Career advice without any experiances

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schoikim

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I was stupid enough to think that passing three CFA exams with a college degree would at least get me an entry level position in financial market other than retail branches. But coming from a low tier school with no experiance but cfa pass letters wont get me anything. Where do i start? I was given an advice from my collegue that i should start from teller. What do you guys think? Any advice?
 
I would look for smaller firms (<10 people), maybe a small valuation shop or something. You won’t be paid a lot at first but your options will improve if you keep working hard.
 
Thanks for you advice. I checked out couple small companies but they all require 1-2 years of experiance. I also thought about doing some interships but since I am not a student, I am not even qualified to apply. I even applied for some teller jobs but I am not getting any interviews. I am so at a dead end right now… I guess I just keep on a look out for a position and start collecting my unemployeement insurance.
 
Hey, I likely went to a smaller, lesser known school than you did and am not yet in the industry but I have to recommend that you reconsider your mentality. Ive landed a number of interviews at strong names and carried them through multiple rounds. Im not particularly talented in an interview and havent been interesting enough to convert that final round to an offer but the point is that you should be able to get in the room.
Have you talked to career services from your school? I built a local network with small shops based on conversations with professors and career services and used those leads to speak with more people in the area. I do think a small shop isnt exactly the right idea right now. Tens of thousands of experienced folks have been losing their jobs each year since the crisis and more and more students are clogging the backlog. Its expensive for a tiny place to expand by one, especially when that person requires more training than the next guy.
I am targetting niche roles at bigger firms. Try to think about teams that are no bigger than 20-50 people but at a large bank. My professional focus has been on SQL and Data Analytics so I try to focus on data oriented roles (funny that its easier to talk your way into IT with no experience than it is to get into finance with a degree in finance and level III candidacy).
Apply for positions regardless of their experience requirements. I would generally do a form resume for these since you dont want to waste too much time on them. Also, take the CFA info off your resume for a teller job. It will only scare them away.
 
Thanks for your input. I will try my school career centre for some advice but I dont think they will actually add any values to me but just give me some generic responses like go out network use social media ect… But I will still try. Man… I wish that I studied half of what I did for CFA when I was in high school.
Anyways, I never thought about data analytics untill now. I will look for them but is it just Toronto? why is job searching so difficult?
 
The number of people who answer “business” when asked what their major is makes me sick.
What do you want to study? “Business”
What did you major in? “Business”
Not helpful at all.
Starting as a bank teller sounds like a terrible idea for a college graduate. I wanted to be a bank teller once when I was a sophomore in high school.
Obviously you passed Levels 2 and 3 after college - what work have you been doing since you graduated?
 
You should probably look for a master’s program (not mba) and take the gmat/gre. On campus recruitment is where it’s at. I know kids with little to no experience but good gmat who got into master’s programs and have since landed investment banking/equity research jobs after graduation.
 
Cory688 wrote:
The number of people who answer “business” when asked what their major is makes me sick.
What do you want to study? “Business”
What did you major in? “Business”
Click to expand...
Knowing a little bit of everything is equal to knowing nothing.
general business is Useless.
 
isn’t that what CFA is, you know a little bit of everything but not enough to be an expert in anything.
 
it was just a general business degree. We did a little bit of everything: marketing, hr, finance, accounting, etc…
I dont know about the other schools but mine didnt offer any specializations. So you just graduate with a bcomm degree without any specializations. But I would say I majored in finance. Sorry about the confusion.
so after the college, I went on lots of trips, took CFA and completed couple classes for CPA. I wouldnt say that I wasted two years but rather was very productive. but, I can see that from hr’s perspective, since i didnt work for two years, no matter what I was doing, I wasnt being so productive.
I agree with you that I am overqualified for a teller job but I just might have to if I dont find a job by this year.
 
I completely agree with you. I know that some of my colleagues without any experiences went to some mediocre grad school and got into rotational programs and now making some decent money. But, MBA or Mfin is my long term goal and I want to aim for the top tier schools. Your point is 100% valid and probably one of the best options to think about but I want to keep my hopes on well known schools for now.
 
I think it will be extremely difficult to move to other areas once you take a bank teller job, there are many great one year grad programs out there, choose one that offers some kind of scholarship, work hard and find an entry level finance job then apply to MBA a few years down the line. This way you can always explain away the two years that you were not working as a soul searching process.
 
klaudnine wrote:
isn’t that what CFA is, you know a little bit of everything but not enough to be an expert in anything.
Click to expand...
it’s specific enough for it’s purpose. The curriculum obviosuly can’t cover just 1 topic in super deep detail now can it?
Your argument is moot, because someone who got a masters in say biology may be criticized by someone who has a PhD in biology as saying the masters degree is “too general”
 
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