Young IB hopeful: any tips?
Hello all,
I'm a high school student with interest in IB/general finance. While I understand that this is very early to consider a profession, this has been a long time goal/dream of mine to work on deals. This is by no means a resolute decision and my goals could obviously change, however in the meantime, is there anything that would be recommended for me to do to start towards this goal? Will likely major in Econ at a NESCAC school in college. I currently run my school's finance/investment club, which is a small step in the right direction.
Any advice is appreciated.
Sadly, it's not too early. I am a rising sophomore at a semi-target college who is already behind on applying for SA (summer analyst, or intern) 2020 positions. It's utter bullshit cause I literally have no applicable experience, for god's sake I haven't even taken Financial Accounting yet! In a couple of years high school seniors will be vying for SA positions before they start college.
Rant aside, the biggest thing is to try to get into a "target" school. Normally people make lists of reaches, targets, or safeties. Here on WSO we call reaches targets because they are the firms the street targets, and semi-targets are the ones that some, but not all target. IB (Investment Banking) is one of the only industries where name of the school matters, along with management consulting.
This matters cause banks only recruit on-campus from the "best" schools (eg. Wharton). I go to a semi-target that thankfully sees on-campus recruiting (OCR) from most of the BB (bulge bracket), or biggest banks.
That's all you could do. Maybe the only other thing is to leverage family connections to get yourself a finance internship for senior summer before college. Make sure it's meaningful, no coffee-fetching stuff. It'll help you get internships in the future.
Relax my guy. you're more ahead of the curb than you realize. You don't need to be at BB or MM IB for your sophomore summer internship at all. Continue to network, and recognize that private equity internships, corp fin internships, and other very viable opportunities (including internships at small boutiques) are all over the place and well within your grasp. Interning at any of those places will set you up very well for your real summer analyst recruitment season.
To the OP, the secret is networking. I hated being told this, because I was nervous to speak to total randoms on the phone only after sending a cold email. It gets MUCH easier, and you'll soon realize how fruitful informational interviews can truly be. I've been told numerous times how it's surprising that so few people do it (meaning less competition). Read M&I's networking guide as well as other networking posts on this forum. Cold emails followed by phone chats really are a game changer.
Wait how am I ahead lol. I didn't even know that BBs opened their SA 2020 sophomore programs until a week ago, when they started in March.
I thought the standard was PE/PWM/F500 corporate finance internship frosh->MM/boutique IB soph->BB IB junior->FT. I haven't even started networking or learning technicals yet. This summer, I am working for my city in their "Finance" department, but it's really just accounting and reconciliation...this should put me "behind", right?
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