can do is join those societies where you write weekly M&A or markets reports cos it will grow your knowledge and also help show interest
At your stage the 2 most important things are interest and good credentials on paper which you clearly have but once you get past the screening for spring weeks it’s up to you to do well in interviews and no degree or extracurricular will guarantee that. Prepare well and you will be rewarded
Worth going through the forum or on company websites to understand the recruiting cycle (I.e. how many points of entry do you have into IB) - on top of my head is the typical spring -> summer -> FT and off cycles sprinkled around. Make sure you know which programmes you’re eligible to apply for each year of uni and just grind. The earlier you enter the ‘pipeline’ the easier your life becomes
although its worth noting that the difficulty of getting into Oxford from another uni is quite hard since you have to prep for the oxford interview/make the application and absolutely kill it in the first few months to be on track for a first. This will potentially impact OPs ability to balance social life/societies as well as kill their spring week applications whilst at UCL
Absolutely - do it at OP's own risk
To be honest there is no excuse to not be able to break in from UCL - sure you look slightly worse on paper compared to oxbridge/LSE and probably need to make up with a bit more extracurriculars & good grades - but its so marginal that it really comes down to your personality in interviews (and ability to write a cover letter that is convincing)
Totally agree with what you said i dont really care either but from HR/recruiting's perspective it is what it is - statistically speaking Oxbridge/LSE have more proportion of people in banks (obviously there are many ways to explain it i.e. more people from LSE are interested in IB etc etc etc it doesnt really matter why in this case) which therefore still gives an applicant an edge without considering extra curriculars (people interview better when interviewer has something in common with the applicant - so more people go through/get offers)
but yes at the end of the day if you cant break in from UCL then its not the uni its something else
quick little search of Linkedin shows UCL places more than Oxford/warwick/imperial (way more applicants though) so its safe to say that even if the success rate is lower, the mere fact banks are happy to take so many UCL applicants (more so than other large universities combined ) means they have no qualms with the university itself. OP will be fine if I'm honest, finding WSO at a young age bodes well for their spring apps and they mentioned having some medical work ex which will help them stand out amongst the deluge of brightnetwork and virtual non-selective forage work experiences littered on so many spring week CVs. If they can get on to the student ran fund in second year (UCL's is well known and respected) then they can really leverage that if they try applying to hfs/AM out of undergrad too.
OP make sure you format your CV well and get it checked on here and by your mentors, I can't comment on the diversity stuff but if you do find anything you're eligible for don't hesitate to take them.
What's the path to a top BB/EB group from Springs?
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Just join SEO and they'll whip you into shape.
think SEO are ignoring the kid ahahah but they only really start taking students when the academic year starts so its a bit early. Also to my knowledge they don't take into account LGBT criterion but hey ho
Wonder why he isn't eligible, I mean he's not white so isn't that automatic entry?
Hey just a couple points of advice.
Not sure why you don't think you can break into a BB / an EB. I personally never did any spring weeks (only one I applied to was GS and that's because I was focused on something else back then) but I took a very different route into IB.
1) When you write your spring week apps, make sure you apply to ALL the banks on the street (its a numbers game) and make sure it is for the same division. Do not have ER for some and IB for some, it doesn't make sense
2.1) If you get maths tests, you need to get 95%+ on them. I recall in my year, MS's cut off for their online test was 90%+ (I would always get 100% on the ones MS use cause they use the same one every year - e.g. they ask how many barrels of oil some oil rigs can produce per year).
2.2) If you're doing the maths tests (e.g. the ones for Citi) you know you can copy all the numbers they show on the LHS onto excel and then get whatever number you need right? Using excel to do the maths is easier than using a calc in my opinion
3) When you draft your apps, make sure the apps are tailored to the firm. When I saw say tailored, list out who you spoke to, what deals they've worked on (make sure its the London office that did it) etc. Make sure there are no spelling mistakes etc.
4) Join societies, take up leadership positions, win competitions. There are a ton of finance competitions you can join and can win e.g. UCL DECA
I know Googling is a must when looking at deals/who worked on them, but is there a directory/website you use?
does your uni have a bloomberg terminal? Use the function MNA.
If not, advisors are usually disclosed in transaction announcements.
for the benefit of anyone else reading: MS' cutoff is the 90th percentile, not necessarily 90% itself for the tests. That being said its still really high and so i could use some advice on how to approach these since i anticipate these tests being the main bottleneck in my applications. Obviously practice using JobTestPrep but you mentioned MS using the same tests? What do you mean by this and how did you practise doing them? I was not aware of the excel trick at all but from what I've seen alot of the questions (I've only done a MS one for a pre-U scheme and did pretty average lol) seem to incorporate graphs and stuff so i don't get how you can use excel for them - i assume the other systems used by other banks let you use excel?
I think it was 90% (as in you needed 22 questions correct out of 24 for the kenexa math test) but that was a couple years ago.
MS uses the same kenexa test each year (they just swap the numbers). Might have changed this year. You can still use excel by writing down the numbers in the charts and just use one formula to calc all the answers in one go vs using your own calculator and calcing each number individually. Guess it depends on how quickly you type.
For Citi you can definitely use excel.
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