Me, an investment banker?

Yesterday the Office of Careeer Services had a talk featuring four recruiters from that are based locally in our area. One woman works for Red Hat, which is based in Raleigh. They gave a pretty good talk on what they expect to see in candidates. One recruiter said "even if you don't know much about the company, we expect you to know what a typical career trajectory is." Another one talked about career changers like myself, and said we need to "make it look like you are running to something instead of running away from something."

Today there was another event, a lunchtime panel featuring four second year students. I stayed twenty minutes afterwards to talk to one particular participant. He worked in real estate before coming to Kenan-Flagler and decided to go into investment banking. He compared getting a job in investment banking to rushing a fraternity where those interested have to do their homework, show up at all the events, and act like they really are interested in the particular firm they happen to be talking to. This is funny because I know a Kenan-Flagler MBA graduate at where I used to work who back in April told me the same thing. He said for his class, about one-quarter of the students are doing a concentration in real estate, compared to only one-half that number from the year before. I wonder if perhaps students are flocking to real estate the same way they were interested in e-commerce five years ago.

At where I used to work, one co-worker once asked me why I didn't go into Wall Street and try to become a millionaire. I have been thinking more and more about it within the past year. Investment banking jobs are very hard to get and even harder to keep. But I have been thinking more and more about it and in the past months have been getting a clearer picture of what I need to do to have a shot at a position in a big Wall Street firm. The student I talked to today said I would need to pretty much ace accounting, finance, and economics. And to get an interview with these guys, I need to do a lot of networking and rolodexing (my PDA will come in handy). I think my major attraction to investment banking is that it's one of the complicated jobs you can ever have and even if you wash/burn out after two years, it's great experience to have on your resume.