Sorry to hear. A bunch of my buddies with great backgrounds are getting killed too. Not a good environment to be looking for finance gigs.

Sorry to hear about your bad luck, man. One thing: bitching about the 3.3 Econ guy who got the hookup isn't going to make an interview land on your lap and chances are if he didn't interview you still wouldn't have been picked. I know it sucks but that's the world we live in: some people have the breaks. Can't change it, so no use in bitching.

I also know you go to Northwestern, no way would a UChicago SCIENCE major come here and bitch about getting beat out by a "frat bro". ;)

Keep your head up though. Look for something in your home region/country. It doesn't have to be IBD/consulting, just something relevant that you would be able to talk about in an interview setting. It's never too late to break in.

I am a 3.3 econ frat bro and I have no idea why you think it is easier to land interviews with that background. I have actually found it to be significantly more difficult. I think there are like 2 guys from my frat who I've ever met who work in banking and the upper-middle class background that most frat guys come from doesn't spawn limitless connections.

UChicago, majored in econ here. The thing is that not many hard sciences (physics/chem) majors here do finance; there's almost a perception that hard science majors are not really interested in IBD (true to some extent) and only apply just to test out the waters.

To compensate, you have to really network, and I don't mean info sessions.

OP how exactly have you been networking? I suspect there might be something wrong with your method. You should be setting up informational interviews and then following up every now and then, but especially after the resume drop. When I went through FT recruiting, the vast majority of banks that I networked with wound up giving me interviews, and to be quite honest, my internship experience, GPA, and EC's were nowhere near stellar.

^^^ OP probably overestimated the value of majoring in a hard science degree, and didn't network as much as he should, especially considering you need Visa sponsorship during this extremely tough recruiting season.

You can major in physics/math/EE. It only proves you are smart enough to do the job. As you probably already know, you don't need to be smart to be in IBD. You can train a monkey to do the work. It's more about attitude, personality and communication skills.

What can you do now?
1) extend graduation date by a semester or go for 1-2 year master program in Finance for new recruiting.
2) Given you are from a hard science background and you didn't have an IBD internship before, I have doubts that you will like the work. I had such an internship awhile ago and I felt my brain was atrophying from preparing pitchbooks. Anyway, maybe you want to look into trading, research, structuring, or risk.
3) Apply a finance job at your home country, especially if it is Asia Pacific (including Australia). It would be easier, you would have an advantage to compete (language, sub-culture, & family connection). I would assume your family is reasonably resourceful, since studying in US for foreigners isn't cheap. Maybe you can expand your family business or start your own business. Pull your head out of the sand, and look around. No need to pick up nickles in the US, when you have far more growth and opportunities at home. From personal experience, ROI of a lot of projects in those developing countries would blow your hair back, when you see the numbers and if you can get a piece of that.

Anyway, stop whining, be positive, be open-minded, look for your edge and get rich... who cares if you made your first 100 million from selling ice to Eskimos, prop trading, or doing M&A

oh dear, sorry to hear that. though i applaud 3.3 frat guys for maintaining 3.3.

you and your hard-on for columbia.

A. If only 1 interview you got was along the lines of something you don't want to do, you need money and you need a job. You should have rocked this interview, especially since it was your only one of the semester/year and most likely your only shot of obtaining a job. No sympathy. Job doing something you don't want to do that pays well> always better than no job, always!

B. Do better man. Either your GPA isn't good enough, your EC's aren't good enough, your past work exp. isn't good enough or a combination of everything plus a weak hiring environment. Leverage what your good at, don't complain, and bust your butt to get something

Non finance internship is a red flag IMO

These are my thoughts:

Resume formatting --- I've spoken with all sorts of people who work in the industry and they constantly suggested I beef up my resume with more in detail information (requiring smaller font or widening the page extensively). At first i took this advice, seeing as these guys nailed things, but I asked my girlfriend (doesn't work in finance) to quickly glimpse at my prior one and these more detailed ones and she immediately said she liked mine better.

long story short -- be descriptive but do so with as few words as possible -- your resume is a banner and needs to stand out ultimately amongst the other 100's HR gets.

EC: do not underestimate the bottom of your resume -- what you do for fun matters. Make sure it isn't something generic but rather something that would make you remember someone after reading their resume.

The international thing I'm not too knowledgeable about but I'd assume getting that taken care of is a MUST -- the easier you are to hire, the more they'll probably like you, no?

Lastly, reach out to people on Linkedin and BUILD a RELATIONSHIP. I found that when I started actually making friends with these guys things became much more natural and an advice giver ultimately became a pusher.

This being said, I've yet to get any offers but I've been invited to a decent amount of interviews. Don't let things get down and just keep pushing!

If you want a good gig, you will have to delay graduation. But make use of the time. Start the Kellogg certificate, an economics minor, and a finance internship before you go back into summer analyst recruiting.

Btw, this only confirms what I said in another thread -- economics = engineering when it comes to IB recruiting. You don't get cut slack just for being an engineering major. In fact, in some cases, there is bias against the engineering majors because they often tend to be less social than business and liberal arts majors.

Also, Gekkothegreat, fantastic post. +1

Don't really have anything to add but feel your pain. 3.5 econ at ivy and dinged everywhere save for one PWM interview.

It really comes down to relevant work experience as my friends who have had finance related internships did pretty well

Lack of connections is not your problem (well, it's a problem but not the most glaring one). Stop blaming it on that. You just made poor choices if your goal was Finance. Your profile definitely does not demonstrate an interest in that career path.

This is your problem. Like someone else pointed out, you're studying a hard science, unrelated to Finance, at one of the top Universities known for cranking out hard science academics. Your opportunity to demonstrate a real interest in a Finance career despite the educational track (the internship) was wasted on something unrelated to Finance. Seriously, what did you expect? You have only yourself and your choices to blame; don't pin it on some nebulous elitist frat boy network that you've made up in your head.

First some background: international, graduated in 2010, 3.6 GPA finance major, good student org involvement, relevant summer internship experience in home country, 0 in the US, networked hard, 100 job applications sent out from January to September of senior year, had a month left to stay in the US, clinched an internship with a mm ib boutique, worked my ass off, got hired full-time 6 months later and also got sponsored for a Visa. To say it can't be done ... would be a false statement!

Take-aways for you, OP: 3.7 hard sciences GPA means jack shit today, as the frat-bro you know clearly illustrated (I'm a frat bro myself), networking is a lot more important than you initially thought, and it's not too late to start doing it right (LinkedIn, career fairs, info sessions, trips on your own dime to NYC or wherever you have contacts, alumni, etc) Have a story to tell, that is concise, unique (which it is, bc you have an international background and experience), and that clearly demonstrates why you want to go into IB, consulting, corp. fin., etc. You have exactly 3 months of school left, assuming you're a senior, +3 mos for OPT, that's roughly 6 months... if you start applying in a non-traditional off-cycle way in May + networking your balls off, following-up with calls and emails consistently and diligently, you'll be much better positioned for an interview and offer. Don't give up and definitely don't surrender until they put your ass on a plane and send you back home! Good luck, have fun.

Did you follow up after the resume drop and specifically say "Thanks for speaking with me. I'm very interested in your firm, so is there anything I can do at this point to better position myself for an interview?"

That's their cue to ask for your resume, which they push through to HR with a referral.

Internship recruiting season is far from over. He doesn''t have to delay graduation, but he does need to land an internship in *some* area of finance. Combine that with some hardcore networking and I'm sure he'll be able to at least get some interviews when FT recruiting comes around.

I agree with your assessment that he goes to NW though. I don't know how the internship/OCR process works there, but at UChicago, most internships are covered by the Metcalf program (i.e. subsidized by the University), so internationals have fewer barriers in place with regard to landing an internship in the US.

EDIT: I've been assuming OP is applying for SA. Are you doing SA or FT recruiting, OP?

^^ FT recruiting sucks at even Harvard. If you luck out on SA, you'll have extremely limited options.

For consulting, I believe it's the opposite. FT is a bit easier than SA. I might be wrong though.

One of the guys who received a final round for MS sophomore program has a sub-3.5 and previous internship in a research assistant role. There's a fair amount of luck involved.

if you strike out at IBD and top consulting, what would you do after college? MSF? law school? or work in other random jobs?

for me - I totally struck out at IBD recruiting, but managed to get few offers in boutique consulting. a lot of people i know who graduated last year are still unemployed, though.

Applied to S&T at BB's and other places like RBS, RBC, BNP, etc. got dinged everywhere. Did IBD at the boutiques like Evercore, Lazard, Moelis, lokey, also got dinged everywhere. Applied to consulting at places like PwC, E&Y, BCG, etc. also got dinged. Like I said I landed one PWM interview

But like I said I have no finance or consulting experience. I do have pretty decent leadership and some other good experiences but guess its just not enough. Maybe I lack focus? I put out a wide net but I guess if people are saying cover letters don't matter than probably doesn't matter.

lol @ enrique freaking out when dude said in his first post that experience is what fucked him. no one without internships is going to get a job in this economy; even ivy league dudes. i don't see what's so hard to understand about that.

agreed

it's usually analysts, not 'hiring managers', that screen resume and decide who will get interviews.

Buddy you probably got fucked because you're international. Your best bet was to shoot for foreign banks.