^ Even if he wanted to do macro research, there are 10,000 MA Econs fighting over a handful of spots. Try Bank of Canada? And LLB? Sure, do it if you want to be a lawyer. You’re all over the place man, you need to pick a direction if you want a firm to take you seriously. What is it EXACTLY that you want to do?
I agree with Geo. You seem a bit confused about what you want to do and I think that must be coming across on your CV.
When applying for any job, even an internship, you are really making a pitch to the company that they will benefit from hiring you. You are selling your skillset. From the perspective of an IB hiring interns, they are presumably looking for someone who will help out around the office for a few weeks but also longer term could be a potential full-time hire. Why would an IB look to take you on if you are about to start a new degree course in an unrelated area (i.e. law)?
And secondly, why do you want to intern at an IB if you are about to switch to a legal qualification?
What is it you ultimately want to work at? It seems to me that you haven’t figured that out yet.
Why is everyoone so negative about economics degrees? Surely it’s one of the more relevant degrees out there for working in finance. I appreciate the difficulty is not up there with maths and physics, but it’s still one of the more intellectual degrees.
Regarding the OP’s question, I agree that the problem could be that he’s not focussed. If i’m hiring for a finance position in don’t want someone about to study law.
I don’t know what it’s like in Canada, but internships in the UK are actually harder to get in to than acual jobs. Not the end of the world if you don’t get one OP, go travelling!
^ Maybe in the UK econ has weight, but in Canada the business schools control the co-op placements so if you’re not in a business faculty you’re fighting a very steep uphill battle. Its not the material in the program that’s the issue, its that OP doesn’t have 1/10th the access to employers that his peers at Sauder biz school at UBC do. Econ in Canada = Arts faculty. They don’t have the connects.
Agree with Geo. Even the material is kinda useless that you learn too though.
I havea major in econ and math. It was hard enough for me to even get my resume looked at. If it wasnt for math, i dont think i would have had any chance in the job market.
If i could do it over again i would have done math and finance. At least you learn about financial statements in business school, which I have had to do some major catching up on.
An econ degree from a shitty school with few quantitative courses is useless yes. An econ degree from a good school will require you to take upper level mathematics…so it’s probably just your program/school that is weak. Economics can be a good degree with the right curriculum at the right school. No worries though, pick up CFA to beef up your resume some.
If your uni career services approved your resume, and you still can’t get interviews, then they haven’t done a good job in helping you tailor your documents to your desired job. However, I could also say this about 97% of uni career services centers out there.
Part of the issue is that general university career services focus on getting their highly educated grads into Starbucks serving coffee or as community organisers or whatever. Biz schools in Canada have their own career services where they know the industry and actively place their grads. I went to a much more hacksaw school than OP and the biz school career services there were top notch. It was a different economic time, but we literally had solid employers lined up to sign us at the school.
^ Not too long after graduating, my school’s career services sent me a job notification based on my qualifications for a position in a chicken slaughterhouse, working 55-60 hours a week for $35k salary. It cost about $40k/yr all in to go to my alma mater. I should have saved it.
lol that is pretty funny.
A lot of schools actually cheat on the post-graduation job statistic. They offer jobs to students who graduate without a full time offer in the school, so they can remove them from the “graduated with no job” statistic.
I agree. I originally declared to be an Econ major in undergrad, but dropped it after realizing there wasn’t a good change of getting a job. I became a Business major with an econ minor, which I had completed by the time I changed. I know a few Sbux baristas that know all about economics, FWIW… That said the classes can be good, but it’s one of those majors that works best a complement to something else, not as a standalone major. Sorry OP, back when I was applying for any job I was qualified for in Canada I didn’t get interviews either.
Went to go check out my school’s career services… out of 1200 jobs listed, one had CFA on a keyword search and it’s sounds like sales, no analysis. Most interesting job thumbing through was for a position at the Waffle House, in the restaurant, not corporate.
i’m in the same boat. for every success story there must be a dozen people like us who never get a shot.
trade settlements it is.
actually the more realistic statistic is…
for every 100 young & ambitious person in back office/operations/etc who wants to break into IB/ER/AM, maybe 3 make it.
i feel like the people who you are talking about often are ambitious but misguided and allocate their efforts inefficiently. like, thinking if they pass the CFA level 3 they will automaticlly be flown out to seychelles to sign off on an offer letter from a top AM of their choice. or killing their back office duties thinking that their operations manager will go tell the head of research about the clydsdale settling trades who needs to be picking stocks.
i feel like i went the right way about it but just couldn’t overcome my weakness from my background. glad i could embody your sentiment, itera.
at least youre not this guy interviewing with itera
itera is right but take heart, there are plenty of people with the “right” background that are unemployable and/or f–k it up at the finish line. We don’t need to get into it but I won’t even look at someone with an MBA or Ivy League undergrad anymore for a research role. Hyyyyyyyyyype. Keep that mediocre s–t to yourselves. Give me a hungry Pac-12 guy with some basic skills and a high degree of intelligence and motivation any day of the week. If you want to overpay and be disappointed, go ahead and hire out of a top school.
Back office is pretty much still effed though, sorry to call it like it is.
I’ve definitely seen overhype and entitlement from the top schools. kids pour in literally dictating $X salary and work hours of 7 to 7. F that. I show them the door pretty fast.
The best kids are the few gems you can find that will work their butts off without complaint and still be hungry for more. I def agree it’s hard to filter through a lot BS out there to find these people. But generally, The potential gems that land on my desk are all young, out of school not long.
Also agree with bromion here, When I look at resumes, anyone who’s been doing back office for 2 years or more has almost no chance at a shot, and 3+ yrs back office resumes I throw away immediately.
I would let that chick use her foul mouth on me: http://www.trevorgeorge.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sarah-haseler2.jpg
OP, you aint alone. I did my first in Philosophy(hon) and just finished a second in Econ(UofA), originally also in hons. However the sooner towards graduation, the more I felt the bleak career prospects without at least until a MA/Msc, especially towards high finance. So to avoid running into debt, got out as a regular BA which I still have mixed feelings about. I was only 6 courses short for the hons…
Now fellas, back to the original question of getting into the door - where to start? how to start networking if you absolutely know no one in the industry? Campus hire channels are almost exclusively occupied and controlled by B-schools, and how logical to go barking at the experienced hire route when you can’t even get an interview with no experience?
With the exorbitant level of intelligence and exuberance this forum attracts, I am sure your responses will be interesting…