Primnary Career Objectives

Since I already have a degree (BA in History, minor in Statistics) and some professional experience (three years of teaching Latin), my objectives tend to be very specific and I am learning from my shortcomings and triumphs from my pre-New York life.  My primary assumption in all of these goals is that I will maintain my current GPA until I complete my BBA in May 2014.

My most immediate goal is to improve my networking skills.  This will help me not only achieve the next two objectives, but it will allow me to progress in my own career and build contacts throughout the Finance and IB industry.  I have a difficult time starting conversations in professional environments but I tend to do well once I get going and people seem interested when I throw out a European backpacking reference or demonstrate my knowledge of the current financial markets.  To improve this stumbling block, I am enrolling in as many Career Center events as possible and attending a variety of Corporate Presentations, where I am forced to network and talk with career professionals.  Further, when I attend Arsenal gatherings at a local pub, I talk to folks around me as the atmosphere is typically very friendly and there is an automatic (and, frankly, awesome) common trait.  I am following up by searching on LinkedIn for people with whom I talk to and try to take the conversation further.  My next step will be to conduct informational interviews as I go through the next two phases below.

My next objective is to attain a Summer Financial Analyst internship.  As stated above, my greatest weakness is in networking.  Further, my current retail job may be hindering the perception that I am prepared for such professional responsibility.  I am working on finding a quality internship for the Spring semester to counter this.  I have the GPA (3.65) and the aptitude (95th percentile on Bloomberg Assessment Test) to succeed and my course choices for next semester will demonstrate an in-depth knowledge of Finance and technical skills.  I keep a list of companies to investigate on my phone and add to it as necessary.  Over the next three months, I plan to apply for 25-30 summer internships at major banks, hedge funds, investment houses, and ratings agencies.

The ultimate goal is to earn a full-time analyst position at a major investment bank.  Obviously, the glaring weakness is that I lack formal employment in the industry, which should clear up during my internship(s).  During my internships, I will take advantage of opportunities to learn more about the institution where I intern and industry as a whole, continue to develop my networking skills in a professional environment, and further my technical and fundamental skills.  I plan to apply my teaching and backpacking experiences to make myself a creative and indispensable asset to the firm and earn consideration as a future leader.  I'll utilize my internship list as a starting point for a job search while continuing to attend Career Center workshops, on-campus presentations, and invitation only events at companies.  While I hope to earn an offer from my internship experience, I will certainly explore any and all relevant options.  It's a bit early to quantify the application goal, especially if I accept an offer from my internship, my it would likely be about double the internship application number.