I know it does. sounds good.
There is so much competition for finance jobs right now education gets you almost nothing. Experience is what counts for everything. Having a portfolio of published work or a verifiable track record of performance is worth more than 20 designations and a 4.0 GPA at many schools. I did an interesting experiement after one of our interns wasn’t given an offer recently. I cruised over to Doostang and just started searching different undergrads schools and used key words like equity research, private equity, venture capital, and i-banking. The number of hits I got was amazing and most with pretty sick resumes…Of course about 80% of them were Asian… Then I went to the careers forum and saw this guy post his resume for review saying he wanted to get into i-banking. The guy’s resume was a joke he had a 3.0 in finance from some school I never heard of and no internships and thought he was going to get into i-banking somewhere. The point of this is just to illustrate that A. There are a ton of good candidates out there and more coming everyday from Asia B. There are a tons of crappy candidates that are out there in which your resume can be lost among I’m not saying anyone should give up but if I were graduating from undergrad now I definately wouldn’t put all my eggs in the finance basket. One of our interns buddies did that and after about 12 failed interviews and 6 months out of work after graduation he is apparently working as a personal banker at Bank of America. Once you have one of those jobs on your resume…good luck.
I have a fuzzy feeling in my stomach. RaCFA, how much does maintaining an investment blog help? I’m pretty worried about this too, even though I am from a good school but with a modest ER part time stint. Many of the people trying to get into ER have two years of part time experience in finance. Personally, I’m using the CPA as backup if I fail to get into front office finance. Then figure out how to get back in later… I’m guessing that you’re not in New york city, right?
No I’m in Austin. I think you will be fine. You have progress thowards the CFA & CAIA and go to a top finance school plus NYU has a great alumni base and job placement program. I don’t know what your grades are so you might not be I-banking, VC, HF, or PE worthy right out of school but I would wager you could easily get a ER job or junior analyst role at a mutual fund. Blogging might help minimally unless you are widely recognized. It shows you have interest beyond simply going to school but you kind of already have that covered with the CFA & CAIA. Although, for an ER role any quality writing sample you can show is a bonus.
Thanks a lot. My grades and modest job experience are what worries me. They are median, hovering only slightly above a 3, which cuts me off a lot of the data mining 3.5 cutoffs a lot of the big firms use. They have been damaged by the vicious, B-inducing stern curve, my military history work, my tendancy to take six classes a semester, and my two year obsession and eventual engagement/ disengagement to an older german woman/german national which failed about a year ago. The problem is, I can’t really talk about this during an interview…
The GPA below 3.5 will hurt you at the BB and maybe some of the MM. But you always have the option of a botique firm where many times they care less about your GPA. Botique and Middle Market firms have less exit opps but if you do good work there will still be good ones.
Can someone educate me - what is BB? tks.
“Can someone educate me - what is BB? tks.”- Bulge Bracket Thanks for the insight RAwannabeCFA
“The term ‘bulge bracket’ also refers to the first group of investment banks listed on the “tombstone” (financial industry advertisement) notifying the public of a financial transaction or deal. In a public securities offering, within the underwriting syndicate, the bookrunning manager (the bank responsible for maintaining the order book when marketing the offering and therefore in control of allocation of securities to investors) appears above the others in the tombstone and on the cover of the prospectus. The font size of the name of this bank, or banks if there are co-bookrunning managers, is larger and it may “bulge” out.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulge_bracket
sternwolf Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Thanks a lot. > > My grades and modest job experience are what > worries me. They are median, hovering only > slightly above a 3, which cuts me off a lot of the > data mining 3.5 cutoffs a lot of the big firms > use. > > They have been damaged by the vicious, B-inducing > stern curve, my military history work, my tendancy > to take six classes a semester, and my two year > obsession and eventual engagement/ disengagement > to an older german woman/german national which > failed about a year ago. The problem is, I can’t > really talk about this during an interview… Was she a cougar? Anyway, I graduated from a good school with a 3.47 GPA. During the fall recruiting season, it was at 3.4, and I, too, got hit by the 3.5 cut-off. It was pretty ridiculous, actually. I ended up finding a job in a particular sector, then parlaying it into an analyst role. So, it is possible… Also, try approaching companies with good reps that aren’t necessarily recruiting at your campus. The recruiting thing can be a big trap. You get a bunch of 4.0 students hogging up all the interview slots and then juggling lucrative offers from 375089325 different companies. Meanwhile, the good students can’t even get an interview because all these companies are hoping to get one of the top 10 students. I got rejected by firms that recruited the same number of students from Cal State Hayward as they did from my school. It’s pretty formulaic. So, if you’re falling into the 3.0 - 3.5 GPA trap and not getting your due in on-campus recruiting, you might have some luck going around it to the companies directly. I know some people who did this with great success. Good luck.
Thanks for the advice cfa2grunt I am under the 3.5 cutoff as well. While I’m getting some quality interviews on campus, I think it’s effecting me in the offer stage.
My current company didn’t recruit at my undergrad school, and I didn’t think of this place when I was doing on-campus recruiting. Another student who wasn’t particularly strong ended up at my current company straight out of undergrad. He’s a PM now.
Are you in NY?
LICandidate Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Thanks for the advice cfa2grunt > > I am under the 3.5 cutoff as well. While I’m > getting some quality interviews on campus, I think > it’s effecting me in the offer stage. IMHO, it is not. GPA gets your resume in front of eyese. Once you’re in the room, GPA isn’t a concern (at least to all of the people I have interviewed with, sitting on the company side of the table). If they still care about the GPA, they will likely ask. If you’re dead even with another person, THEN the GPA might have an impact. My $0.02
Cougars are fun to play with until they rip your arms off and rip out your jugular…I find younger kitties to be more docile Hey Grunt, what do you do again?
Is it 0 for 5 face-to-face interviews? If so, you might want to find someone to review your interview skills…
Hey LICandidate, have you ever done a mock interview before? You may want to go for one, or have someone experienced screen you and give you feedback. You may think that you had a great interview when you actually may not have. Most people don’t know how good or how bad they really are at interviewing till they’ve gotten some feedback.
it’s 0 for 5 face to face interviews. One of them was at a company that I know someone in a senior position. I got feedback from him afterwards that the interviewers were impressed with me.
they were probably impressed with a lot of them. Bite the bullet and continue playing the numbers game.
Yep that’s what I’m gonna do jalmy. I have 4 new interviews for the next two weeks. I’m just gonna keep sending out the apps.