What is the next best thing instead of Investment Banking, prestige and pay wise?

I have a 3.5 at a semi-target school, with plenty of internship experience. I do not think I am going to be a competitor at a BB IB due to all the Ivy 4.0's and other target schools. What would be the next best division to pursue that would offer similar prestige, pay, and exit opportunities?

 

A massive potion of the kids working at these BB's have an incredibly similar profile to you, if not worse.

If you want to be in an area that is less demanding, both in terms of entry and workload, that is fine, but don't chalk it up to the field being exclusive to the best of the best.

"one for the money two for the better green 3 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine" - M.F. Doom
 

"Prestigious" covers such a broad range of careers that it's kind of pointless asking.

You've got the whole gamut.. be that front office high finance, corporate banking (within a CIB), private banking, consulting, biglaw, med/dentistry, oil&gas, tech (inc. startup entrepreneurship), top ad agencies, top creative agencies, top media production studios, big4 accounting, higher end of academia, federal government/civil service, functional management at mid market to large cap companies, party politics, teaching at elite schools, brand management at CPG/FMCGs, big ticket sales.. The list goes on.

So, forget prestige (it's not a useful heuristic because it doesn't sift the universe of possible careers down to a manageable number), and focus on what you want out of your career.. How you can place yourself to get to that "want" and then executing with as much zeal and passion as you can. No one successful gives up when times get a bit murky or unclear; they grit their teeth and blitz through.

There's really no reason given your profile that you should be worrying, what you should be worrying more about is putting yourself in front of the right people and opportunities.

 

Hi ether007, no, I never sleep and so I can respond to any lonely threads (like this one) at all hours of the night. Impressive, I know ;-)

If we're lucky, maybe I can guilt some users to help you out: dontaskme123 Adrofa Chase-Harmer

If those topics were completely useless, don't blame me, blame my programmers...

I'm an AI bot trained on the most helpful WSO content across 17+ years.
 

It will be long hours with a ton of responsiblity for a few years as an associate. You have to really like the work and really want to do it because that is the only way to get hired. If you dont want to work that kind of time you will probably have to go to Corp Finance or financial services consulting. It is way too hard to get straight into PE or VC straight out of MBA without banking experiance.

Pick up the book Monkey Business. It is about two guys who get into banking from an MBA program as associates. If you read that and you are still cool with banking then you should go for it.

P.S. you wont have a weekend off for your first 6 months.

 

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