Getting into Investment Banking

7woohoo7

What college course(s) would be advised to get into the area of investment banking etc?

damnyanks

what area of investment banking. You need to be on par with people from cambridge / oxford / LSE and the big americano colleges.

As for courses it depends on what area you want to go into. Economics or maths are always safe bets.

PH4T

7woohoo7 wrote:

What college course(s) would be advised to get into the area of investment banking etc?

Any undergrad would do, just need good grades.

Masters in Financial Services or Quantative Finance in Smurfit would be ur best bet then

justfortherecor

Good Quant courses are desirable now for work in the lucrative Derivatives business.

Investment Banking is still very white-collared in NY and London. Unless you're in Oxbridge/LSE or Ivy League you'll have to be something special or have something different to stand a chance.

Oh, and also try to rack up the internships while you're in college. They help A LOT

SGKM

I'm doing Economics and Finance in UCD. Its very heavily geared towards the financial services sector. Its a fairly difficult course, I know a lot of people doing commerce and its a breeze compared to ec and fi!! The subjects that we do are mainly maths, finance, economics, financial maths, taxation and accountancy. I doubt that there is a course in Ireland more focused towards
Investment Banking or trading!!

A very good friend of mine in the class did commerce in 1st year then decided that he wanted to become a trader so researched college courses and what is needed so dropped out of commerce and is now doing ec and fi.

YOU CAN get into the top jobs in London with an Irish Degree!! But it’s VERY tough to get in, as the interviews are so tough. The best way to get in is internships, I went to a Goldman Sachs career talk in UCD at the start of the year and if you want to get in through an internship you have to do 3 interviews, and if you’re in any way good you’ll get a job offer at the end. If you want to get into a graduate position without an internship it'll be about 25 interviews!!!!!!

Apparently the big London banks don’t care if you have a masters or not. I was talking to a guy from Morgan Stanley and he said that in his department they'd give preference to people without masters because he thinks what is wrong with that guy who couldn’t get a job after college. From my research the only company who wont hire graduates without a masters is Davy, which seems mad!!!

If you want any more info on ec and fi don’t hesitate to send me a PM.

MrMatisse

U should go to the uk. Im studying here at one of the above mentioned unis. They dont rate irish degress at all and have a very snobish attitude towards them. They use filtering software at the online application stage to ensure they only look at oxbridge applicants first.
Or go do a masters here to validate your irish qualifications.
Economics or maths are i agree the ones to study but if you go to a top college they dont really care what you have studied. There are over 100 unis in the uk and the irish ones would not rank very highly compared to them. Then you have the big hitters in the U.S.
If you wanna work 15 hours a day as an investment banker, go abroad.

damnyanks

I know for a fact the dublin uni's and smurfit are targetted and in actual fact they scan for those uni's as opposed to filtering them out. Smurfit is a top ratted business school. I know lots of people who started front office roles after completing a masters. The person in Morgan stanely was either very lowly in the pecking order or a HR bot. Then again Morgan stanley did reject anyone autmatically that needed a work visa not so long ago. This obviosuly resulted in them missing out on the prime candidates.

As far as them recruiting from any degree if its in a good uni thats incorrect. If you are doing History you will not become a trader unless you have contacts or a very impressive list of interests outside of class.

In the UK they only rate universities in the US as comparable to their own. In actual fact the top business schools in the continent put more graduates into prime front office positions.

Getting a job in middle / back office is a whole different kettle of fish.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Would anyone have anyone have anyidea how well say a degree in Actuarial and Financial Studies would hold up next to Economics and Finance or Economics and Maths for Investment banking Jobs?

SGKM

Are you talking Trading, M&A, Corporate Finance, Sales, Fund Management, or Operations? With regard to trading, fund management or highly quantative jobs maths based courses are obviously an advantage. As long as you've got a degree in a mathematical area, you'll have no problems getting an interview (as long as you write out a good application) An actuary degree should get you an interview.

I've learned a lot about the big london banks in the last couple of months as my mate who I referred to earlier has been over and back to London at least once a week for the last month or so doing interviews for internship positions. Hes in my class in ec and fi and has got 3 job offers as an intern trader off 3 of the big banks. Some of the interview questions seemed very tough, for example he was asked to derive the black sholes model on a piece of paper in the middle of the interview!!

Its true that they have a slightly snobbish attitude towards Irish degress. But its all about impressing them in the interview, and standing out, which is very tough! If one person from oxford and one from UCD go for an interview after having completed satisfactory application forms (which are so long and a pain in the ass to fill out!) and SHL tests. Once they are at the interview they'll recruit whoever knows the most, an can impress / shine in the interview. If you have an Irish degree and can get the London jobs, but its tough!!

What I said in my previous post about the masters, I was just making the point that a masters doesnt seem to be an advantage at the internship / graduate recruitment stage.

justfortherecor

Well, obviously if you're doing Acturial Studies you must be very mathmatically minded which is a major advantage to have. If you could back up this degree by displaying maybe extra-curricular interests in finance, you should be at no disadvantage.

I was at an assessment centre for an investment bank in London last week and the variety of degrees was quite surprising. Of course, you had the guys from LSE doing the trad economics and finance ones, but the Oxbridge guys were doing things like Classical Studies, Politics and Sociology etc. But the fact they were from Oxbridge, I assume their contacts would give them a major advantage; London is still very much white-collared in that regard but it does seem to be shifting a bit to take advantage of talented candidates in more diverse courses.

So, long story short: If you're good enough, you can make it.

P.S: I actually met a guy on a graduate programme with Citigroup over there who had moved into IB after working in Architecture for 2 years. He got employed in a Corporate Real Estate division in the bank! There are opportunities if you have your heart set on it!

damnyanks

SGKM wrote:

Are you talking Trading, M&A, Corporate Finance, Sales, Fund Management, or Operations? With regard to trading, fund management or highly quantative jobs maths based courses are obviously an advantage. As long as you've got a degree in a mathematical area, you'll have no problems getting an interview (as long as you write out a good application) An actuary degree should get you an interview.

I've learned a lot about the big london banks in the last couple of months as my mate who I referred to earlier has been over and back to London at least once a week for the last month or so doing interviews for internship positions. Hes in my class in ec and fi and has got 3 job offers as an intern trader off 3 of the big banks. Some of the interview questions seemed very tough, for example he was asked to derive the black sholes model on a piece of paper in the middle of the interview!!

Its true that they have a slightly snobbish attitude towards Irish degress. But its all about impressing them in the interview, and standing out, which is very tough! If one person from oxford and one from UCD go for an interview after having completed satisfactory application forms (which are so long and a pain in the ass to fill out!) and SHL tests. Once they are at the interview they'll recruit whoever knows the most, an can impress / shine in the interview. If you have an Irish degree and can get the London jobs, but its tough!!

What I said in my previous post about the masters, I was just making the point that a masters doesnt seem to be an advantage at the internship / graduate recruitment stage.

It depends on who looks at your application. A Masters typically wont hinder your chances as most continentals come in with MSc's and so on. I did my internship last year and had it converted into graduate offers within 3 banks in total. So once you get your foot in the door its very easy to progress. I literally rang other banks up to arrange interviews.

I'd still love to know where this snobbish attitude towards irish degrees is coming from. It appears to be a highly misinformed assumption. I met plenty of people from UCD in trading positions. 2 of which actually ran desks. Didn't teh lad that used to run goldman sachs graduate from trinity or something like that?

The simple fact is all the front off positions in investment banks are highly competitive. They aren't being snobbish because of the country a degree is from. They are turning people down because the standard of applicants is very high.

MrMatisse

if u live and study in the uk you see the snobish attitude. many of those ucd people that got in prob did masters overseas also and they are a tiny minority when you consider the two thousand or so that graduate from there every year. UCD is not a great uni. smurfit does badly in the ft 100 rankings of mba's and thats the unis shining light. There is a big difference between the tutorials at ucd where there are loads in your class and at oxford where its one on one with people at the cutting edge not some masters student and the point of them is to challenge the ideas in question not solve worksheets. Investment Banks value highly the sort of person that type of uni creates.
U go through hell to get into oxbridge or lse or an ivy thats why they value your degree more highly and you make great contacts. I know a guy studying music ot oxford whos got an offer to trade commodities with an investment bank.
If you go overseas to study than u c why they have this atitude. The standards in the uk are way higher than in ireland. Its not hard to learn off a load of stuff by heart and get 480 points or whatever but to pass an oxford interview with some genius tutor who has seen it all is. in the uk your classmates are from all over the world . at ucd they prob come from about a 20 mile radius of the college.
The uk unis are better with better staff and more diverse classmates creating a more rounded individual intellectually which is why the banks like them.

PH4T

holyrood85 wrote:

smurfit does badly in the ft 100 rankings of mba's and thats the unis shining light.

Irish Business Schools rank highly in terms of value for money though.

School name: Value for money rank

Coppead 1
Trinity College Dublin 2
IMD 3
Lancaster University Management School 4
University of Cape Town 5
University of Cambridge: Judge 6
Nanyang Business School 7
Insead 8
Birmingham Business School 9
Cranfield School of Management 10
Bradford School of Management 11
University of British Columbia: Sauder 12
Warwick Business School 13
McGill University: Desautels 14
University of Oxford: Saïd 15
Nyenrode Business Universiteit 16
University of Bath School of Management 17
Eada 18
Nottingham University Business School 19
Instituto de Empresa 20
University College Dublin: Smurfit 21

damnyanks

holyrood85 wrote:

if u live and study in the uk you see the snobish attitude. many of those ucd people that got in prob did masters overseas also and they are a tiny minority when you consider the two thousand or so that graduate from there every year. UCD is not a great uni. smurfit does badly in the ft 100 rankings of mba's and thats the unis shining light. There is a big difference between the tutorials at ucd where there are loads in your class and at oxford where its one on one with people at the cutting edge not some masters student and the point of them is to challenge the ideas in question not solve worksheets. Investment Banks value highly the sort of person that type of uni creates.
U go through hell to get into oxbridge or lse or an ivy thats why they value your degree more highly and you make great contacts. I know a guy studying music ot oxford whos got an offer to trade commodities with an investment bank.
If you go overseas to study than u c why they have this atitude. The standards in the uk are way higher than in ireland. Its not hard to learn off a load of stuff by heart and get 480 points or whatever but to pass an oxford interview with some genius tutor who has seen it all is. in the uk your classmates are from all over the world . at ucd they prob come from about a 20 mile radius of the college.
The uk unis are better with better staff and more diverse classmates creating a more rounded individual intellectually which is why the banks like them.

Sorry mate but I do live in the UK - and as I said I did work within an investment bank. I've never come across any form of snobbish attitude. I'm under the belief that its your attidue which is snobbish.

Like come on how the hell are telling me that my own experiences must be wrong - that the guys from UCD I've met must have studied abroad. Honestly stop being an arrogant fool.

Do you actually know what an MBA is? An MBA isn't for graduates. It's for people with industry experience. Obviously the oxford approach to tutorials is an excellent experience but far from a requirment to ignore the thousands of other graduates in europe.

I'd love to know what product exactly your music friend is trading. A lot of thoughts go through my mind when you say it like that. None of them positive.

I'm also sorry to be the source of bad news but banks prefer french students over everyone else. they work far harder to get into uni. Are you actually in oxford or where do you study? Your comments about better students and so on do not seem the type of someone thinking rationally.

MrMatisse

i probably came across a little wrong. Im not saying there gonna look down your nose at you as you went to an irish uni but in oxford they consider themselves a level above everyone else and when people graduate they bring this attitude to work with them unfortunatly. As up until the big bang most graduates that went into investment banking were oxbridge given the time frame since then these people are now in decision making positions and thus this attitude perforates the industry. It is made worse by the general class snobbery that still exists in the u.k.
Investment Banking is full of MBA's. Why do people pay so much to go to harvard or wharton? to get these lucrative jobs. A lot of investment banking is basically sales unless you are structuring products. If you are unaware of this read the rest of the financial times you lifted the league table from.
Being good value for money does not mean an mba ranks highly and an mba is symptomatic of the quality of an institutions business school.
If you really are in the U.K then you will be aware of the annual september debate about oxbridge snobbery so should be aware of it. its directed at other uk unis also and the rest of the planet in general.
And if you are working in the city and you dont have any workmates who studied celtic studies or music at a top uni that are now in investment banking then you should ask around as you probably do.
You must have got pretty annoyed to go on the ft website and copy and paste off a value for money mba table though. im not about annoying people but i say it as i see it.

MrMatisse

also an mba can be for graduates. you can do one at a number of top U.S colleges without any industry experience .Im a postgrad at oxford having been at ucd so see both sides of the coin.

MrMatisse

and what city high flyer has time to be posting comments on a website during the day?
You rang up other banks to arrange interviews? You have to apply online.

MrMatisse

Just to be clear i am also one of those people who 'learned a load of stuff off by heart or whatever' to get into ucd. I see myself why its a little harder for ucd grads to get the jobs as opposed to oxford because the selection process for undergrads here is awful with all your work boiling down to one interview with some dusty don.They save a lot of money and time by recruiting these people as they can be sure there smart because of what they have gone through.
Postgrad is a little easier.If you wanna make life easier for yourself you should go abroad as i feel it greatly increases your chances otherwise you gotta be a bit of a genius as ive heard of them asking you wierd questions like you have 3 seconds to answer whats 49 squared etc? or like the question mentioned above.

damnyanks

Once again you are making assumptions and ignoring the fact that I have first hand experience for what I am talking about.
when you say all jobs within a IB are sales or structering do you actually have a clue what you are talking about? In essence you could be correct but if we apply that logic every job globally in any industry is sales and structering.


I'm not sure but if you actually check who posted the tables you will see it wasnt me. As for being a city high flyer, I said I did my internship last year (2 x 6months). Right now I'm a final year. I have all the time in the world.

I've not met anyone that has studied celtic studies or music or any softer skilled subject. The simple fact of the matter is higher standard applicants exist so the IB's do not have the need to go "Lets recruit this guy, he goes to oxford". These positions have applicants applying from every country in the world with top brass names behind them, multiple languages and highly technical degrees as well as a wide variety of soft skills.


Lots of people in London do MBA's true, but not after they graduate as the top schools require you to have a few years experience. True they do let a few students in before hand but it is not beneficial for them. They are better off doing a MSc. An MBA gives you training in analysis work and allegedly in management - or so I am told. Doing an MBA would only prove you have more money then sense considering they are typically 3 times the cost of a striaght MSc.

But as for my real message. You don't really seem to know what you are talking about. You are sprouting 1 or 2 things you've heard from X Y and Z. The simple state of affairs is I've worked within an IB. Made various "contacts" in different banks and so on. Had nights out and so on and have not come across 1 piece of evidence to back your views up. However that said I would imagine someone with a true BA (yes i know all oxford are BA - but you get the point) will get a role within front office I will tell you this much.

They either got it as they had done some excellent work outside their degree or else their family is running the bank. It's that simple. Nepotism is almost dead.

Oh and as for filling out the application form to get the jobs. Once you have your foot in you can bypass all that silly stuff. Depending on the person you will get asked a wide variety of techincal / think outside the box style questions.

MrMatisse

You live in the uk and are unaware of oxford snobbery?
You rang investment banks to get interviews? Doesnt happen.
Your have not met people from other disciplines in IB?
a lot of IB is 'BASICALLY' sales.
If you live in the U.K your probably studying there so why so irate about comments that irish unis are not up to scratch at the moment? Why not talk to hugh brady president of U.C.D who writes such things frequently.
Not every comment on this thread is directed at you personally and yes value for money does not imply quality.
U passed online verbal reasoning tests? :eek:
Someone studied in eire and is not happy when people agree with the president of U.C.D

PH4T

holyrood85 wrote:

Im a postgrad at oxford having been at ucd so see both sides of the coin.

If people like you can get in, Oxford has gone down in my esteem

SteadyEddie

I concur, I know several people at Oxford and none of them are as up their own arse as yourself.

Running Bing

Do I sense a troll? Not one thing you have said about IB is consistent with what I have come across. If your not a troll, wow.

damnyanks

holyrood85 wrote:

You live in the uk and are unaware of oxford snobbery?
You rang investment banks to get interviews? Doesnt happen.
Your have not met people from other disciplines in IB?
a lot of IB is 'BASICALLY' sales.
If you live in the U.K your probably studying there so why so irate about comments that irish unis are not up to scratch at the moment? Why not talk to hugh brady president of U.C.D who writes such things frequently.
Not every comment on this thread is directed at you personally and yes value for money does not imply quality.
U passed online verbal reasoning tests? :eek:
Someone studied in eire and is not happy when people agree with the president of U.C.D

Please explain to me the different roles within IB and how they are all basically sales. As far as the other UK related stuff you still havent a clue what you are talking about. But thats fine I've already told you that.

With regards to Irish uni's the problem you highlight above is the same problems UK uni's highlight. Earlier you were saying Irish uni's are ****e in the respect that no one from an Irish uni can get into IB which I have told you is false from my first hand experience of working within a top 5 american IB.

But then again I must of been drunk and imagined it all while finishing my degree in IT SLigo :rolleyes:

DJDC

Im disappointed people, there is no way this fool goes to Oxford.His syntax and grammar are simply appalling. He is probally some bitter twat who failed to get into IB. Theres only one thing worse than an Oxbridge snob and thats a wannabe Oxbridge snob.

damnyanks

Oi!

Spelling and grammer are not the bee's knee's you know. Some of us are horrible at it unless we proof read and spell check

MrMatisse

M at oxford for one year. my grammer is awful thankfully postgrads do not gain entry on the basis of their linguistic skills otherwise i wouldnt have got in.

I also appear to have a flat mate who thought it would be hilarious to log onto my boards account and convey some eh controversial views. At least you guys are more pleasant than the after dark or conspiracy theory crowd. :eek:

MrMatisse

what is key logging software?

courty08

I'm currently going into final year Civil Engineering in UCD. Given the economic climate and my fading interest in Civil Engineering I'm trying to consider other options. I'd like to try to get into banking, well I think I'd like to, I'm still thinking about it all and I am trying to gather as much information as possible to help my decision.

My idea was to do an MSc Finance when I finish. I've very briefly talked to someone who I know is involved in banking in London. I think he is in trading but I'm not sure, it was a very brief chat. He mentioned that they like Engineers with a Masters in Finance. Is this true?

I understand that it is an extremely competitive market to get into. I expect that I will get a decent 2:1 in Civil Engineering. Will it be a lot harder for me to get a job in this market? Please forgive my ignorance but what other kind of quantitative positions is there in banks; be it front, middle or back office jobs. Any information or advice is greatly appreciated.