Life one year later

I am writing this almost a year later and it's so much related to the last post. I had mentioned in the last post about my MBA essay dilemma, and right now I am interning at a boutique investment bank in San Francisco. It's been a rough ride so far. Things were not easy. I joined USC Marshall School of business in August 2009. I was determined to go into investment management. I had no doubts about it, but my confidence definitely wavered during some of those tough moments. The economy has not shown enough signs of improvement and as I am writing this post, there is a murmur of double dip recession.

So, talking about this journey of making my transition into financial services field. I have a stereotypical Indian software engineering background in technology(will need another post to explain the reason) with a top MNC. However, I had realized that this was not the path I wanted to get into. At school, I started off by talking to several second-years who were in the middle of storm. They were helpful and had good advice. But, there was a word of caution everywhere. I started off with informational interviews around October. The pace picked a little with talking to more alums. However, as spring approached, I was not getting much traction. In my opinion, the primary reason was that my resume was too technical and there was nothing on it to show my financial knowledge. I had few interviews for corporate finance positions. By the end of March, it started affecting my nerves. I was not sure what I was going to do for the summer. However, I was still talking to lot of alums. I had my stock pitch, investment thesis and stuff to talk about. But, it was not leading me anywhere. I spoke to a friend of mine, who had secured an internship with a shop in LA and was the president of AFA for next year. He walked me through his approach for contacting employers and making contacts. I realized that I was so much off-track. I had been pursuing things in a haphazard manner. It was already end of April. I had 3 weeks before finals and heading to China.

I started off on a fresh note and started blasting emails to senior executives at all the financial firms in California. It was time consuming and tiring, but I received some responses and things started picking up. I landed a position with a boutique bank in Newport Beach and another one in San Francisco after I got back from China in late May. I accepted the position with San Francisco one. I will be writing my next post on my internship experiences.

Overall, it was a tough time on the career front with lots of depressing moments. However, there were few lessons learned - to be aggressive, make good contacts, approach the process with a very structured process and above all, don't lose HOPE.