Which industry in investment banking should I go into to guarantee me a position as an investment banker...?

Question

Which industry in invesment banking should I go into to guarantee me a position as an invesment banker right after Grad school?

Thanks in advance!!

Answer 1

It doesn't matter. There are simply no guarantees in investment banking. Investment banks hire only if they feel they need to, and only from schools they like. One of these variables (the school) is within your control; ask admission officers if investment banks hire a lot of graduates. The other (hiring needs) is completely outside your control; it's entirely possible you graduate just when most investment banks put in place hiring freezes. (This actually happened to a friend of mine; the first and only job offer he got came in almost a year after graduation.)

As to what you did before you enrolled in the graduate school, investment banks generally could not care less. An important exception is derivatives groups; they usually like to hire people who have either prior derivatives pricing experience or a track record in any advanced quantitative science (theoretical physics, computational math, econometrics, quantitative biology, etc.)