Loxley … Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Ahh … I see. I sit a bit like the Ascension of > JC, or the Assumption of M (MoG) ? Like Remedios, maybe…
dezert Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I was using the word high and I dont recall how I > wrote “higher” instead of hire. Btw I pay a lot of > attention to detail, sometimes too much, but im > currently under a lot of stress this week with > this decision. So easy on me Loxley. Hey Dezert … I was most definitely not trying to rain on your parade or extract the urine - I was merely trying to offer some of the distilled insight I gained from my indentured hard time at US MegaBank. It can be so dispiriting when you have worked hard on collating some disparate numbers, got an inside line from an industry contact or noticed some new or unusual pattern in the market and you are presenting to peers, boss, clients, other parts of the bank, whatever … and some inadequate pack-animal picks you up on your spelling of their/there/they’re or notices you’ve mislabelled one set of axes … and then nobody bothers to look beyond that to the actual meat of your presentation. From then you will always be known as the FNG who kan’t spell. Having so said - when I moved to the Buy-Side you actively look for reasons to dismiss new research so you don’t have to read it. As for the stress around making your decision - flip a coin. No, seriously - flip a coin! Because while it’s spinning in it’s arc of the infinity of two possibilities you have an inkling of which side up you want it to land … and when it lands the ‘wrong’ way up you feel everso slightly deflated. It worked for me and the 710 over our honeymoon choice - “Heads - Italy, Tails - Thailand” [Sotto voce: Heads, Heads, Heads …] “It’s Tails …” " … ohhh …" “B@ll@cks - let’s go to Italy” “Sorted!”
Loxley … Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > As for the stress around making your decision - > flip a coin. No, seriously - flip a coin! > Because while it’s spinning in it’s arc of the > infinity of two possibilities you have an inkling > of which side up you want it to land … and when > it lands the ‘wrong’ way up you feel everso > slightly deflated. > > It worked for me and the 710 over our honeymoon > choice - > > “Heads - Italy, Tails - Thailand” > > “It’s Tails …” > " … ohhh …" > “B@ll@cks - let’s go to Italy” > “Sorted!” nice story, Loxley. i definitely agree with you that gauging your level of disappointment based on hypothetically NOT getting a certain outcome can tell you what your preference truly is.
Lol Loxley, i’ve already done that with a soda can lid and I am not listening to it either.
You’re fine man, go for it. You’re going to have an advantage over a lot, if not all, of the other analysts. The majority of them aren’t far into the CFA program, and if so they’re at level 1. Opportunity only knocks once and this is your time to shine. The majority of analysts are hired straight out of college and have less experience than you. Trust me investment banks do a thorough job interviewing- they wouldn’t hire you if they didn’t KNOW you could do the job. I agree with the poster above that said, the hardest thing won’t be the knowledge itself but how hard you choose to work (100+ hours). Take it though- I know a kid that just graduated from Villanova as a Finance & Acct major and went to GS as an analyst- so you as a Level 2 CFA guy shouldn’t have any problem. P.S. Your coworkers are saying that b/c they don’t want to lose you or they’ve never worked in the industry. You can def do the job man…go for it and be confident!
what’s an FNG?
F@ckin New Guy
Let me get this straight…you worked at a Big 4 for a year and a half and a top investment bank offered you a job as an analyst?? Is your last name Romney or something?
Dezert - I am a first-year analyst in I-banking at a big BB, and I’d say about 2/3 of our class has absolutely no background in finance except for a summer banking internship and maybe a few finance classes (although about half are econ majors - not necessarily relevant to what we are doing, though). Probably about 20-30% were finance or accounting majors, and then there are some like me who have no experience whatsoever. There is a very steep learning curve, and if you do have an offer at one of the big banks the training you get will be truly exceptional. I would not worry at all about being underprepared.
luke77, that fact is so unfair. That’s ivy league-Bulge bracket mutual partnership B.S…hiring people that are basically unqualified with only stellar ivy GPA as the gatekeeper. It’s funny how top undergrad business schools get fewer banking spots than harvard, stanford…doesn’t make any sense theoretically while you have real finance people boxed out.
sternwolf Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > luke77, that fact is so unfair. That’s ivy > league-Bulge bracket mutual partnership > B.S…hiring people that are basically unqualified > with only stellar ivy GPA as the gatekeeper. > > It’s funny how top undergrad business schools get > fewer banking spots than harvard, > stanford…doesn’t make any sense theoretically > while you have real finance people boxed out. You know, I often feel this way, too. But there are 2 sides to it. In my analyst training program, as a finance major out of a state university (and a CFA candidate), I was light years ahead of my peers out of Yale, Princeton, Cambridge, Berkeley, etc. I even had the pleasure of tutoring some of them in finance. But for those who weren’t terminated, they were just so innately brilliant that once they picked up on a concept, they improved exponentially. I remember in an economics lesson during training, a Yale political science graduate was just schooling everyone else on the topic. I asked her how she knew all that stuff about economics, and she replied something to the effect of, “I didn’t. It was just obvious to me.” By the end of training, I was definitely not the best of the bunch–definitely in the lower 25% of the group. Raw brain power is very important in this business. At the same time, I was also probably in the bottom 15% of my finance peers in college–some of those people were breathtakingly brilliant AND they had extensive training in finance and Excel. If some of these BBs would take the effort to recruit brilliant people who are actually trained in the subject matter, I think they’d be shocked about what kind of incredible results they’d get.
Sternwolf - They do it because they can, and because it is less risky from the bank’s perspective to hire ivy league kids , even those without finance training. I think I have a decent perspective on this - I came from a state school with a top business program. I wasn’t in it, but many of my friends were. Some of them were incredibly smart, but just as many were not, and very few were brilliant. There were certainly enough kids in the undergrad business school to fill a BB with qualified analysts, but it would be difficult to figure out who is qualified and who is not based on 4-5 30 minute interviews and a resume. Much less risk if you go to Harvard and hire a bunch of kids who, simply by virtue of being there, are exceptionally smart/talented. The legacy kids are mostly excluded because even at the ivies banks have GPA requirements. Also, banking positions are in very high demand, so banks can pick and choose who they want to take. If you were making decisions and had the choice to fill your analyst class with either ivy league kids or state school kids, wouldn’t you take the ivies?
Hey Dezert, how did you seek out these IBD opportunities? I am pretty much in the same shoe as you (in terms of background and work experience) and would like to move into IBD. Given this market, I am getting absolutely no responses sending resume online. I’d appreciate if you could shed some light on how to seek out these openings. Thanks,
luke77, I agree 100% with your explanation. I will say, however, that based on my experience (and this is going to sound like a complete HOMER post), if I were hiring for a BB or really any investment bank, I’d call up some of the top finance professors at my state U alma mater and ask them who the best and brightest were and/or those with the most ability. I know that they’d be more than happy to help and they’d even give me 5-10 minutes at the beginning of a class to talk to classes. Having worked with Ivy Leaguers, I’ve gained a TON of respect for their raw brain power; however, with grade inflation in the Ivies and with a truly suspect education ($200,000 for a BA in a useless subject??), I’d rather take the best and brightest finance majors out of State U. (I would NEVER hire myself, btw.) But I definitely understand why they don’t do this (for one, they don’t know any finance professors at State U because they got a BA out of student loans U).
I agree with some of the points mentioned but it seems highly suspect, as kkent said, to hire intelligent people with absolutely no knowledge or experience (save memorizing the goddamn investment banking vault guide) in the finance field. The reason why? I think ivy league kids are vastly overrated on the broad scale. For the exception of the top group, the majority are smart kids that got into ivy through an elite private boarding/private school through high school connections more than anything else. For instance, I went to an above average public high school that had only 1 or zero ivy league entrants. It was always the valedictorians that were given the ivy shot. Many smart people I knew had all the required ivy stats…1500-1600 SAT, stellar SAT II’s, 3.9 GPAs and still FAILED to get into any of the most pompous ivy institutions because they were at a mediocre public high school with no connections. Personally, I got 1480/1600. If I went to Exeter boarding school, where a huge proportion get put into ivy, as a high school kid, I might not even having this conversation with you right now! For instance, it perplexes me that harvard and yale (as a benchmark, average SAT 1500) would have twice or three times more BB IB acceptance than my school (average SAT 1440). While those schools would offer relatively useless econ majors at best and business schools would have CPAs and finance… people with already decent training. All in all, it seems that at the analyst level, M&A banking is not an idea generating sort of work that requires extensive financial acumen and numerical skills like equity research or trading. From what I’ve heard, you don’t learn anything past the first half year and the rest is terrible drudgery and you learn very little. So I guess, it would make sense to get smart, diligent people and train them in a certain task just to force them to repeat it over and over again for two, three years…
stern, i agree wtih you. getting into those Ivy’s at the undergraduate level is a lot more about connections then pure talent. of course, some are just down right brilliant but i feel a lot of rich kids get a break simply because they’re rich. from what my professors told me, the material that is taught at Harvard etc. is not tremendously different then the material that we were diong in Canada. However, he did point out that at MIT and Chicago, it was substantially more difficult. for the other school though, he says its basically a name. not sure if that is true.
I frankly think that merely completing the $1,000 CFA level 1 is much more valuable than my whole 12 credit, $13,000 finance core + FSA course (sans finance electives). It’s the same material(and usually the same textbooks), except the ivy league MBA programs will cover more material and have far more grade competition and higher average intelligence than the average MBA.
Sure rich kids from private schools have better access but they also have the fulfill the requirements. Harvard’s average GPA and SAT scores apply to everyone. Only your riches don’t get you in to ivy leagues schools. I can guarantee that most of the kids who go to ivy league have superior academics (along with a lot of money) that gets them in. Also, for I-banking jobs, they teach you everything so why would it matter if you have any prior knowledge? As some one else pointed out, ivy kids have raw brains which makes them better learner than perhaps kids who lack that quality and in my opinion, that’s precisely what I-banks look for.
Well, my point is, I understand if its a crappy school, yeah sure, but it doesn’t make sense that top undergrad B-schools get screwed over big time during analyst recruiting at BBs and MMs because the ivies have the greatest old money connections with the Mr. Morgan.
you’re right about the requirements. however, keep in mind that the school might inflate marks to help with that. i went to a public school and i had friends who went to private schools. we all agree that getting marks in private schools are a lot easier. i didin’t go to a US top school, but at my school there were plenty of rich kids from private schools and i didin’t notice the big difference except for the fact they drove nice cars and had hot girlfriends. in addition, i have a friend who teaches at a private school. she was given direct instructions to make the average higher because the teachers were complaining. i guess there is no way around the SATs though.