Non Target Junior breaking into investment banking

Laura and Tad give good advice above.

I had a what sounds like a similar road to you - was a bit late to the recruiting game and didn't even land IB immediately after graduation. Eventually worked my way to a small MM firm where I did my analyst/associate stint.


Luckily you are located in southern California where there are a lot of investment banks. Like Laura and Tad mentioned, you have to hustle and reach out to people - people like to help people that are taking initiative. I would go to New York and Chicago and post up to meet people for coffee but phone calls work well too.

You may need to start at a lesser known IB but I found the lateral opportunities to be there if that is the path you want - and I am guessing you might be since that is the raging consensus on websites like Wall Street Oasis that shape a lot of the recruiting plans for people in college. I ended up staying at my smaller firm due to increased responsibility/development, (slightly) better lifestyle, and more entrepreneurial culture that allowed junior people to lead deals (maybe why I am on Searchfunder right now...). Name brand certainly goes a long way in finance but would encourage you to do your research on culture if you can, bearing in mind that beggars can't be choosers.

It is somewhat of a numbers game so keep pounding the pavement and reaching out to as many people as possible - you will eventually get pretty good at the informational conversations. A whole range of people helped me along the way, not just alums from my school so get creative on what you might have in common with someone based on their LinkedIn profile.

Good luck and feel free to reach out.

From my experience it will have to come through hustle and individual networking with any connection you can find. That is what worked for me coming from a non-target school and trying to get a role off-cycle. To a certain extent you'll have to reach out to 100 ppl and only expect 20 responses. But demonstrating the hustle and how passionate you are about a firm/role will actually give you an advantage once you get a couple people's attention.