What's with the love of i-banking itt? I don't know how it is in the States, but here in London I would say that i-banking is the ****tiest finance gig you could land. Waaaay too much work and in light of recent events I don't even think you get the salaries/bonuses to make it justifiable anymore (I could certainly be wrong, especially if NY/Wall Street is different than The City), i.e. your $/hr is not high compared to other jobs.
In my experience the smartest guys do not go into i-banking, but instead choose, phds, hedge funds, trading etc.

I think actuary sounds cool, if you like the math. But if you really like money that much, I'd much prefer trying to get a hedge fund or trading job - this is difficult, of course, but maybe doable, if you try small/boutique firms.
As mentioned, there's probably a significant survivorship bias in i-banking as well; a lot of people quit and there're probably a lot who end up grinding long hours for "low" salaries and never "make it big" - depending on your personality, I guess it could be somewhat reasonable to give up the ten best years of your life, if it allows you to retire afterwards, but imagine if for some reason you can not retire, and end up spending 30 years of your life working 100hr/week. yuck.

While the advice is solid, albeit obvious/trivial, I disagree in that there is such a thing as "guaranteed succes". I see no reason why OP (or almost anyone else for that matter) will be guaranteed to "eventually outshine others" just because of hard work - presumably there will be a lot of (possibly smarter and/or luckier) likeminded people who try to do the same.

EDIT: I didn't really make a point in the above, so it will come here: My point is, that when making a huge life-decision such as whether or not to dedicate the next 10, 20 or possibly 30 years to I-banking, it is important to realize that you are not guaranteed to succeed - there are a multitude of ways in which this could end up not working out the way you thought/planned it would.

yeah but thats VP or MD level stuff, analysts hardly ever get to do that.

This is kinda what I am looking for as well, by making the thread. I like math, am decent at it, but also love finance and market stuff (although I haven't really studied it at all), and I want a career that involves these things+makes really good salary w/ hours as whatever (depending on where it gets me). However, I want to succeed, so if trading/hedge funds are a better, "easier" route to go with, then that's fine too. I was curious about I-B and everyone saying the opportunities it opened up instead of the others.

Have you considered a PhD in finance? Starting academic salary would be ~$150k for 9 months, and you typically get 2/9th's added on for summer support as an assistant professor. The hours are extremely lax. Getting through a decent program is a bitch, but if you are accepted into a program, you'd most likely be funded with a tuition waiver and some sort of annual stipend (15k-25k) to work as a graduate assistant.

I started the actuarial exam track and pretty much LOL'd out of that line of work after I passed the first exam. I couldn't fathom trying to do 8 more over the next 10 years while making pretty ****ty money. A few of my friends were actuaries, and all of them eventually quit. Investment banking hours sound horrible. I think you need to wrap your ahead around how much the money actually means to you. I used to be interested in making inf$$$$$, but as I got older and gave up a lot of my time, I started to value my free time more and more.

Maybe I underestimate how much a regular job actually pays (and what you can do with it). With poker it was so easy, and didn't feel like you lost out on life, even grinding mtts. Just figured if I was devoting my life to working, plus the cost of getting a degree, I wanted a career that made decent money. My friends got degrees and make 25-30k a year (granted they attended a big xii uni so it wasn't that much being in state+poor), but still, that's pretty lame. If I have to give up a few years in the 30s to make bank and be able to play poker/travel, etc that's fine. I don't mind traveling a ton with a job either, if necessary. I don't think I want to do anything teaching related though. I enjoy people, but don't think I want to mess with schooling after I get done (unless it's business school to get a better career).

You need to do a few internships and find out what those jobs really do.

IB has so little to do with math, I would reconsider if you like math.

Is it possible to do internships while doing an online degree? Figured I could kill two birds with one stone, although I feel internships will take all of the focus and it isn't possible. For internships that are unpaid, do you try to find something part-time on the side, or are internships in these fields usually paid some stipend?

online degree....

as for the other parts it really depends on what u find and what field.

fwiw i did an internship at a sweat shop unpaid (small hedge fund) since it was summer of 09. most internships r paid tho.

hey bef,

Not sure if you saw my reply on the megathread, but seems like we have similar backgrounds and similar goals in life. Lately I've actually been thinking about applying for IB jobs again as well, let me know how things go and don't hesitate to message me for my skype/aim contacts if you want to discuss things. Good luck.

-Fivefifty

You talk about Investment Banking and then ask about part time jobs during an internship. How are you supposed to have a part time job while working 90hours a week?

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, but you really need to inform yourself and then make up your mind.

No offense but if you're getting an online degree your chances of getting your foot in the door in anything remotely as prestigious as IB are basically 0.

Also from what I understand IB internships pay very very well.
At the same time you're getting an actuarial degree--and if you pass one of the actuary tests you're basically guaranteed a good job. Go that route.

Well, I guess you could say it's an online degree, but they have sites a few places across U.S., I just choose to not live close to one. So I don't see how a Bachelor's from going to a private school, and obtaining it online through the same private school makes a difference. At the time of attending this school, I just wanted to finish my degree and was going to pursue the Actuary route. However, I have changed my mind (possibly). I would probably go to a business school somewhere after this, but be able to get a better job while going there. Make sense? Also, yeah, you pass one test, you can possibly land a decent job...but your work doesn't stop (exams I mean)...so you sit for the next 8-10 years studying endlessly for exams and not making much; although decent compared to other stuff.

You talk about Investment Banking and then ask about part time jobs during an internship. How are you supposed to have a part time job while working 90hours a week?

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, but you really need to inform yourself and then make up your mind

My post was misleading. I was talking about the overall internship experience in the fields of finance that were discussed (trading, analysts, IB), and whether or not they were paid. I was basing most of these off of 40-45 hours/wk (except IB obviously), since people have stated IB is a lot harder to get into.

There is no career in the world that operates on a 40 hours work week. In Finance you'll barely work less than 50-55 hours.

pretty much for entry level positions in good fields. i have no idea about what TC is daydreaming about.

It is about exit opps and the career advancement. If I stayed in banking I am on track to make MD in my early thirties and at that point you are making a couple million bucks a year. Granted the 2-3 years as an analyst before an associate promote are brutal, but quality of life improves pretty rapidly after that. Not to say you will ever be working much less than a 60 hour week at best, but save right and you can retire, or move on to a much less demanding finance job by the age of 40. Many good MD's "retire" and move onto cushy well-paid jobs in PE that are more like consulting than anything.

If I want to leave banking I have a great background to do all kinds of things:
- Take a shot at PE/HF which tends to have better comp and hours with potentially massive upside
- Go to business school (with a good GMAT and solid banking background hard not to get into top 10)
- Go into corporate development where you will make a bit less but still a very solid low 6 figures and have much better hours
- Work in asset management at an insurance company, etc. where you make a solid 6 figure payday and have fairly normal hours
- Go work at a startup which will have lower pay and fairly bad hours initially, but could be interesting and have massive payday

I don't think this is as true as it used to be. There are people looking for jobs who have 3-4 exams under their belt.

Spending 100s if hours and a grand or two on tests/study materials just to find out being an actuary isn't what you want to do would suck. Even if you decide you don't want to go into one field, still do your due diligence on the other.

What do you do exactly? Where did you go to school, and how did you get in? You said "go to business school." Did this mean you just got a finance degree from somewhere else and got into IB right away?

This especially...like someone mentioned, even one test doesn't guarantee you a job (more like a possibility at an internship), and I've already gave it a go at one test (failed), and signed up for it again. All together with 2 study manuals (one for P and one for FM), and 2 tests, that's 600. If I don't land an internship, that's a grand like you said. What do you mean exactly by your last sentence? Did you mean still pass exams while looking into a finance field, in case I end up changing my mind yet again to the original plan?

One exam + good interviewing skills will probably land you a job in a major market.

All I was saying is that your options aren't limited to becoming an investment banker or an actuary and that you shouldn't choose to become an actuary just because you ruled out IB. (or vice versa) I know it sounds obvious but I think it's a mistake someone in your position can easily make.

I'm pretty surprised by this based on other things I've read but that is really encouraging. I see you are located in Toronto and I've heard that actuarial jobs in Canada are especially competitive, are you talking about markets in the US?

No, even in Toronto there are jobs available. I see a lot of terrible candidates that come in to interview who have an exam but are basically unemployable because they have no interviewing skills. No one wants to hire someone who can't communicate clearly or who can't do basic preparation for an interview.

I've also noticed that resumes are getting worse in terms of LOL formatting and spelling errors, etc. This seems to be a permanent trend and I'm sure a lot of people are immediately dismissed for this reason and have no clue that it's because they've spent their lives communicating on IM and Facebook and don't know how to write for adults.

From the South but went to an Ivy League school to play a sport. Was an econ major with a decent GPA (3.3 - 3.4, can't remember exactly). Had a summer internship two years in a row at a tiny bank in the town of my school and thought it would be easy to get a banking job given experiences of guys a year older.

Financial crisis the hit and bank filled up their full time classes with summer interns (and I wasn't one) so I networked like crazy and applied for 40+ jobs during on campus recruiting. I applied to everything finance related, small I-Banks, bulge brackets, PE and HF. Through the help of networking managed to land one of the few full-time bulge bracket jobs given out that fall of 2007. Networking definitely helped (and left me with 4 job offers) but getting the bulge bracket job was as much luck as anything.

Note a significant potion of analysts don't have undergrad business or finance degrees. The only Ivy that offers one is Penn and as a result a ton of kids in banking have liberal arts degrees. If you get an MBA you typically start out as an associate rather than an analyst.

jws43: U must've networked incredibly well. Any tips? I had similar credentials and didn't have a shot at any bb (2010). I don't think many people actually made it in the door with a gpa < 3.7 at my school which was also an ivy.

a few people i know actually had their interviews (at bb) and offers (not sure where) rescinded in 2009. it really stunk for those who got the job in sep. 08 and heard that they didn't have a job anymore in APRIL.

If you ace your interviews and have good board scores you can get in anywhere, even with a 3.3 from a non-Ivy. Harder than otherwise, but it can be done if you have a story to tell.

Make sure you read everything you can get your hands on that is relevant to finance/current events before you show up and I mean everything. If you're not reading the wsj/ft/barrons/economist on a daily basis your odds go down dramatically.

It also helps to have an opinion on those events/mergers/issue of the day.

I'd look into fixed income trading or something along those lines. Lots of regional and larger banks with trading desks. Basing this on your degree and interest in poker. Gl-