Love to be in finance but which part of finance?

@Bchad: I agree and disagree. I agree in that you need to have some long bs story about how you always wanted to analze distressed fixed income products as employer do weed out applicants that do not have a specific job target. But I disagree that the employer is concerned about whether the candidate has an interest in the field. I truly think that the reason people demand such a specific target in a field so broad is to inflate the hiring manager’s ego. He/She wants to reinforce their own notion that what they do for a living is special and unique.
Someone with no experience should only be able to narrow down the question of what do you want to do in finance to “something in sales” or “something analytic.”
 
Idk, I do this stuff because I think it’s intrinsically interesting and I’m good at it as it perfectly fits my personality and skill set. Not just money, I could have gone into medicine or something which would have also paid well.
 
LB….idk, but interest in the subject is problably a top 3 requirement for me…..if you’re not interested,you’re not going to go that extra mile…i rank hard working, interest, experience over intelligence
Palantir, you couldn’t have gone into medicine…who you fooling? might as well say you could have been a male model or a porno actor….
 
Well, I enjoy the “intellectual challenge” also. However, this characteristic is not intrinsic to finance only. I could have gone to graduate school and experienced even greater intellectual challenge. The difference is that graduate students are poor. Finance pays well, and it pays well now (as opposed to something like medicine, where you will only get rich after 8 years of slave labor). So for me, money was the differentiating factor. It’s not the only positive thing about working in finance, but it was the relevant factor in my decision.
(Other peoples’ POVs are also valid. This is just what happened with me.)
 
I just wanted to get paid to travel around the world getting strange ass. This career facilitated that dream.
 
FrankArabia wrote:LB….idk, but interest in the subject is problably a top 3 requirement for me…..if you’re not interested,you’re not going to go that extra mile.
I totally agree with this. Stellar test scores, GPA and a top school doesn’t mean crap unless you show you are passionate about finance.
 
Hmm. I would avoid generalizations like that. What if you are not passionate about finance itself, but are passionate about the things that result from financial success? Wouldn’t this also provide motivation to succeed? Interest in any field, like true love, can be faked for prolonged periods of time. Who is to say that successful finance people don’t go through the required motions year after year, primarily because they want the big check at the end of the year?
Take Serena Williams as an analogy. Recently, she admitted that she “doesn’t actually like tennis all that much”. So, how did she become one of the best female tennis players in the world? Simple: she likes winning. In other words, she likes a derivative of success in tennis, not the game itself. Who is to say that there are no Serena Williams’ of finance? That is, people who are not passionate about “the game”, but are addicted to money, prestige, and the feeling of beating their peers?
 
ohai wrote:Hmm.
Take Serena Williams as an analogy. Recently, she admitted that she “doesn’t actually like tennis all that much”. So, how did she become one of the best female tennis players in the world? Simple: she likes winning. In other words, she likes a derivative of success in tennis, not the game itself. Who is to say that there are no Serena Williams’ of finance? That is, people who are not passionate about “the game”, but are addicted to money, prestige, and the feeling of beating their peers?
Highly questionable she meant it. It seemed more of an “I’m this good, and I don’t even care”. Too cool for school!
 
FrankArabia wrote:
Palantir, you couldn’t have gone into medicine…who you fooling? might as well say you could have been a male model or a porno actor….
Have you seen the hot classy babes in med school!?
 
Palantir wrote:Highly questionable she meant it. It seemed more of an “I’m this good, and I don’t even care”. Too cool for school!
I think she was actually sincere. However, even if she was acting cool (which is definitely possible), it’s not hard to find other examples. All you have to do is walk into a random bulge bracket IBD office and bear witness to all the greased up people with pink ties. Are you telling me that these clowns are in investment banking for the intellectual challenge? Is it mentally stimulating to stay late in the office because your MD is filling out expense reports? No! They are here for the money and social status. And yet, they are paid hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of dollars a year. To me, that constitutes “success” in finance, even if the people are motivated by materialistic reasons.
 
^ but I can immediately counter that with the lazy argument. If you want to put on a show and lie to me about how motivated and passionate you are about finance, then make an effort to show it. What does that tell me if you won’t even make a fake effort ??
ha ha!
 
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