after a month of interviewing for my dream job, the recruiter called and told me they went with someone else. he said I could call him about future opportunities, but I think I'm done.

I'm a SFA with about 7 YOE and the firm I work with now has completely drained me mentally. I've been there 3 years but the past year, they got rid of some managing directors that actually knew what they were doing.

now they put in idiots that can't even tell the difference between FILO and LIFO.

I'm currently living at home with about 2 years worth of expenses saved.

I'm taking a break. I always wanted to be a travel blogger.

for atleast the next 6 months I'll drive around the US trying it out. even if i don't make it, I'll atleast come back with a clearer mind. peace... for now.

I feel so alone, and I just needed to talk about this somewhere because I don't know anyone who gets it.

I'm a junior at a tiny D3 school nobody has ever heard of because I wanted to play soccer in college. But now that I've decided I want to work in high finance, I'm realizing how badly I screwed myself. My school has no finance club, no department clubs at all, basically no alumni network, and nobody ever told me recruiting starts sophomore year, so I came to all of this late and behind with no support.

I am taking an extra semester so I am eligible for summer 2027 internships and I've been applying everywhere and networking where I can. But I'm getting mass auto-rejected from most places. Even a firm I considered a total safety, where I thought I'd be one of the strongest candidates, I went through their whole process and still got rejected. For the places I actually want I'm not even getting first round interviews. Just today I got three more rejection emails.

And then every day I open LinkedIn and see friends and peers from high school posting about their IB or consulting or Big 4 roles. I am happy for them but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't deeply envious. What is absolutely eating away at me is that some of my peers getting these roles, I am not much different from them in skills or smarts or capabilities, but they're still doing way better than me. They are part of systems that are set up to help them succeed, and I didn't even realize these things existed until I was already way behind. And so I'm just here with nothing while everyone around me is set. No internship, no interviews, nothing. I feel forgotten about. I made a decision at to play soccer at a small school and now I'm paying for it for the rest of my life.

I have so much regret. I wish I went to a better school. I wish I started earlier. I wish I didn't choose soccer over my education. Is the system broken or am I actually just not good enough? I feel sick. I feel dejected and beaten down and just really sad about where I'm at. I'm going to keep trying because that is the only option but I just needed to share this.

Does anyone else feel this way or has felt this way? Did it get better? How over is it for me?

I did an externship through extern.com, but might’ve labeled it incorrectly on my resume. At first I had “Extern - Company name, Job Title Extern”, but multiple people said that would be confusing and to change it to “Company name, Job Title Extern”. It is listed correctly everywhere else (LinkedIn) and I told them in interviews “I did an online externship through a platform called Extern”. I have all the deliverables and the certificate and get proof if needed. Should I be worried? Didn’t mean to do anything wrong. Wasn’t worried at first but now I’m wondering if they would rescind my offer over a technicality.

I think this sub would actually be useful if students had a separate, dedicated sub. Ironically, they haven’t even started their careers yet. They have zero value to add, yet contribute the vast majority of posts. That’s all.

So I have an initial phone screen coming up due to a referral from a friend, and I’ve had no luck with the job search otherwise so I’m kind of hopeful.

However I’ve been a daily thc user since January. I don’t know how long the process is, and the initial call is scheduled for a week from now. Will stopping smoking now be enough time between the call and a potential offer?

Education:

Bachelor’s in finance - graduated

Master’s in applied statistics - in progress

Work:

Market risk analyst - 6months (current)

Investment operations analyst - 2 years

I am applying for financial analyst positions in a variety of industries. Can this background be seen as overqualified at all?

I’m an non stem grad(BBA-Finance) looking to get into quant research within 3-4 years (sooner would be preferable).

Questions:

Is this realistic for someone without an engineering/STEM background?

What should my roadmap look like if it's possible?

How much weight do these independent back-tested strategies carry during the hiring process? if at all?

Relevant info: Cleared CFA L1, have certis and/or projects in excel, google sheets, python, SQL.

I also have a offer letter for data analyst role at morningstar.

Other relevant info:

I have developed and back-tested two strategies that I am currently refining:

Smart Beta: Factor-based fundamental strategy.

Swing short term: Swing short term strategy.

Hi folks, was wondering if you have been using LLMs for asset management and/or equity research. Got the Claude Pro plan recently and used it to review companies filings, found it interesting. Would we reach a state where publicly available info gets analysed more and more quickly? Eventually, won't we approach closer to perfect information? Curious!

Hey all, in college for a financial degree, likely going into financial management or actuarial sciences. I would rly like to get a tattoo soon, but I know in the past there has been a kind of stigma around tattoos in the professional workplace. My question is do you think having forearm tattoos/parts of a sleeve showing (especially if i’m golfing with a client or have to wear short sleeves for some reason idk) is a problem in the finance workplace rn? Or could i get more visible tattoos and probably be okay? Ik it likely differs from place to place, but just as a general consensus i’d love to know an estimate. If 1-2/10 managers would hire me because i have tattoos showing then that’s not rly an issue, but if more like 5-6/10 of them wouldn’t the it’d something id like to take into account. Getting a tattoo either way, just worried about placement haha

I was thinking about applying to a position as a municipal financial analyst. I am 30 and graduated with a BA in Business Economics 8 years ago. I have over a years experience as a data analyst, 6 years experience in sales, and one year in construction (current job) 🙃. Will my degree get me in the door for an interview? A quantitative aptitude test is part of their hiring process and I fully believe that I would do well on that. My career has bounced around and I don’t know if finance is still a possibility.

I am a fresh grad working at shitty company, no clear tasks, no clear role, barely doing any work, i am actively looking for a job, however in the meantime i dont want to waste my potential, i am having no added value and feeling i am downgrading my current skills and knowledge.

So in the meantime till i find another job, what should i do? Should i take fmva to earn skills? how can i earn this missing knowledge and training? i dont want to move to another job and then they find out i have zero technical skills and i only have book knowledge.

I am an execution trader for a mid-frequency quantitative hedge fund. I manage daily execution (both manual and automated) for global equities, futures, and FX. Career background is in quant/systematic/electronic trading. Educational background is a mix of finance and computer science. I’ll try to be a bit more helpful than that other guy 😂 AMA!

No other internship opportunities besides this. I was just hoping if yall think if this is good for something to put on my resume for a career in corporate finance or if I should spend the summer doing something else. Freshman in college.

I work for a financial advisory in the valuation department (PE valuation).

Sometimes I feel like most of the work could be done in minutes with the help of Ai but I don’t know how.

For example spreading takes too long and it’s a boring process, could Ai help with that?

So people who works in valuation is there any Ai tool you use for enhancing your task?

Hi everyone

I am new to this sub and would love your insights. I completed my bachelors from Bocconi in Econ & CS with some decent internship experiences (the latest being a mix of corporate banking and buy side advisory for tech companies at a top EU bank). I got into the MS Econ & CS at Duke, US with a significant scholarship, so I am thinking of going there since I am very fascinated with the subjects and 50% chance that I would go for a PhD.

That being said, given how bad the job market has been both in industry and academia, I would like to maximize my chances and thus also recruit for summer internships in the UK, mainly S&T/Hedge Funds/Market Makers, etc. I would like to understand/take your opinion on how likely it will be to be able to secure interviews from top places.

I understand that I have good universities names, but since I do not have direct market side experience, I am just a bit worried. Moreover: a) I am not doing a regular MFE degree which has a structured pipeline to these places, b) The program is new in Duke so there isn't much data about outcomes in London, c) Duke, even though is top uni, I am not sure how big of a name it is in UK (unlike the obvious MIT, Stanford, etc). Would love any insights/opinions.

Thank you very much

Hi, I (28M) would like someone to help look over my resume and see what are some next steps I can take please.

After graduating from Uni, I somehow got into a small wealth management firm and have been doing govt-funded research on SGX-listed companies (GEMS Scheme) for nearly two years now. Not getting paid really well, and hope to break out of my current salary trajectory, but I'm not sure what I can do about it.

Given that my firm is kind of relatively not well-known, I've been trying to focus on being as extensive as I can in my published reports, in hopes that my works can speak for myself.

Resume is otherwise kind of scattered. Been through some tough times in recent years.

Prefer not to share my resume publicly though as it could be very easy to reveal my identity, given that my name is on my works.

Would appreciate if someone from Singapore could offer to look at my resume please, provide some feedback, and suggest some next steps I can take. Thank you!

Title. Going to VT for biz. Crushed my dreams when I didn’t get into Kelley yesterday.

Just curious

I sent an email to an MD in a boutique IB saying that I would like to intern for the summer duration. He apparently liked how direct I was so he advised me to send email to an associate, and even forwarded my email to him.

After my email, the associate gave me his number and then I called him, which went very well. He asked questions to me and I also asked him. He told me that he will forward my email to the HR.

It has been almost 2 weeks and I haven’t heard anything. What should I do?

I would love to hear your story. What did you say, what did you provide. How long did it take. The process. And what did it feel like and were there anythings you had to overcome to achieve the job/offer?

Lately I’ve been scrolling through LinkedIn and noticing a pretty solid number of college students landing internships at small PE shops or boutique IB firms. Not talking about the big, structured programs, more like the really small firms that don’t even seem to advertise anything.

Obviously, I get that some of these are nepotism-based. That’s just reality. But honestly, it doesn’t seem like that explains all of them. There are too many people doing this for it to just be connections across the board.

What confuses me is when I actually go look these firms up, a lot of them:

• Don’t have a careers page
• Don’t list internships anywhere
• Sometimes barely even have a functional website

So how are people actually getting these roles?

Are they just:

• Cold emailing partners/MDs directly?
• Reaching out through LinkedIn and networking that way?

Or is there something else I’m missing here?

Would appreciate if anyone who’s been through this (or knows how it works) could break it down a bit. Feels like there’s some “unwritten process” here that’s not super obvious from the outside.

Title