How to Get a Good Job - Early Advice For Finance Majors

Since I run Unknown University's student-managed investment fund, I get to know a lot of our brightest students - they often come with GPAs well north of 3.50. Many of them hop to eventually work in the investment management industry, either as an analyst, for a hedge fund, as a trader, etc....

Unfortunately, they often have a hard time because A) there's a lot of competition for those jobs (particularly now), and B) Unknown University is not a school that top firms typically recruit from (we're not Ivy League, or even close).

So, I thought I'd put together some tidbits I've found on how to get that plum job - whether on Wall Street or in Corporate America (where most graduates end up). The key is (to borrow a phrase from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) to Begin With The End In Mind. So, let's look at the sort of things you'd want to have

• Good Grades
• Take hard courses - Accounting/Finance
• Know Your Professors - one or two a semester
• Build your reputation
  
• Have experience (summer jobs/internships
• Get your contacts
• Family & friends
• Alumni - get a mentor
• Don't depend on your placement office
• Know "the deal" - research your job and your company
• Read their annual report
• Vault.com
  
• Read the WSJ - become versed in the language of business.
  
• 
  

Popular posts: CFA, Academia, Graduate School,

How about some things for the undergrads?

networking
Work Backwards

• What's the job
• What does it require
• does it fit you
• what will your resume need to look like
• How can you find an entre
  

get a mentor
clubs
know your profs
know your dean
do something for the college - advisory board
be a boy scout - trustworthy, loyal, etc...
get good grades and a good reputation