Street of Walls: It’s an obvious play one of the oldest names in and for finance, a play on a locale that’s carved itself not only into the geographical space of lower Manhattan, but more importantly into the center of the global financial conscious. The name also captures what it can feel like for those trying to take up residence on the Street—that you are met with a series of blank walls without doors to enter in through.
It’s not an unfounded feeling. People looking to get into finance jobs are first and foremost up against a wall of numbers: As we mentioned in an earlier article (link: http://www.streetofwalls.com/2012/12/drowning-in-numbers/), Bank of America is inundated with over 30,000 resumes every year for its 100-person investment banking internship program. Meanwhile a recent New York Times’ article (link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/business/employers-increasingly-rely-on-internal-referrals-in-hiring.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130128) released that Deloitte, a major consulting and financial advising firm, receives 400,000 applications annually. These types of skyrocketing numbers are hardly restricted to these two institutions. Finance jobs are just plain and simply some of the hardest in the job market to get into.
The key to improving your job hunt odds is strategy—one that is comprehensive and multilateral. It is not enough just to post on job boards and company websites or to go to every recruiting event for which you can get your name on the list. You have to do both these things, as well as, of course, study for and take the WSAT (link: http://www.streetofwalls.com/wsat/) and keep your LinkedIn and every other social media profile shiny and up-to-date. To help candidates get a feel for what they need to include n their action plan, the “Finance Training Courses” section of the Street of Walls website (link: http://www.streetofwalls.com/finance-training-courses/) provides an in-depth overview of how to find and nail down investment banking jobs (methods apply to most other finance jobs, too).
The first step is to map out your playing field. Know each and every bank (link: http://www.streetofwalls.com/finance-training-courses/investment-banking-overview-and-behavioral-training/2-top-investment-banks/), from the Bulge Bracket to the line-up of boutiques, that could reject you but also just might accept you. And for every bank that does present you with a possible door handle, learn the organization behind that door well so well you could through its house blind. The most foolish interview mistake is to not have a solid answer for: Why work for [insert bank or firm name here]? There are people on the other side of each interview. Just like you, they like to be flattered—and not just taken for a ride.
The strictness of the financial recruitment and interviewing process veritably assures that wherever a company can catch you unawares, it will. Though knowing the company itself is important, to get the job you will have to have—and have proven that you have—the aptitude necessary for the position. Skills tested by the WSAT—from logic to economics—align with those that interviewers seek and assess in their interviewees. So yes, you may have to camp out on the Street for awhile until you are able to persuade someone to take you in. But be confident that with the right acquired skills and an airtight strategy, a door will open eventually.
