Tuesday, February 06, 2007

First job offer

Yes, it seems like nothing can stand in the way of my transition to the finance world in London any more. After a long detour, it seems like my dream of working in Sales & Trading will come true. More details later. All I can say is that it has been much tougher than I thought. Along the way, I had some rejections based on the fact that the interviewers didn't believe I was really committed to a career change. But finally, somebody saw that I actually do want to work in investment banking rather than in consulting.

Now the challenge will be finding a great desk to work with, which will be exciting. In any case I am so happy this is over. These past weeks were really tough. They shortlist 40 people, and in the end they take 5 and reject some great candidates for reasons such as "you spoke a bit fast in the interview and some of your answers were too long" (true story!!!). Another great one I heard today was someone who was told after M&A interviews that his accounting knowledge was too weak, when the guy had worked as a tax accountant for 6 years prior to the MBA! You choose which explanation is more ridiculous, in any case they came from the same bank :-). It's very hard, and there are less people with offers than I expected, especially in markets. In IBD there are some offers but also less than expected. Probably, I can give a better picture next week when most things are decided, right now is really the first days of offers.

I wish everyone out there good luck! Hang in there and don't be discouraged by weird rejections, in the end it will work out.

One thing I have been impressed by throughout the whole process is how great the second years at London Business School are! They have been incredibly helpful sharing advice about interviewing, conducting mock interviews, calming us down, hosting workshops on brainteasers and excel valuations. I don't know how it is at other schools but I have great gratitude to the 2nd years and I hope I can be of equal help to the class of 2009 next year! Special thanks to fellow blogger King Myles from the Finance Club!

16 comments:

Forrest Gump said...

aha, that is great news. congratulations!

RusGirl said...

WooHoo! Great! You rock! Congratulations!!! :)

Anonymous said...

congratulations!!
i was confident that with your attitude u will get easily the offer u were looking for.
this is only the beginning and am confident that u r going to have a very very bright future,
all the best.
keep writing and the info u r providing in your blogs really useful for future MBA students to have a clear idea about life in LBS.
Lakshminarasimhan
chennai, india

Alex said...

WOW! congrats! ))

Anonymous said...

I've been following your blog since long time ago. Really congratulations on your first job offer, you deserve every bits of it.
I'm still in the pending mode....well...I'm applying for the undergraduate IBD summer internship in London, currently studying in one of the UK leading Business school. so far still waiting for invites to interviews.last year i participated in the Spring Insight Week programme for first year undergraduates at JP Morgan, I thought my experience and grades would get me quite a few interviews this year,but the truth is opposite, many LSE/Oxbridge students been rejected last yr on the spring week selection seem to get more interviews than most of us spring week people.well..what can i say,in my opinion,except Oxbridge/LSE every other universities been short-listed for back ups.
But I will not give up on my dream.
Any advice I could do better.....?

angie said...

Thank you everyone!

Jennifer: I have observed the same regarding "Oxbridge mafia" in London, even in very international institutions. What I can tell you is that there are many different ways in, so you may want to expand your scope. For example, if you apply to Sales & Trading, they are much more open to different backgrounds than IBD.

Beyond that, there are always people from other unis invited for interviews - even though it is a bit harder. I think it is best to ignore the bias and concentrate on expanding your scope in terms of departments and firms you apply to. Try to go somewhere else where you get valuation and excel skills that you can promote once you apply for IBD full-time. It doesn't help to focus on disadvantages, since you can't change those. Good luck!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations!! I chanced upon your blog when looking for information on LBS. I was wondering if MBA Finance and MiF grads have similar opportunities in terms of job offers or are there any differences between the kinds of jobs offered to MiF vs. MBA graduates after they complete the program?

angie said...

anonymous, for MiF it's a bit tougher since they basically compete with 2nd year MBAs who have already interned in the banks for the same full-time jobs.

On the other hand, the MiFs usually all have previous work experience in Finance which does not apply for most MBAs.

But from observations it seems slightly tougher for MiFs to get Associate positions in the top banks.

Anonymous said...

Dear Angie,
Thank you so much for your advice, yes I doing some applications for trading&sales now for some non top tier banks,(as most of those top-tier Ibanks' deadline have way passed)I indeed noticed the difference between Market and IBD's selecting criteria...seems most of my friends went for Market all got invited to interviews at least. I will def expend my scope now...to get my foot in is more important,rite!
and those interview questions u put on blog is really good.now i have to do some more preparation.

k21k said...

Hi Angie,

I am MiF 2008. Moving to London in September to start the programme.

I would be glad to meet with you at LBS.

All the best for finding the right desk.

Cheers,

Kevin

k21k said...

Hi Angie,

I am sad to learn that going through Milkround is tougher for MiFs.

The thing is that I am willing to join graduate programmes at top tier IB (I would like to do structuring FX or FI).

I am a CFA charterholder with 3 years working experience as a corporate treasury trader within a large company (turnover>USD 40Bo).

I hope being a MiF and not a MBA will not ruin my plans...

Kevin

angie said...

Hey Kevin,

don't worry to much, actually in terms of depth of finance learning the MiF is very rigorous and is very high quality - lots of work, too :-).

It is great that you are a CFA, in our MBA class the CFAs I think were the most attractive candidates for recruiters and did really well in the milkround.

As a MiF, you just need to prepare much earlier than the MBAs, but many MiFs also got into the graduate programmes.

Good luck!

Anonymous said...

Hi Kevin! Nice to know there are some LBS MiF students out there. I have an interview for September 208 intake end of January. Also CFA charter and 4 years of work experience in portfolio management in Slovenia. Have the same worries about MBA vs. MiF on the job market and recent market turmoil. Hope to see you in London!Nina.

Anonymous said...

Hi Angie,

Congratulations. Your posts are very interesting. I am currently working in a top-tier IB and will be entering MiF in 2008, and I was wondering if you could let me know about what kind of jobs I might get after MiF? In IB/ PE....

Thanks,

Anonymous said...

Very interesting comments. I just got accepted for MiF 08 and am still on the fence as to whether I'm making the right decision on undertaking MiF versus MBA. I'm doing part-time, so am not as concerned about job market if I stay with the same firm, but still want the reissurance that the opportunities are present. Hope to see all the other MiFs this Sept! Michelle

vaneet said...

Hi angie,This is vaneet from india,m a regular reader of ur blog from d vry first day u got d admission at LBS.now i want to give my heartiest congratulatins to u on getting ur job,God bless u,enjoy ur life.what would b d hot tips for person lik me who is so keen to join LBS.