Top i-banking firms

[whyherro]

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yeah once you do 2 years as an analyst your resume becomes gold and you can get a job anywhere

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ehh not quite the case. Depends a lot on the job market and where you worked. Obviously a middle of the road kid at goldman is going to get much better jobs than a middle of the road kid at B of A - all in all you still want to be near the top of your analyst class. It's not like KKR is going to walk into deutsche banks ibanking class and start handing out offers - jobs at the top places post-banking are very hard to get.

[owsley]

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I am glad this topic was introduced, as I was going to start a thread about I-banking in the near future. Currently, I am a high school senior with aspirations to one day be an IB, and I was wondering what the most effective path would be for me to pursue a career in this field. I am applying to Harvard, UPenn, Boston College, Bentley, and Babson, all of which have strong business backgrounds. My chances of being accepted to UPenn are very high due to alumni and family contacts, and thus this is where I see myself next year. What would those with experience in the industry recommend I do to prepare myself for the field, as well as make my self more desirable to perspective companies? Also, if I were to get a great deal more of financial aid and scholarship opportunity from a lesser school such as Bentley or Babson, will this hinder my chances of employment severely? I sincerely appreciate all those who take the time to respond, and offer guidance in this difficult matter.

Thanks
Ryan

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As a current wharton undergrad, a couple pieces of advice/what ive learned: No matter how convinced you are about what you want your future career to be, just trust me that it will change. It is fine to think "When I graduate from college I want to work at a prestigious ibank and make fat bonuses", it is helpful to be ambitious and I am not knocking kids who want to gun for the top jobs, but just keep in mind that someday you will also think "Wow I cannot believe I was 100% sure I wanted that job, man I was naive! I want to do (x) instead now that I actually know something about the world."

Second, I cant really think of any ways to "prepare yourself for the field." Read the paper, try and read some books on finance/investing (I recommend warren buffets biography, a random walk down wall street, when genius failed, and the one about the rjr nabisco takeover, stuff like that). There really is not much you can do to make yourself stand out from the crowd to interviewers or firms right now, its not worth spending the time worrying about it. Ultimately, extracurriculars and who was the president of what club dont really matter. You are either a competent, hardworking likeable guy from a prestigious school who has the social skills to pull off an interview or you arent, dont worry about the job selection process now.

Third, I have found wharton's reputation as being an insanely competitive place to be completely overblown. There aren't students stealing books or sabotaging projects or any crap like that. I have a long list of complaints about the school, but the school's reputation as a stressful competitive place is way overhyped. I remember reading the book "Running of the Bulls" and that perspective on the school is complete [censored]. There are a lot of really annoying students who arent that smart who devote their whole lives to succeeding at the school, and who attach their identities to their resume and what internship they have, but if you dont want to participate in that culture you dont have to. I never did and was still very successful.

The last thing is that I wish I had spent more time learning how to write well. Wharton taught me everything I needed to know about finance to get a great job but they never really paid any attention to my composition skills Being able to write well is a huge tool in every single professional field, if I knew what I knew now at the start of college I would have taken a lot more writing classes.

If you end up having to make a decision between going to a place like harvard or wharton with a lot of debt or a "2nd tier" school with a scholarship, my opinion is that the brand name of a place like wharton is not worth enough to go into debt for. I have friends who are graduating in a lot of debt and it can be a very big burden. They are really smart people who worked really hard in college and now they are faced with the giant problem of paying off 50,000-100,000 dollars of debt. It really sucks to be graduating from school and relocating to a new city where your job is and having to worry about this. If you are a smart and motivated person you will easily overcome the disadvantage of not having the harvard or wharton name on your resume, I would be extremely cautious about going into a lot of debt if you have other options.

[petp_the_greek]

and those top places DONT just recruit from the ivy league. i know GS for example, recruits at the univ. of texas too.

[whyherro]

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and those top places DONT just recruit from the ivy league. i know GS for example, recruits at the univ. of texas too.

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Yeah there is non-target school recruitment process, if u don't go to a big name school its probably best to try and get involved in this esp. b/c they have separate recruitment processes and special interview days to assure that they get a certain % of kids from outside the ivy league, etc.

What's particularly good too is there is this program for minorities which makes it pretty easy to get an internship on the street (can't remember the acronym for it off the top ...) but if u fit is definitely a decent way to go

[Tweety]

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hahaha I totally assure you he will be giving up his life for 2 years.

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no doubt

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LOL at 2yrs!
My brother is an exec with Lehman on the debt/derivative side...first starting in NYC,then Toronto,on to London,now back to NYC...

15 yrs later he is STILL married to them at 80+hrs a week!

but he does make some sic monies [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

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Investment bankers never have it easy in terms of hours and travel. If you are good, though, and work for a productive group, you can retire by your late 30s/early 40s with absolutely no financial worries for the rest of your life.

This is of course true for good traders too, and the hours in trading are much more civilized. The stress level is a lot higher though.

[bal!inhard]

hell, the GS in Chicago recruits from kids who go to DePaul as well

[jws43yale]

This year is a bad year for I-Banking analyst opportunities. The internship programs have expanded over the last several years, and more people accepted offers this summer than ever before. Companies also are cutting back hiring b/c of the climate on the street. Goldman went from interviewing 48 last year at Yale to only interviewing 9 for one spot. I just couldn't have imagined last year that as football player with two years I-Banking experience (boutique), having run my own incorporated investment company, and a 3.3 GPA in Economics that I would be worried about getting a job with one of the bulge bracket firms.

If you are a minority (non-Asian) or a woman though, you are set, they are always looking to fill more spots for "diversity".

Oh, and coming out of school, there is no real difference between any of the top firms. Goldman has the name more than anyone else, but other firms may be a better fit and get you further right out of school.

[jumbojacks]

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The internship programs have expanded over the last several years, and more people accepted offers this summer than ever before. Companies also are cutting back hiring b/c of the climate on the street.

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Definitely true. A friend of mine who did a summer at a BB lost his full time offer.

From my school, I heard 2nd/3rd hand that GS NY for ibanking was actually 6 months in fin. ops. before ibanking.

A lot of groups were looking to hire one spot for my school or sometimes none. CS LA I heard was 1 spot from my school. Some other BBs interviewed with no intention of hiring.

[Actual God]

why would anyone choose i-banking over sales/trading? not flaming, just wondering. is the money that much better to justify working almost twice as many hours?

[ahnuld]

no offense jws but with a 3.3 gpa im surprised you got an interview. At my school you can have an awesome CV but its barely worth applying unless your GPA is over 3.5