<p>Hello,</p>
<p>I was born in Belgium but then grew up in Canada. For sentimental reasons, I decided to move back in order to study in one of my native country’s top universities, where I am now a happy undergrad business and engineering student.</p>
<p>However, my top belgian school still belongs to the second tier worldwide. Not for the quality of the curricula, but because the administration is slow, lump and won’t spend money on career advisers.</p>
<p>Now I’m starting to think about my career. I’d like to make it into investment banking (how picturesque). Here are my strengths:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>I’m bright. I’m always in the top 10%, especially in “hard” subjects such as maths and physics. I’m not afraid of numbers.</p></li>
<li><p>I’m business-oriented. I’m still 20 and already run a small business with $300K revenue along with some friends. I’m also a consultant for several not-for-profit with total revenue of around $1M. I’m at ease with money.</p></li>
<li><p>I’m a natural leader. I love to speak in front of 500 people. I easily get people round my point of view. And they vote for me.</p></li>
<li><p>I’m mobile. I had lived on my own in 5 countries before I hit 20. I speak three languages.</p></li>
<li><p>I’m a team player. I played soccer at a national level in my teenage years.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Here are my weaknesses:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>My school is not in the top 10 and they won’t be a great help. It’s going to be hard if I want to get into a top program afterwards.</p></li>
<li><p>Daddy doesn’t work for a big corporation. He can’t pull strings for me.</p></li>
<li><p>I’m cultivated. I used to study (french) literature and play piano. But I’m not a WASP. I’m from a left-leaning so-called “Old Europe” family. I read “1984” when I was 19, not 15 ; I don’t know what “Lord of the Flies” is about. Maybe a finance recruiter would rather hire a neat Ivy-league grad , since they may have more in common (the problem is asymmetric information, isn’t it?).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I won’t undertake to do a master’s at my school after my BS, it’s a daunting prospect. Do you think it is possible to be hired by a top firm straight after graduation (with a nice internship on my resume)?</p>
<p>Or should I pursue something like a quantitative/finance MSc at a top institution? If so, what are the odds?</p>
<p>So what do you advice?</p>
<p>Many thanks,
Max</p>
<p>Interesting profile - sounds like the key is to get noticed, rather than to expand your business-skills toolbox. You should find out if any top firms recruit at your school. If not, it’s very hard to get noticed in the pile of “external” apps. For top banks, there are usually positions that are posted on their website, but the kinds of positions that would interest you tend to get filled either by recruiting at top schools, or via recruiters. If you can get your resume in to various top recruiters out there (think Glocap and the like), you may stand a shot.</p>
<p>As an alternative you suggested, a few top programs in the US offer one-year “Financial Engineering” masters degrees, which are typically interpreted as math/quant-driven subjects but will at least get your foot in the door with most financial institutions. I know Columbia has one and Princeton has one, but I imagine other schools do as well.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt
Minnesota
Villanova
North Carolina State
UCB
U Pitt
LBS
Baruch
BC
Wisconsin
Illinios
Bentley? Brandeis? it was one of those
Kent state
Claremont Graduate
CMU
Cornell?
Depaul
JMU
Georgia state
Ill Tech
Lehigh
OK state
Washington U (st louis)
USC
Michigan
Houston
Purdue, Tulane, Tex A&M, Alabama…there are more but i cannot remember</p>
<p>that should get you going. Many of these schools in terms of undergraduate/graduate are not usually seen as hunting grounds for typical financial positions, but many still have advantages and through the financial programs, they attend regional conferences (even schools like U Pitt and NCSU) that are visited by banks such as citi, barclays, etc.</p>
<p>This should get you going</p>
<p>Do you want to work in NYC? If you’re ok with Europe, except for the UK maybe, you’re not really disadvantaged. All the top IBs have offices in Frankfurt, Paris, Zuerich, etc. and they recruit at the domestic universities. In my country, ML recruits at about 25 universities and not all of them are good. If you go to, say, St. Gallen or something along the line, you should have a good shot at IB jobs in continental Europe. If you’re dead set on NYC though, you’ll have a tougher time than, say, a Brown grad, but your profile looks very interesting!</p>
<p>First of all, I’d like to thank you all for your advice.</p>
<p>@Denzera: You’re right when you notice that the challenge is to get noticed. So you advise to use professional recruiters? I don’t mind paying if the service is worthwhile. If I’m going in that direction, what should I do?</p>
<p>@southpasdena: My school is still better than most of those in your list. Since I’m good test taker (my SATs were 90%+ though I’m not a native English speaker), and with some backing, I could successfully apply at Oxbridge or something for a MSc, but I don’t think this would secure me a job. Moreover, most renowned American universities only offer MBAs and PhDs at the graduate level, since students directly head for the job market after graduation… something quite unconventional in Europe.</p>
<p>It may be useful to say that my school offers the “CEMS Master in Intl. Mngmt”, which is a nice program (similar to that of HEC-Paris) I’m could get into with my fingers in the nose. But I’m looking for something better.</p>
<p>@pearfire: Yes, I’d rather live in NYC; I love the “big city” feel! It could be Shanghai or London as well, but I’m done with the continental europeans, especially the French… Paris is a no-go. Their bureaucratic corporate culture is just disheartening. I’m definitely more of an American: ambitious, self-starting, OK to work on weekends, thrives in a fast-pace environment…</p>
<p>Moreover, Cont. Europe is not the best place to make truckloads of cash, which is also an objective.</p>
<p>first of all, most top recruiters won’t charge you if you’re a candidate they believe in. They’re hired to find the right people for these hard-to-get jobs, and they get paid when the company hires one of their guys. You’re not hiring an agent like an author or ballplayer, you’re convincing a recruiter to buy what you’re selling, and then get them to sell you to companies.</p>
<p>I don’t presume to offer advice. You have, it seems, two very distinct yet viable paths: (1) attempt to play the recruiting market and do well in it, or, (2) go back to school in the US for a financially-related degree and then try to get placed.</p>
<p>With regards to the latter, getting an MBA from anything but a top school won’t really help you in trying to get the better jobs in the finance world. But getting a masters in something (Operations Research, FinEng, etc) may get you looked at as a more serious candidate. It’s also a lot easier to get in to top masters programs than it is to get into top Undergraduate programs (to say nothing of top MBA programs)</p>
<p>These schools may not be as good as your current undergrad, but i am sure 80% of them place better. I havent been able to find data for salary and number of hires per for a lot of the schools, but nearly all of those schools have exposure to all the major banks, minus goldman for those except the obvious. You may want to take a look at the career data available for all those listed except depaul, ill tech, alabama, a&m, gtech and ok state.</p>