I feel I’m a little too old to do this (24), but at this point in time, I want to start moving up in life. I took a 1.5 yr hiatus from school with 4 classes to go, and am returning to finish off my last semester. I will also have my CFA L1 by December, however, I have zero finance experience. I have a ton of sales exp but I feel like this pidgeonholes me into sales-only positions, and I am trying to become a jr analyst w/ an investment firm. In an ideal world where all my goals are reached, I would like to be a PM some day.
I have a pretty light semester (3.5 classes) and think i definitely have the ability to work about 20 hrs/week. I will continue to be living off the great taxpayers in the next few months while I finish school, so I am able to work for “free”, even if I don’t want to. For whatever reason, I have had a few interviews in the past few months that never materialized, so I am looking at other options.
I’d like to hear your thoughts. Do you recommend I work for free, or at least offer to work for free, so that I can break into investments? I’ve wanted to get into finance for a few years, but was never able to land a solid internship. It is no excuse, but I come from absolutely nothing (no one in my entire family incl. relatives has a college degree), so I haven’t really had much direction or help at all in college and was never really one to know how to maximize the benefits of my educational institution. I have had to pay all my living out costs, tuition costs, etc myself and have worked two jobs for most of my time in college (except the past 1.5 years where I had a ‘real’ job), so it was tough to find solid internships with very very limited time.
Normally I would recommend against working for free but since you have no relevant experience or skills for the industry you’re hoping to get into, I don’t think this is a bad idea. It will keep you more engaged and hopefully position you better for a full time role so that you don’t have to rely on other taxpayers, as you said.
Yes, I think it is a good idea. It is better than doing nothing. I actually found my first role by offering to work “for the experience”, but they ended up paying me a little, eventually grew into full time.
You should try it, but to be honest I’m not sure how much good it will do you…a lot of people are offering to work for free to “break-in”. Continue to apply to at least 5 jobs per day, pass CFA L1 in Dec, L2 in June, and maybe by August next year you’ll be in a better position, especially since you will have your undergraduate degree.
If you read Market Wizards, you’ll see that a lot of people got their start by offering to do stuff for free. Early on, it was good enough just to present yourself as a hard worker who’s smart and motivated.
These days, I think working for free is a possibility, but you need to find someone who is willing to mentor you while you do this. The best way is through some kind of family or friendly connection. If you have a unique skill or knowledge set, you can also present that, though it’s harder and harder to find that these days, with so much available on the internet and farmed out to the one willing to work for the least.
I am thinking that connections through family is becoming the most important stepping stone into the industry, even more so as assets get concentrated into those who either have or have not. You won’t get far without some brains and the willingness to do hard work, but without connections you may not even get the chance to start, and the most powerful connections are through family.