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Socialism posted:You'll be fine - having past finance internship is more often than not just a "tick the box," especially for interns since everyone knows sophomore internships are 99% BS. Just make sure you can at least answer the basic finance questions - e.g. how to calculate EV, what are the main valuation methods, what does an investment bank do... No one expects juniors to know much - you'll be mostly evaluated on qualitative stuff like "why banking," "why this bank," etc. Frankly banking interviews are very easy and predictable, just be personable and able to tell a decent story about your experiences. On that note, I would appreciate it if you unquoted my e-mail. Thanks!
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Aug 13, 2012 16:34
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The Gnome posted:On that note, I would appreciate it if you unquoted my e-mail. Thanks! Done, good luck!
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Aug 14, 2012 06:19
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Didn't pull your e-mail before it was redacted, sorry!
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Aug 15, 2012 05:45
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It's Tuesday and I've already logged 40 hours. You'd think it'd go by slow because you are awake for so long but its gone by very fast.
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Aug 15, 2012 06:09
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Jack Callahan posted:Can we please not have this degenerate into a Wall Street Oasis-style shitshow? Seriously. That kind of poo poo was one of the things that helped me realize that I wouldn't fit in with a lot of finance culture. I always felt so douchey just reading that site (even if it was really helpful).
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Aug 18, 2012 03:26
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tolerabletariff posted:Didn't pull your e-mail before it was redacted, sorry! Thanks! The Gnome fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Aug 19, 2012 |
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Aug 18, 2012 10:23
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Done. Let's go back to talking about how much fun we're having
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Aug 18, 2012 19:05
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flyingfoggy posted:Seriously. That kind of poo poo was one of the things that helped me realize that I wouldn't fit in with a lot of finance culture. I always felt so douchey just reading that site (even if it was really helpful). Well, more or less. In my experience the people with WSO/gunner mentalities usually mellow out or quit after a couple years, assuming they even get a job in the first place with that attitude.
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Aug 19, 2012 00:37
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Jack Callahan posted:Well, more or less. In my experience the people with WSO/gunner mentalities usually mellow out or quit after a couple years, assuming they even get a job in the first place with that attitude. As someone who's really only had the experience of viewing finance and banking through the lens of WSO's prestige-obsessed viewpoint, would anyone care to elaborate on if life is actually that cutthroat and serious in the industry? WSO is arguably filled with high schoolers and kids from non-targets trying to break in, and I can count more times than not the information on that site being very wrong.
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Aug 20, 2012 01:59
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e: Nevermind. This is discussed on the previous page. I shouldn't have stopped reading at 11. Bright Eyes fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Aug 20, 2012 |
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Aug 20, 2012 05:20
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Bright Eyes posted:
Gonna go ahead and offer some more advice, regardless of whether you've found your answer or not. There are generally only a select few group of schools that offer on-campus recruiting for front office banking positions. These are called "target" schools. While Penn State may not be one of the major targets, I'd be confident in saying that it wouldn't be too hard to find a PSU grad at nearly every major bank, due to its sheer size. If you network early on, you have a decent shot. Seeing as how you're an incoming freshman, I'd heavily recommend securing a PWM internship at some point this year. It will show that you are serious about the industry and have a definite path set for yourself, which recruiters will not second guess. I would also suggest that you switch to Finance if you are serious about banking. It's nearly impossible, from what I've seen, to break into the field as a liberal arts major from a school that isn't generally considered a target. With that said, the only other majors that would give you a decent shot at first glance, with no networking, would be quantitative majors such as Math, Engineering, or Physics. Let me know if you have any other questions The Gnome fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Aug 20, 2012 |
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Aug 20, 2012 20:26
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First off, thanks for answering. That helps a lot. I do have quite a few more, since you don't mind. Can I email you or would you prefer answering here? Looks like you can't use PMs.
Bright Eyes fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Aug 20, 2012 |
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Aug 20, 2012 20:48
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Bright Eyes posted:First off, thanks for answering. That helps a lot. I do have quite a few more, since you don't mind. Can I email you or would you prefer answering here? Looks like you can't use PMs. I've got some questions as well. How could I go about joining this conversation? Current college junior here: had a great internship freshman year/internship, completely botched my sophomore year/summer.
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Aug 21, 2012 05:07
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If you guys want you can shoot me an e-mail and I'll try to help in any way that I can. Jay[BLAH]tm[BLAH]2291@gmail.com Delete the [BLAH]'s and send away!
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Aug 21, 2012 18:28
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I have an interview at ING as an financial advisor. All commission based with no salary. I have done some research on this position and have read both the pros and cons of this position. What are your guy's thoughts on this? I completely understand that I would have to solicit people to invest their money with me and build my network.
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Aug 21, 2012 22:42
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Busy Bee posted:I have an interview at ING as an financial advisor. All commission based with no salary. I have done some research on this position and have read both the pros and cons of this position. What are your guy's thoughts on this? I completely understand that I would have to solicit people to invest their money with me and build my network. Commercial and residential real estate and wealth management are the same poo poo. Cold call a phone book for a year and hit up everyone you've ever met. I want to say there's 80-90% attrition. At least there was at the PWM office I interned in for a summer. The people who succeed are well connected people, people joining an existing team where they teach you and throw you their client's kids etc. to help you get started, athletes with little analytic skills to fall back on to help them find a better job who brute force it and eventually succeed (and are normally very social connected people), or people with a niche. This ex NFL player in my office killed it, as did the Hispanic lady. Do you have any of those qualities? If not it's a miserable loving life for the first few years, assuming you stick with it or don't get fired. And even if you do succeed it's largely a sales position with far less analytic considerations than you think. Your business is to find chumps to give you their money, the actual investing is largely "here's an asset allocation tool and some ING recommended mutual funds". And if they have any money worth investing it's "here, look at these amazing 5% commission structured finance products". Not to mention brokerage is a dying industry and a remnant of when investing information wasn't all available online and there was no E-Trade. Its Miller Time fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Aug 22, 2012 |
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Aug 22, 2012 02:47
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Its Miller Time posted:Commercial and residential real estate and wealth management are the same poo poo. Cold call a phone book for a year and hit up everyone you've ever met. I want to say there's 80-90% attrition. At least there was at the PWM office I interned in for a summer. The people who succeed are well connected people, people joining an existing team where they teach you and throw you their client's kids etc. to help you get started, .... I've got a follow up interview with ML and this is the truth. Unless you've got an advantage somewhere the quotas are tough and it requires very aggressive marketing (IE call everyone you know, everyone they know, everyone in the phone book). That being said, I do think there is a value prop for the brokerage industry, but its more around understanding the impact and changes of various tax laws and discipline rather than access to stocks and bonds like it was 2 decades ago. Its not really a service for everyone, but not everyone has the time or inclination to keep track of their investments and what is going on in the world. Oh, and that follow up interview is to work on the same team as a family member, 60% of which are retiring in the next 10-15 years, and who are very supportive of me succeeding. I wouldn't bother if it wasn't for nepotism.
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Aug 22, 2012 15:19
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I'm in the software business, but one of my junior people was in PWM before she joined my team. She was a social animal, was juiced in with most of the wealthy families in our city, was on a sales team that literally handed her great accounts from their book of business and still got fired her first time through a national reduction in force. Both you guys should definitely come on down to the sales and marketing thread. It'll be interesting to see your experiences in the field.
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Aug 22, 2012 16:16
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About to start the full-time hire slog. Mostly focusing on commercial real estate finance and capital markets positions.
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Aug 22, 2012 16:56
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You know when you really want to post a clip from a TV show, but no matter how much searching you do you can't find it? Had some free time last night and tried to get caught up on Breaking Bad. Laughed out loud during season 4, episode 2, when Skyler offers to buy Walt's old car wash. She conducts due diligence and used comps to get expense ratios, then prepares an estimated cash flow statement. Then she makes an offer based on the cash flows x an "industry-standard multiplier" plus the market value of the real estate AND even throws in a transaction premium. She even presents it on a spreadsheet in a bound and laminated pitchbook. Like holy poo poo. I've always wondered about the authenticity of the chemistry on the show, but after seeing that I might try cookin' up a batch of meth. Although she does mention subtracting depreciation... I want to believe she's using it as a proxy for replacement capex 
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Aug 23, 2012 15:32
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I figure this is best place to post this question. I'm not in investment banking, but rather valuation advisory at one of the big four. I spend most of my day building out and tweaking models and the majority of my time is spent analyzing, formatting, or trying to make sense of data clients send us. My degree and background is purely business/finance but realize that having a sound background in building macros (more specifically mastering visual basic) would make my job that much easier, plus I think it'd be a valuable skill to have in the industry. I am looking to start dabbling into them but don't really know where a good place to start is. Has anyone had experience in this area with a similar background as mine? Any tips? On a side note, I'm kind of surprised we still use Excel for all of our modeling. It seems like some of kind custom SQL database would be more advantageous in the long-run.
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Aug 23, 2012 17:51
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bhaltair posted:I figure this is best place to post this question. I'm not in investment banking, but rather valuation advisory at one of the big four. I spend most of my day building out and tweaking models and the majority of my time is spent analyzing, formatting, or trying to make sense of data clients send us. My degree and background is purely business/finance but realize that having a sound background in building macros (more specifically mastering visual basic) would make my job that much easier, plus I think it'd be a valuable skill to have in the industry. I am looking to start dabbling into them but don't really know where a good place to start is. Has anyone had experience in this area with a similar background as mine? Any tips? I work in M&A...and don't do tons of modeling these days, but I learned macros and VB basically by recording macros (starting with backsolving for circular stuff automatically, etc), and then just viewing the code and understanding simple things...named ranges instead of cells to allow insertion without breaking the macro, etc....the more code you review after recording..pretty soon you'll be able to code macros from scratch. This will probably cover everything you want to do until you are making database calls, etc.
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Aug 23, 2012 19:38
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So its halfway through my second week working in the group (after a month of general training). Who else here feels utterly useless? Everything I do takes forever, usually has mistakes, and its clear no one trusts me with anything too substantive. How long until things get "better"?
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Aug 30, 2012 04:08
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fougera posted:So its halfway through my second week working in the group (after a month of general training). Who else here feels utterly useless? Everything I do takes forever, usually has mistakes, and its clear no one trusts me with anything too substantive. How long until things get "better"? A couple months at most. September (after labor day) and October are usually very busy so you'll learn fast. Many people feel like that at the beginning, don't worry about it. Try to not make repeated mistakes and you'll be fine.
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Aug 30, 2012 05:55
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Socialism posted:A couple months at most. September (after labor day) and October are usually very busy so you'll learn fast. Many people feel like that at the beginning, don't worry about it. Try to not make repeated mistakes and you'll be fine. Yep. Mistakes aren't necessarily frowned upon, so long as they don't keep cropping up. Also double and triple-check any piece of work you do -- print it up, go through with a pen and then put through changes, even if it's just going to an analyst. I'm working in infrastructure on the buyside for an IB. It seems pretty good - hours aren't quite as bad (though still long), less pitching (and we get advisors to do the bulk of that anyway), and bonuses are solid (by all reports). Anyone else in a similar area?
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Aug 30, 2012 14:24
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I have an interview for a "Financial Advisor" Position with ING Financial Partners http://ing.us/professionals/broker-dealer Does anyone know more about this company?
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Aug 30, 2012 18:45
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Uh ya, someone asked about literally the same job this page or last and I shat all over it.
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Aug 31, 2012 22:52
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Its Miller Time posted:Uh ya, someone asked about literally the same job this page or last and I shat all over it. About 10 posts up haha
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Aug 31, 2012 22:55
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I'm surprised we haven't gotten any kids in here asking about an exciting career with Northwestern Mutual as an insurance rep. Aka the 21th century version of going door to door hawking life insurance.
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Aug 31, 2012 23:32
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Its Miller Time posted:I'm surprised we haven't gotten any kids in here asking about an exciting career with Northwestern Mutual as an insurance rep. Aka the 21th century version of going door to door hawking life insurance. I'd guess the thread title probably prevents that since most people don't even know what bankers do.  Maybe the next iteration of the thread could be a more general - finance careers? Might be helpful to be less so IBD/S&T focused since I don't think there are many of us around  Actually who am I kidding, this is basically asking investment bankers to share the same room as retail bankers.
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Aug 31, 2012 23:51
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Its Miller Time posted:Uh ya, someone asked about literally the same job this page or last and I shat all over it. Ha, my bad, I didn't scroll that far up. It sounded a bit too good to be true, 70k+ a year, etc. So that pretty much confirmed my suspicions.
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Sep 1, 2012 03:54
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Socialism posted:Actually who am I kidding, this is basically asking investment bankers to share the same room as retail bankers. I rather enjoy sharing the room with retail bankers... particularly of the private banking/PWM variety. Greatest per capita concentration of attractive women within a 5-mile radius of Wall Street. Well, them and Factset/CapIQ 'consultants.' And yeah, I actually used to get pissed seeing Northwestern Mutual rep postings on my school's career services site--I mean, letting Piper Jaffray in is one thing but you gotta draw the line fuckin' somewhere Related reading: REMEMBER THE TITANS, BITCHES e: seriouspost, I finished Monkey Business the other day and thought it was pretty good. Definitely accurate if a little dated (ie the idea of physically going to the printer and waiting there all day to start the final run), but the constant lashing out at former coworkers gets a little old. Also, it's loving hilarious. I'm about halfway through Barbarians at the Gate and would recommend adding that to the OP, its a great account of the LBO of RJR-Nabisco by the PE firm KKR--the mere mention of which today is enough to make analysts jizz their pants. Really well-written and detailed and gives a nice peek into the buyside M&A tolerabletariff fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Sep 1, 2012 |
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Sep 1, 2012 07:01
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Not banking per se but my OCR posted two buyside equity research positions at big institutional money managers. I don't really want to stay in Boston but these jobs seem too good to not go for. I know the salary but does anyone have any experience that they can comment on in regards to lifestyle/career progression?
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Sep 1, 2012 17:43
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Saint Celestine posted:Ha, my bad, I didn't scroll that far up. It sounded a bit too good to be true, 70k+ a year, etc. So that pretty much confirmed my suspicions. It's a sales job. If you're good at sales you could easily make way more than 70k. I've met basic life insurance salesman (think whole life) making 500k a year on trail commissions doing 0 work. It's not a sexy job though at all. That being said if you are actually good at sales you probably don't need to depend on your job for girls soooo. Although if you are actually really good at sales go into some other field because you have the best possible skill for the business world. Vomik fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Sep 2, 2012 |
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Sep 2, 2012 03:06
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I'm interviewing for a trading internship at Five Rings Capital next week, does anyone here have any opinions/advice they're willing to huck at me? I'd be doing part time work for the fall, with a decent amount of telecommuting according to the description.
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Sep 3, 2012 19:34
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The Tinfoil Price posted:I'm interviewing for a trading internship at Five Rings Capital next week, does anyone here have any opinions/advice they're willing to huck at me? I would be concerned about a trading job that involved telecommuting. I assume this is a real company that trades for customers/its own account not some sort of day-trading operation where you will be playing with your own money? Trading is one of the last potential big-money jobs that works on an old-school apprenticeship model. When you first start out as an intern for a single trader, desk or floor you are signing on as their bitch, seriously. In exchange for getting coffee, lunch, organizing poo poo, etc. you get to hang out next to the people making the decisions, watch and learn. If you show commitment and a knack for the work, you start to get to do actual work, and your career progresses from there. That model does require physical presence in the same room though. A huge amount of information on a floor is shared via quick conversations, waves, shouts, etc. I'm not sure how that sort of learning could translate to telecommuting. Good luck, it's high stress but can be an awesome job.
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Sep 4, 2012 00:38
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The Tinfoil Price posted:I'm interviewing for a trading internship at Five Rings Capital next week, does anyone here have any opinions/advice they're willing to huck at me? Google tells me they are legit. http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/has-anyone-interviewed-at-five-rings-capital-llc Its Miller Time fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Sep 14, 2012 |
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Sep 12, 2012 05:31
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Thoogsby posted:Not banking per se but my OCR posted two buyside equity research positions at big institutional money managers. I don't really want to stay in Boston but these jobs seem too good to not go for. I know the salary but does anyone have any experience that they can comment on in regards to lifestyle/career progression? Buy-side IM is a really good path if you're at the right place (Fidelity/TRP/Wellington etc). Starts off out of college paying 70k base + I think ~20-30k bonus but you're only working 60-70 hrs/week tops (probably closer to 55-60). It's really meritocratic. Not like banking where you can pay a lot of attention to detail and avoid mistakes and get by. At the end of the day if your calls are bad you wont move up no matter how pretty/theoretically sound your model looked. Keep in mind though the top funds are INCREDIBLY selective. Fidelity hires about 6 full time equity research associate (entry-level undergrad) nationwide each year for what it's worth. Typically progression goes 4 years research associate -> MBA or up/out associate analyst, some firms want MBAs some firms discourage it -> moving up to senior analyst -> being given direct control over a small amount of money in your sector to "test" you -> portfolio manager managing a small amount of money -> portfolio manager managing a ton of money. You have to be a top performer making tons of money for the firm to move up. Very results oriented so even if your call was a good call but ended up badly no one cares. On the other hand if you make a bad call but get lucky everyone will give you credit. Compensation is pretty competitive at every level especially compared to the work/life balance. Analysts typically make ~200k senior analysts ~300-400k PMs 7 figures to much more if you manage a large portfolio. To elaborate some more on the results oriented stuff, the way to look at it is: if you're an analyst and pitch to a PM and he gets burned taking your recommendation, you've just directly cost him some of his bonus and his prospects of moving up to manage more money and therefore make more money. Every time this happens the PM will secretly hate you and take every subsequent pitch you make less seriously until your career pretty much flat lines. Swingline fucked around with this message at 08:54 on Sep 16, 2012 |
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Sep 16, 2012 08:45
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So I have a BB NYC IB interview final round directly with the ECM group coming up. Can anyone who's worked in ECM give me a heads up on what I can expect going into the interview or any details on the day in the life of an ECM analyst?
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Sep 16, 2012 08:48
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Swingline posted:Buy-side IM is a really good path if you're at the right place (Fidelity/TRP/Wellington etc). Starts off out of college paying 70k base + I think ~20-30k bonus but you're only working 60-70 hrs/week tops (probably closer to 55-60). It's really meritocratic. Not like banking where you can pay a lot of attention to detail and avoid mistakes and get by. At the end of the day if your calls are bad you wont move up no matter how pretty/theoretically sound your model looked. Keep in mind though the top funds are INCREDIBLY selective. Fidelity hires about 6 full time equity research associate (entry-level undergrad) nationwide each year for what it's worth. Buy-side IM (broadly defined including VC, PE, HF, etc.) provides you with the ultimate professional leverage as far as making money is concerned. You can invest $1MM as easily as 10-100x that amount, but the potential rewards are 10-100x higher. IF you have aspirations to make OBSCENE amounts of money, this is one of the most direct paths to do so. However, Swingline makes an excellent point. There is no business on "Wall-Street" that is more Darwinian. Make money for your firm and prosper, lose money and find somethign else to do. Most of the people who thrive in this business have a passion and an intangible knack for it, which are tough to learn to the necessary level of expertise if you're just doing it "for a job". Think of it like trying to be a starter on a pro spoerts team, hihgly lucrative but high-risk in the extreme.
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