Career Clinic: How can I get into investment banking?

If you are serious you need to have good academics and tertiary maths, accountacy, economics or science qualifications i.e. demonstrate that you are numerate.Your salary will initially drop (base, that is, and beware of bonus promises as they can be pretty hollow) and the hours you work will be worse than you are doing at the moment. You will lose any job security you may have (bear in mind a dip is predicted as imminent) as investment banks hire and fire with impunity to reflect current economic outlook. Most of them would rather have you at one or two years' post-qualification.If you still want to do it go to the investment bank of your choice's website and apply online. If you meet the criteria and they need anyone like you they'll snap you up.Given my occupation, this may seem rather negative...on the upside, if you are good, they like you and business is booming you can do very well.

Banking in-houser -07 Mar 2007 | 17:04

I agree with the in-house lawyer. You are better off getting one or two years' experience under your belt as a corporate lawyer specialising in M&A work before applying to an investment bank.I am assuming corporate finance is what you are talking about when you say you want to go into investment banking. If you do that, your lack of numeracy skills will be overlooked. If you apply now, what are you bringing to the bank?You are up against very bright MBAs and MiFs (Masters in Finance, the LBS course is the best) and they may question why you didn't go that normal route to be a banker. Banks want people who can hit the ground running and they expect you to have the experience and not learn it once you get there.I also agree about job security, although in my experience of working in a bank, you can take a view and be able to afford one year of rubbish bonus for every four or five very good ones, often multiples of base salary.But of course if it gets really bad and they cull staff, and it happens, you could be stuck because all other banks would be doing the same at that time. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to get back into the law as you would not have any relevant PQE experience - and why should any law firm take you back when you are just looking for any port in a storm?If you are thinking of joining the trading floor doing bond trading, originations, debt capital markets, equities, or perhaps derivatives or prop trading, you really do need to be very numerate and the fact that you are now in the law would suggest to me that you are not sufficiently numerate for such jobs.Hope this helps and good luck to you.

In-house lawyer, big company -08 Mar 2007 | 10:31

I disagree with the posts above. If you want to be an investment banker (rather than a lawyer in an investment bank), I'd recommend doing it sooner rather than later - you'll likely be worked to the bone either as a junior associate or a bank analyst, so you might as well put in the hard time in the field you've chosen. Good luck.

Associate, top 10 -08 Mar 2007 | 14:54

Qualify and get one or two years of PQE in M&A/corporate finance/capital markets/derivatives and then become an in-house lawyer. There are quite a few structurers in the front office who followed that route. Structuring and sales are the more realistic routes.Finding an analyst role, on the contrary, would see you face heavy competition from every graduate out there, the MBAs, MSc in Finance, FSA's...

Consultant lawyer, US Bank -09 Mar 2007 | 09:44

If you want to be on the business side, I agree with those who suggested getting some experience first. Finish the training contract and get a few years of PQE in corporate finance/M&A. In addition to pure legal roles, there are execution/structuring roles for which lawyers (even junior lawyers) are very well-suited and can compete from the start with top MBAs. Take advantage of your time at a law firm to learn as much as possible about the way financial markets and industries work, so that you can sell yourself as more than just a documentation expert.

Ex-lawyer at BigBank -10 Mar 2007 | 15:38

I tried to do as 'Consultant lawyer' and 'Ex-lawyer at BigBank' suggest. I obtained a couple of years' PQE at my law firm and then moved to the legal department of an investment bank. The bank was not one of the major ones, but the position still offered fresh experience and I fully intended to move into a business role within a year or two. The trouble was, it proved to be impossible - everyone in the bank saw me purely as a documentation expert and I found it impossible to move out of the legal department into a structuring role.On approaching recruitment consultants in order to try for a position elsewhere, my CV would always end up with someone responsible for placing lawyers, not investment bankers, so I wasn't able to make any progress there either.I'm extremely numerate, by the way, so there should have been no problem on that score.So effectively I was stuck in the legal department. Remember that the legal department in a bank is a back-office function. We were sitting in open plan offices adjacent to the settlement clerks. I don't wish to sound snobbish, but I think that gives you some idea of the environment. There was a lot of banter all day long and I have to say in all honesty that most of the time it wasn't possible to concentrate well enough to do a professional job.The bank didn't really mind, as its expectations were not high, but you might find that frustrating. I certainly did, and I left.I don't want to put you off too much but beware - there are some dead-ends out there. You might be better off staying put.

Ex-lawyer, currently travelling -14 Mar 2007 | 16:39

You definitely need to get a few years' experience under your belt and enter in a more senior position than analyst in order to skip over the drudgery of preparing Powerpoint pitch materials, which is a large part of what junior analysts do. Don't be intimidated by MBAs etc. Many senior bankers trade on their common sense and client skills rather than quantitative finance skills.

I did it -16 Mar 2007 | 09:43