Getting into finance/investment banking/trading etc

Netwerk.

But yeah I can't really help unfortunately, went straight from high school into consulting with T1 banks on their trading and financial infrastructures. My experience wasn't really run of the mill.

>>1044942

>GMAT

Do you plan on immediately going to grad school? I did so to get my MBA since I graduated from undergrad in 2009 so the job market, especially finance, was shitty.

The good thing about going to grad school is that the internships there are so much better than undergrad. Basically all my undergrad internships were unpaid busy work. In the MBA program, I did corporate finance work at Lockheed Martin for $20 an hour. Of course, the downside is a lot of grad programs don't accept people without work experience. But grad school is a great place to network.

As for the GMAT, it's literally SAT 2.0 and was stupid. There are a lot of schools that don't really care for score and rely more on GPA and recommendations. I went to grad school at the same school for undergrad and had recommendations from several tenured professors in the school of business making it easy to get accepted into the MBA program.

>masters in finance

Eh, I don't really recommend that. If you want to get into investments, just study to get your CFA, it will be helpful.

>Where should I look for things associated with 'talking the talk' selling myself, learning the language and generally sounding like I know what I am talking about?

Network, network, network. Join organizations like the CFA. Are you a minority? If so, they have National Society of Hispanic MBA's and Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting. Through them, I got multiple interviews with Goldman Sachs, Target, Disney, BoA, etc. Even if you aren't a minority, you can still go to their job fairs. I went one year to one with my white friend and he ended up with a corporate finance offer from Chick-fil-a.

>>1045240
Thanks for the advice and info.

Not a minority, just a poor white kid from the suburbs in London, the one thing I do have is a nice story of how I used to be a labourer and set up trading desks in almost all the top banks, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan, Citi Group etc that someone might hopefully sympathise with. Was kind of fun being in some of the most secure data centres in the world with the potential to cause a catastrophe as an 18 year old

I haven't done an internship (probably a poor decision on my part) as I started Uni late and didn't want to fall even further back. My plan is to finish this year off and secure whatever position I can in the summer and see where it takes me but all my income will go towards a masters the following year if I am unhappy with where I am

>just study to get your CFA
I have thought about it and its something I would definitely consider as its a hell of a lot cheaper and quicker than a masters, just worried it might be getting ahead of myself.

Do your Cfa and apply to top masters in finance programs. Save your mba for later in your career. MSF programs are only a year long and don't require any work experience and can land you a FO gig if you network your ass off. Google whichever program is right for you. They're generally based off location so if you want to work in tech banking, west coast schools would be a better fit than east coast schools, etc. try to get an unpaid internship at a bank even if it means cleaning toilet stalls in between phone calls. It's not going to be easy. Good luck

>>1045270
As for sales, read books like 7 habits of highly effective people, zigglers guide to sales etc. it's really more of a practiced skill than a read one.

To learn more about markets, watching everything on tasty trade is a good start. Taking your Cfa is a good thing too since it will really enhance your understanding of basic accounting and statistics and structured products. It's not a ticket into a FO gig, but it will prepare you much better for technical questions.

>>1045270
>>1045277
Thank you

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>>1044942
>economics degree at university
>trading

you do an iq test, show your track record and answer correctly 100 finance world related questions showing it's your passion and love, that's how you get in goldman trading floor

>>1045281
Oh. And one more thing. Never accept BO positions. Do Corp finance if you have too before doing the msf, but don't ever do BO work.

Also, a more on the job technical skill set should be taught to you on the job, so preparing for that is meaningless as each firm has their own way of doing things. Try to be more prepared for the interview and try to convince them why you're the star candidate instead of Joe shmo from Harvard. Ace the technicals and really drive home that you're the person they should hire.