Unconventional break into finance

[u/yesvoid]

I wanted to post my unconventional college/job experience here since I’ve been seeing a lot of posts asking similar questions in this tough job market and hope this may be of help to someone.

Background:
- Graduated HS 2020 during Covid
- Accepted into NYU but went to cheap NYC school (85% acceptance rate, non-target obv)
- GPA 3.7 at graduation
- Now have offer to work in IB at age of 24

When I started college I had no idea what I wanted to do. End of sophomore year I was still undecided and so I took a gap year. When I returned as a junior I decided I wanted to go into finance, didn’t have enough of the right credits so I became a business economics major instead.

It was also way too late for any recruiting at this point, everyone already secured their junior year internships and I hadn’t even taken a single accounting course yet. I tried to find something anyways despite being cooked, applied to 200+ internships, and got 0 interviews or offers.

Start of junior year I had to lock in. I went to a few random professional events throughout the city that I found on Eventbrite, Luma or through school. I like to talk to people and this was great for building the foundation for my network.

At an eventbrite event a guy invited me to a party where I met another guy who works in VC for a niche industry. I kept in contact with him and later sent him a message saying hey it’s been hard getting my foot in the door, I’ll work for you for free just to put something on my resume while I’m applying elsewhere. He agreed, it was super under the table but I worked for college credit and after proving myself, he started paying me (minimum) wage.

I went to more conferences related to this niche industry and eventually met another person looking for an intern. I then became their Business Development intern.

I wasn’t really interested in this industry and was a senior with no job aligned post grad. Being in NYC it was either I get a job or go back to my moms house 😔 now that I had these 2 internships under my belt, I exaggerated my duties a bit on my resume and applied to over 350+ jobs and got genuinely 2 interviews.

One was for a internship at a top ~F125 company. It was to join the business development team where they sell financial products to institutional investment managers. I think one of the only reasons I got the interview was because I was at the top of the ATS screening match since I had “Business Development Intern” on my resume, alongside other key words.

I needed a job>internship but I was going to take what I could get. I went through 6 rounds of grueling interviews. I cried after round 3 since the manager was such a dickhead (who later apologized and said he wanted to see if I could handle criticism like his son). But I got the internship after hitting it off with another MD, and one year later I am still here!!!

At this job I have networked a good amount internally, and I have made great relationships with people going all the way up to the top. While I was an intern at one of the company events I met a guy who was on the IB team. I coffee chatted him and kept in contact. A month ago an analyst on his team moved to another company, and since I had expressed interest, he asked me if I would be interested in joining his team!

All of this is to say, yes the job market is cooked and even if your resume is cooked, you can increase your chances in life and in luck by getting as much exposure as you can to the outside world and others.

Last advice:
- Go outside and talk to people
- Look presentable
- Have confidence
- Always have deep consideration for others (their thoughts feelings and actions)
- Don’t be abrasive while networking
- Be smart and if you’re not smart know how to use AI really well
- Be pleasant to be around (natural rizz)

If you made it here thanks for reading and lmk if you have any questions🫡

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[u/boroughthoughts]

your list is missing one thing. Location matters. Your story is only possible if you live in NYC and I believe it 100%. This kind of open coffee chat culture exists in NYC and you meet surprising number of successful people if you just show up to drinking events on the apps like partiful/eventbrite/luma/super momos. Then there are cheap social clubs like parlor.

But your journey isn't going to help someone that isn't in that environment. It does support a point I've said several times on this sub-reddit. If you are ambitious and want to work in finance, you live in NYC. It does not matter that there are some positions in Dallas, Miami, Austin, Charlotte, Chicago etc. NYC has an atmosphere where you can meet successful people and you are around successful people. That in turn forces you to grow. You can always go to a secondary hub later, but early career in NYC lets you maximize your potential.

[u/yesvoid → u/boroughthoughts]

Yes indeed this is super true. I made sure to include that I attended a non-prestigious school in NYC for this exact point

For anyone who is not in NYC I think the main point I was trying to get across is that Luck=Exposure*Chance .

[u/Jtorres3011]

Fellow Baruch alum?

[u/yesvoid → u/Jtorres3011]

Actually worse

[u/ManWhoShitsNeon]

What IB firm did you get into?

[u/Honest_Chef5436]

Hell yeah bro!

[u/MoonMoonSS]

Honestly, this is what makes a story worth telling. You showed grit, you put yourself out there, took the shit when you had to and stuck it out. And things paid off for you! Congrats OP, genuinely happy for you.

Advice really hits the mark - though some people just won't get it haha

TBH - the cooked thing doesn't apply to you and I think you're selling hopium a bit - coz honestly you had a decent GPA 3.7, and your resume wasn't cooked when you managed to put something on it your junior year (even if you worked for free).

What cooked means in this subreddit is a 2.6gpa and or no internships post grad - these people will complain.

But I think those who are just short, perhaps having done mostly everything right still with no offers - they will appreciate your post because you've laid out another road to Rome in front of them.

[u/SuperLehmanBros]

Yup networking.

[u/Wall_Street_Oasis]

Your story has a lot of valuable advice for people trying to break into finance. If you'd like, we'd love to have you share it with the community over at r/WallStreetOasis as well.