Hi all. I would appreciate your feedback on my situation described below:
To start, let me give you a little background on my education and experience- I have passed all three levels of the CFA program in 2018. I have an MBA with a major in Investment Management and 2yrs of Pre-MBA work experience as an investment analyst in a private equity firm in Southeast Asia. My bachelor’s major was in finance as well.
After my MBA, I needed to find a job which was relevant to my degree in the US in order to stay in the US and I joined a healthcare research hospital as a financial analyst. I recently received my green card and moved to California to be close to my wife with another Healthcare provider joining as a Sr. Financial Analyst.
The problem is these roles have no use of my finance knowledge and what I have learnt is really industry specific skills. I want to find a job in the investment management industry or PE or at least in corporate finance where I can use my finance knowledge, and skillset. A position where I can utilize my CFA learnings. However, I am finding it really difficult to find such a job now. All the offers I get or any recruiter call is always from another healthcare provider. Only my recent experience is being considered. I really want to change my job and move into a finance heavy role. Please advise what should be my strategy/ way out.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. Do you want to be in sales (client facing) or more analysis-type work? You sound fairly young and with your education, I don’t think you’ll have much trouble finding a job in the finance world.
The only thing I’d say is don’t be too picky with your first role. Likely not realistic that you walk into a 200k+/yr job with little direct experience. Sometimes you have to take a step back in order to move forward. Focus at the industry level first (PE/Corp fin/IB, etc.) and then look at the firms. Hone in on firms with growth potential and be willing to take an entry level job. It may pay less than you’re currently making but play the long game (18 months - 2 years before your first promotion). Ideally you advance within the same firm but the experience will give you the option to jump ship if need be.
You likely won’t find a direct answer to your question here as career planning is individualistic. I accepted lower pay early in my career to gain experience and it paid off in spades.
Thank you so much for your response. I really appreciate it.
I have 2yrs of PE experience pre-MBA and 3 yrs of Healthcare finance experience post MBA. I am actually open to accepting entry level roles but even then I am not getting calls I guess because the recruiters are classifying me as over experienced for some roles and under experienced for others. Naturally, I am a analytical kind of person but I feel I can handle and enjoy client facing roles as well. I feel like I am stuck in a confusing situation here.
Thanks again for your insight though. It will help me for sure.
Recruiters are useless if you’re attempting to transition, they only want to move people from one role to another identical one as quickly as possible to collect commission. They have no incentive to help someone with a non-traditional background.
You will not likely get a job in PE. Look for things like corporate finance roles and apply directly. Work on your interviewing and polishing your resume to really sell any overlapping skill sets. Take stuff off that doesn’t match the role you want. In other words, keep your jobs on there, but if you did 30% in the role that applies to corp fin and 70% that applies to healthcare, your resume should only talk about the 30%. You will have to sell yourself. Be ready to nail the interview because you will not have many shots (although possibly more than one). Also work on your speaking and presentation if you have any heavy accent or difficulty communicating clearly verbally. Ease of communication is obviously a big part of selling yourself.
One avenue to consider are analyst roles in international and emerging market funds assuming you have some familiarity with foreign accounting principles and a second language to lever. But these roles are sought after and very competitive, so I wouldn’t make it a base case. Never hurts to network, but play the long game.
Thank you Black_Swan. These are all valid points. To what you said, I just recently realized that my resume was not talking enough about my investment background, so I have updated it now to reflect that experience. Hopefully will get more response now.