<p>I have some questions for people who are/have been Wall Street investment bankers or consultants</p>
<li><p>what are some aspects about the job that you wish you had known before you entered the industry?</p></li>
<li><p>which part of your college education do you think prepared you the most with entering this industry?</p></li>
<li><p>what are some of most important skills (including academical) that you wish you learned more in college?</p></li>
<li><p>what was your real reason for choosing this career?</p></li>
<li><p>how does your career foster you personal and intellectual develpment?</p></li>
<li><p>do you truly enjoy you job?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>THANKS IN ADVANCE!</p>
<p>If you have never been an investment banker/consultants, please do not try to answer these questions. I’m trying to get some sincere, serious and honest answers.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I wish I had known that the general personality types that are attracted to the IB and MC fields aren't my type of people! LOL</p></li>
<li><p>It is hard to tell which part of my college education prepared me the most. I'd say I learned to analyze problems well and that's necessary in those professional fields. I also learned to learn. That's what college should be about. A good university education isn't about majoring in any one field, but rather, about learning how to adapt. A college education will form your character and develop your work ethic and discipline.</p></li>
<li><p>I learned more than I needed in college. If there is one subject I would have liked to have been more exposed to, it's finance. But like I said, given the discipline I picked up in college, learning finance was quite easy.</p></li>
<li><p>I chose the IB career because I come from a line of bankers. I thought it would be an interesting and stable career.</p></li>
<li><p>I don't think a career will foster one's personal and intellectual development...especially not the IB or MC fields.</p></li>
<li><p>I did not enjoy IB that much. I was good at it, but I really wasn't that passionate about it. So I am obviously the wrong person to ask! LOL</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>Agree with Alexandre, the people weren;t my type at all.</p></li>
<li><p>Writing papers - made me analytically think.</p></li>
<li><p>Perhaps finance would have helped but it wasn't a big deal.</p></li>
<li><p>Wanted to go into business, thought it was an amazing way to get experience and then parlay my skills into other areas. </p></li>
<li><p>Became more responsible. </p></li>
<li><p>Fun for a few months. Glad I got out when I did.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>1) I found the people weren't "free" if you will, they lacked a certain warmth. I found that personality was a liability and adaptability not a virtue. Conformity was in high supply. The 24 year olds acted like they were 50.</p>
<p>2) I didn't like the atmosphere, travel, and the workload. Wasn;t fulfilling in the long-term to me to work on logistical issues for a trucking company in connecticut for example. I wanted to be in the heart of the company, not as an outsider,</p>
<p>I DID like the existence of a work culture though - we went out together, free food, free drinks, and some major perks (I was often able to not come home and just use my ticket to travel on the weekends.)</p>
<p>The best way to get a consulting job is to major in econ or business (although not a pre-req, I was anthro!) at a top school, get over a 3.5, and make sure to get an internship if you can. That's the biggest boost.</p>
<p>In my case, I found the vast majority of investment bankers to be superficial, arrogant, materialistic, overly tense, two-faced opportunists! Of course, there were exceptions, but in the majority of cases, they were unpleasant and unhappy people. </p>
<p>As for the work itself, I found it to be too tedious. Working long hours doesn't bother me, but being bored does. I work an average ogf 70 hours a week so I really don't mind the 14 hour work-day. But I also enjoy my free time and it is difficult to balance work and life when you work in the IB field.</p>
<p>The best way to land a job at an IB or MC is to go to a top university, maintain a high GPA (at least 3.5) and take the initiative early. As Slipper mentioned, it is always best to get an internship or two in your intended field while in college. It really opens things up. Of course, speaking another language, especially a major language like French, German or Japanese, really helps. I also found that being presentable and well-spoken goes a long way.</p>
<p>After grad school, I transitioned into the manufacturing sector (Ford and Eaton). But the HR community is very small, so we always end up doing consulting work above and beyond our general job description. I have done some consulting work for Cisco (as an agreement between Cisco and Ford) and for McKinsey (a research program I was involved in while at Cornell that was drawn out well after I left Ithaca).</p>
<p>I got a great job that is a merger of strategy and marketing - a business development in marketing role. Coming up with bigtime ideas for a major media company in a very relaxed non-corporate feeling environment is amazing. Unfortunately, its a post MBA gig. The "industry" jobs are where all the fun is - but out of undergrad you start at the bottom and climb up. The only fast track into these types of jobs is post MBA in my experience.</p>
<p>I've done a bit of interning in I-banking and also have close ties with the consulting field.</p>
<p>To sum it up: If you want one of these jobs (guaranteed) you should attend an Ivy, a top business school, or a top 20 school.</p>
<p>The differences are:
Investment banking: Use excel and other programs while shuffling data/papers around.
Consulting: Flying to different places telling people to outsource to India and China.</p>
<p>In terms of people in my experience I-bankers are pompous, superficial, un-reflective, arrogant - basically a-holes. Consultants rather are more intense, restictive, conformity oriented, also potentially pompous. Media people (my career over the last couple of years) are fun, smart, entreprenerial, and overall fantastic (during my MBA and after).</p>
<p>Between Accepted and Slipper you should have the picture. My experience was only as a client and the overall attitude was screw reality, let's make a buck and let the suckers buy this crap.</p>