Alladin Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > have you tried the big 4 accounting firms? they > always seem to have loads of vacancies When you go to their website, the have ‘graduates’ and ‘experienced’ but the problem is when you click on graduates, they have a schedule of when they attend your school, unfortunately they don’t go to small schools only the big universities. Well, i guess i will just keep trying and hang tight. I will look into joining the phialdelphia CFA society and shoot out some emails if they want me to work for free.
hmm maybe it is different in the us than in the uk…here u click graduate ->apply (u can come from crap unis with a degree in music studies and still be accepted provided u have minimum score)…->answer some stupid competency based questions->submit application with CV…and wait
Viceroy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > @ TS : I think your first priority should be to > figure out what you want to do. > > Your scope seems quite large. > > Would you rather work in ER/Research ? > > Investment Banking /CF ? > > By Equities I assume you mean Sales & Trading ? > > …? > > > These 3 (+) fields are very different and require > different skill sets. > > They are all very competitive to get into and most > people here will tell you that without experience > or an MBA from top 2 B-Schools, blah blah blah > your chances are close to 0. > > I disagree with that approach. If you are an > sharp, dynamic and cool guy with a genuine > interest in the field you can land a very good job > if you impress the right people. > > …which brings me back to my first advice: > figure out what the hell you want to do for the > next 5 years. Honestly, I dont know EXACTLY what i want to do. Why? Because i do not have any experience at all and so i dont know how it feels to work as a ‘blank’. Do i have an idea? yes, something in the investment/asset management field. I know it is competitive and i would need experience. That is why i am trying to get in through any other avenues or less competitive finance related position. Trust me, i am not picky at all at the moment. I do consider myself to be fairly intelligent with a great passion for the field but i am not even landing an interview. This is where it gets frustrating. So back to your question, I have figured out somewhat as to where i want to be in 5 years and it seems to be very competitive, so for now i am more focused on just getting in.
bapswarrior, i am in the same position as you but worse…i have a mfin from a reasonable school in the uk (warwick business school) people from the US probably never heard of but its pre-experience msc finance programme seems to be well ranked in eu (although i dont buy this) http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/masters-in-finance-pre-experience-2011 I graduated in nov 09 and am still without any employment largely due to lack of experiences/competencies but mostly an inability to stop losing my mind in an interview arrangement…I know ppl with worse grades/less experience but more positive and comfotable/sociable sensibilities get good jobs…so dont worry and chin up! There are no straight lines in nature sometimes…I know of a corporate finance manager who started out teaching English in third world countries! Currently i cannot justify to myself to enter that graduate cycle again (maybe i graduated too long ago anyways)…so my plan is to gain experience that is related to the industry even if only marginally…to build up my confidence and competencies…i also passed the L2 this year (thankfully) I am currently looking at the following position… https://www.capitaliq.com/home/careers/europe/london/client-development/client-development-analyst.aspx i think they have vacancies in many places around the world…maybe u can check that out if u want. any thoughts/help/comments welcome!
bapswarrior Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I currently > work at a hotel front desk to help me with the > bills and I reside in the philly area. It is > becoming really depressing and it seems like i am > loosing hope. Can anyone help pls! Here’s an idea for getting your foot in the door, that’s not as stupid as it first sounds: retail banking. I mean literally applying for a job at your local branch of Citibank, Wells Fargo, or Bank of America. One of my gal pals worked her way from retail teller at TD Bank to financial analyst at their investment bank in only a handful of years. (Disclaimer: Results not typical.) The nice thing about this kind of name-brand experience is that once you’ve moved on to bigger and better things, you can fairly easily craft your resume to make it look like you doing something much more impressive than you actually were.
Big 4 sounds like a good chance for you. Not uncommon for a person prepared to work hard to progress as follows: Big 4 audit > Big 4 Corp Fin > PE House or Corp Fin in Big Bank. Just make sure you finish CFA during the early years …
missinglink Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Big 4 sounds like a good chance for you. Not > uncommon for a person prepared to work hard to > progress as follows: Big 4 audit > Big 4 Corp Fin > > PE House or Corp Fin in Big Bank. Just make sure > you finish CFA during the early years … Yup, CFA is something that i MUST complete and will try to do so at my earliest. Big 4s don’t hire from small schools, they only hire at career events which they schedule at big unis.
> Here’s an idea for getting your foot in the door, > that’s not as stupid as it first sounds: retail > banking. > > I mean literally applying for a job at your local > branch of Citibank, Wells Fargo, or Bank of > America. > > One of my gal pals worked her way from retail > teller at TD Bank to financial analyst at their > investment bank in only a handful of years. > (Disclaimer: Results not typical.) > > The nice thing about this kind of name-brand > experience is that once you’ve moved on to bigger > and better things, you can fairly easily craft > your resume to make it look like you doing > something much more impressive than you actually > were. Its a great idea and your friends are really lucky. Ironically i have a friend working for the same bank, tdbank for the past 3 or so years and he hasn’t been able to move, he is still a customer service rep. He got turned down for a loan officer position/recommendation too. But yea, as a last resort i might as well just send out my resume and become a teller.
^ you’ll find guys and girls have different standards of breaking into finance. A girl with so-so experience and a tight body and good looks will nearly always win against a guy with better experience and nerdy-decent looks. Yes this sucks for most guys, but when its time to put someone in front of old gray-haired hedge fund clients or meeting with CEO’s, which do you think works better?
greengrape Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ^ you’ll find guys and girls have different > standards of breaking into finance. > > A girl with so-so experience and a tight body and > good looks will nearly always win against a guy > with better experience and nerdy-decent looks. > > Yes this sucks for most guys, but when its time to > put someone in front of old gray-haired hedge fund > clients or meeting with CEO’s, which do you think > works better? depends on the type of position. in a role like an IB analyst where you just need the body to crank you don’t care who it is or what it looks like. i’ve heard from at least a couple of partner/MD level people that run small shops say that they won’t hire females because of bad experiences in the past i.e. nail appointments, not wanting to come in on the weekends.
^ You can always find some counter argument to everything. Even to your IB analyst example, if you are spending countless hours working with someone and have to look at them from 7am to 4am, I’m sure you would much rather look at a hot young girl than some nerdy dude. I’ve heard this from quite a few MD’s as well.
fredfunk04 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > i’ve heard from at least a couple of > partner/MD level people that run small shops say > that they won’t hire females because of bad > experiences in the past i.e. nail appointments, > not wanting to come in on the weekends. I suspect that this has more to do with male/female ratios in IB applications, rather than intrinsic male or female qualities. There are probably around 4 male applicants for IB jobs for each female applicant. It would not be irrational to guess that because of this ratio, on average, successful male applicants must be more qualified than successful female applicants.
Hot girl colleagues distract me. I become unfocused when I m around hot girls. But I guess I tend to think more about women than average dudes.
i love girls
you have to start thinking out of the box a bit. what are your passions? if you are good at excel, start a blog! write on it every day with finance and excel tips. start building some models and writing some commentary if that interests you. start answering finance and excel questions on linkedin. you are lucky to be in philly where there are lots of opportunities. just keep knocking on every possible door you can, go to any job fair you can but don’t expect your job to come from a traditional channel as it may NOT. focus on the skills your potential employer will need and start building them right now! read books. since you are at a front desk why not try to learn about the hotel business right there? get their financial statements, analyze them, tell your manager you want to be considered for training. see Undercover Boss: MGM edition and also they had another episode on hotel front desks. MAKE YOUR OWN OPPORTUNITY! I got a job from my blog and have also created my own opportunities so I know this works. I was unemployed for 2 years after 9/11 so know what you are going through, so get to work with the alternative channels. you can also go to local entrepreneur society meetings, they always need help with developing applications or statistical analysis, if you can do anything like this, or even help with business plans etc. attitude is everything. good luck!
Thumbs up DoubleDip
PS another idea if you can stomach it, I thought of this when I was unemployed but never acted on it as I was too busy just surviving. Now I really wish I’d done this: start a youtube channel chronicling your job search attempts. if done right, it could be really great! if you can come across well, you might create your own opportunity that way, think of Rebecca Black urgh but you know what I mean. I think this would be awesome! or write up a book on how you passed L1 and now working as a hotel front desk clerk. Get the book Nickel and Dimed, read it, get inspired. Full disclosure: I recommend the book, but didn’t like how this journalist just posed as someone needing a job and made a fortune off of this book, when i was actually LIVING this, so I think I should have done something like this because with me, it was REAL LIFE not just temporary and go home to the family on the weekends. I think you can do this.
unpaid internship
@Doubledip - Thanks for the ideas…i have been analyzing financial statements for the place i work at and i’ve been involved with their finances lately. I will ponder over all these great ideas and will find a feasible one. I would take an unpaid internship in a second but it seems like they want only students and not those who graduated already. Well i will keep trying hope for some good news soon. I tried craigslist over the weekend. hopefully i get a legit response soon.
That’s great! You passed L1 and have nothing to lose really so you can also ask your manager if you can talk with his/her boss about how to be successful in the hotel business, what are the challenges, pretend you are an equity research analyst and ask questions about competition, market forces etc. Why would someone go into this business? How do they decide on room mix, who is their customer, how do they price, and how does corporate decide where to locate a hotel? Why are some hotels successful and not others? etc. Everything you learn can feed into responses on your eventual job interview. For example: Interviewer: You don’t seem to have any equity research experience. What makes you think you can do this job? You: I worked as a hotel front desk clerk. I took the opportunity to learn everything I possibly could about the hotel industry and what would make this a good (or bad) investment. I interviewed upper management and talked with customers about what made them come back, and I wrote up an analysis … bla bla bla. Now I wish I could do this! I think it would be cool to have this job. And: Don’t forget YOUR CUSTOMERS!!! Let them see your CFA L2 book in the background, tell them you are studying very hard on your breaks, before and after work. You never know! This is a tremendous advantage that most people don’t have. Who is staying in your hotel? Chances are, people who MIGHT be able to eventually give you a job or at least a name. Be a top notch professional and you just might end up with something great.