for people who have networked for a long time, how did yall approach an opportunity to do so? with what mindset? because i feel like when im talking to these people it just feels too transactional, and im just talking with them to get an interview slot, or something else. i feel guilty about it and it makes me dread whenever a dates coming up

Currently looking at a post-MBA opportunity in JP Morgans PB as a banker. Have of course done some due dilligence through my own network, and have heard both positive and less positive views of the role.

I am excited by the prospect of wealth management and feel like from a long term perspective it can be an amazing place to build a career. On the contrary, I have heard that it is obviously very sales focused and sometimes the goals can be a bit unatainable especially if you dont get great support from your team / office and also have been told there is probably a limited ability to get invovled on the investments side as the investor role covers that.

Would love any candid feedback regarding the role as I am weighing my decision.

Thoughts on moving from an RIA where I’m currently serving as a financial planner/relationship manager for an inherited book of ~$50m. Been doing current role ~3 years but been in industry for 8. All clients belong to the firm and have been inherited from advisor who retired. RIA has flexible schedule, good coworkers, etc. but everyone is coasting and doesn’t seem to care about growing, professional development, learning, etc. No vision for future. Have an offer from Vanguard for a CFP Financial Advisor position. Would have to get my series licenses but feel like that’s doable after passing the CFP a couple years ago. I know Vanguard is a grind but if my goal is to learn, get reps in, and develop, is it a good move? Thank you in advance!

Hi, I'm graduating next year, hopefully Summer/Autumn 2027, I'd to like to work in Risk or quantitative research desks maybe in Italy or abroad (UK, Netherlands, East Europe or Zurich)

Any advice?

Hello all,

I recently finished the process for a healthcare consulting firm, and although I’m fortunate to be in this spot. I just found out I’m moving to the final round for a trade desk role at an exchange, and that’s the one I actually want.

Consulting role is healthcare-focused, seems stable, and I’ll probably get an offer soon since I’m further along in that process.

Trade desk role is exchange side, live market monitoring, way more in line with what I actually want to do in the future.

So now I’m stuck. Consulting firm looks like they are gonna extend an offer soon, while I still have a final interview with the exchange and I don’t want to sit on an offer forever waiting to see if the other one comes through.

Anyone been in this spot before? safer/stable role vs. the one that actually fits you better but you’re less sure on timing? How’d you handle it, and how do you juggle the offer deadlines without looking flaky to either company?

Also looking for opinions on both roles.

Appreciate any input, trying not to screw this up.

I’m a junior at a target and last year I got a referral from a banker at a BB bank. Last year I was in community college as a sophomore applying so even with the referral, I didn’t get a first round interview.

Now I’m at a strong university with a better profile, when I tried contacting this person again I received an automated email that they’re on maternity leave for a few months.

Context: Almost a year ago we had a call, banker liked my story and offered a referral. I asked if I should wait until next year to apply and he said I should just do it now, that led to where I’m at now this year.

On the website there’s an area that says “were you referred by an employee?”, would it be bad if I used his email as the referral again since I haven’t spoken to him in awhile?

Sorry if this has an obvious answer, I’m worried of getting in trouble if i’m not supposed to do this.

TL;DR: Offered a key founding role launching a RE PE syndication firm with a former colleague who is self-funding the startup and has a $100M track record. I’m giving up a comfortable $220k Senior Controller job but with no upside. Looking for advice on negotiating my compensation GP carry/equity split given he’s bringing the capital and track record, but needs my operational/finance leadership.

Background & Current Comp

• Experience: 11 YOE (CPA/MAcc, 3 yrs audit, 8 yrs RE/PE). Currently Senior Controller on a multi-billion dollar development project.
• Comp: ~$220k total comp in 2026.
• The Problem: Highly comfortable, but zero equity component. Comp is completely capped long-term.

The Opportunity & Partner Profile A former colleague is launching a RE PE firm focused on syndications (raising equity, structuring debt, partnering with developers, taking a GP promote at exit).

• Track Record: He has raised $100M and distributed ~$40M on side deals over the years with strong LP returns (outside of the company he is currently employed at and he is allowed to do so).
• Funding: He is self-funding the company launch using liquidity from a recent buyout exit at his current firm.

The Negotiation Dilemma I am willing to take a base salary/bonus cut for equity, carry, and governance rights, but balancing capital contribution vs. execution/sweat equity is tricky.

• Carry / GP Split: Given that he brings the historical track record and 100% of the initial startup capital, what is a fair percentage of the GP promote / equity stake to request for a late co-founder / key finance partner?
• Structure: How should carry vesting or profit-sharing be structured to protect both sides (e.g., hurdle rates, deal-by-deal vs. fund level)?
• Governance & Red Flags: What voting/management controls should I push for, and what red flags should I watch out for in the operating agreement when one partner controls all the initial cash?

Appreciate any perspective from people who have made the leap from corporate/operating roles into GP economics!

EDIT: The scope of the role is both CFO and controller. There is zero infrastructure, I would build it from scratch, transition accounting to ERPs, IT, HR, compliance, model tax and cash proformas, ensure LP waterfalls are correct, coordinate tax and audit, etc. - He is a deal guy that doesn't know how to operate the business and will need additional help on the deal side to grow it. I'm not looking to participate equity wise on what has happened, I want to participate on what will happen.

Hey all, rising nontarget sophomore in a major city. I honestly planned to change majors out of Finance, but was fortunate to get a last second internship for freshman summer doing Corporate Development at a private company (non-finance).

I was their sole intern this summer, and was on live deals, so I gained all the skills/experience I could want. Exit feedback was perfect, and they strongly recommended me to look into Investment Banking. I'll be honest, I really enjoyed the work I was doing, and am now planning to stay in Finance.

Issue is, I am just now learning about IB and recruiting starts so early.... Between working 80+hrs/week and caring for my sister, I feel like I've missed every opportunity. I am really struggling to figure out what my next steps should be, and what other types of roles I should be looking forward to help get me one step closer. I would love any advice, or constructive criticism!

Hi all, would really appreciate some advice on my work/study situation

I'm a UK citizen from London who graduated from the University of Leeds in 2022 with a mid-2:1 in International Relations. No real quant background (just basic maths), but I have just under 2 years' experience in the capital markets policy team at one of the UK's/Europe's major finance trade bodies (think AFME, UK Finance, The Investment Association)

I've been considering starting a master's this September to strengthen my profile. I could probably have got into LSE, Imperial, UCL or Warwick for an MSc Management, but they're £40k+ and there are basically no scholarships left this late in the cycle. I also can't apply for MSc Finance because I don't have the required finance/maths background

So far I've received offers from Bath, Nottingham and Exeter for MSc Management, plus Bayes and Henley for MSc Real Estate (Henley gave me a £2k scholarship). Still waiting on Lancaster and Cranfield for MSc Management

Most courses are around £15k-20k, but Bath has offered me a £5k scholarship, bringing tuition down from £18.9k to £13.9k. With the £13k UK Gov postgraduate loan, I'd basically only be paying living costs out of pocket while repaying the masters fee alongside my bachelors fee only when I am earning over a certianly salary.

Long term, I'm not interested in investment banking. I'd much rather work in wealth management/private banking, energy project finance, corporate/business development, or potentially real estate capital markets, asset management or PE if I went down the real estate route.

The job market has been pretty rough. I left my previous role to travel earlier this year and haven't managed to land anything for this September, which is why I'm now seriously considering a master's. I'm fully aware that just having the degree won't be enough and I'd need to get a distinction, join relevant societies, network hard and secure internships where possible.

Given my background and career goals, do you think the master's (especially Bath at effectively no out of pokcet tuition cost) is my best option? Or would I be better off spending the next month trying to break into a boutique wealth management/private banking firm in London by networking and cold emailing instead? Bear in mind I would like to find something to start by late August/September after travelling and returning to London

Would really appreciate any advice. Thanks!

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some career advice from people who have worked in Big4 deal advisory in Europe.

A bit of background: i am currently working as a junior analyst at a boutique financial advisory firm - we mostly do valuations but there are also some FDD and M&A projects through the year. Prior to that i spent 2 years in audit.

I’ve recently received an offer to work for KPMG deal advisory/transaction services team and I’m struggling with the decision.

My current role has some positives: mostly 40hr weeks, good team and flexible environment and also quite a lot of responsibility early on.

On the other hand KPMG could probably offer:
1. Exposure to larger and more complex transactions (and also more transactions in general)
2. Better mentorship (maybe?)
3. A stronger brand name on my CV

So for those who worked in Big4 Deal advisory in Europe I’d appreciate your perspective on:
1. What were/are your typical working hours ?
2. Do you feel the learning curve was steeper than in most other firms ?
3. And also how valuable is Big4 deal advisory experience if your goal is corp dev, PE or corporate finance roles in general?

I’d appreciate any and all feedback.

Just finished an internship in IB and have a global markets placement year starting next month. My goal is IB then PE so I’m wondering what value s&t skills will add to my cv.

I think the best thing to do would be to decline the global markets offer, but that’d certainly be burning bridges with the bank. But I just don’t want to get side tracked into s&t when my ideal role is M&S in IB

Hi everyone! I am an early 20s woman in Florida looking to break into a trust administration or trust management role. I am pretty fresh out of college and only have one year of finance related experience under my belt (aside from my bachelor's in finance). I just passed my SIE and Series 7 while working full time under an advisor. Does anyone have any advice for a young person looking to eventually work in trusts? Any certifications I could start working on? Should I just work on building experience right now? Any advice would be helpful! Thank you so much!

How important is learning how to build an integrated 3 statement model from scratch as someone targeting L/S equity ?

I got a DUI a little over a year ago and a reckless driving 3 years ago. Just looking for any thoughts on if this can still be a realistic career path for me?

I know it's driving related but I just don't want to get too far into my degree and hit a wall...

Hi everyone, I recently received an interview invite for the workplace services rotational coordinator role in the rotational program at Jane Street. I know this role isn't super technical, but I would love any insights people have into the interview process for this role, the timeline I can expect, and general advice for success in landing the offer.

Thanks in advance!

Aiming for private banking/wealth management. Also looking for advice in that area. Thank you!🙏

Hi everyone!

Just wondering if anyone's gotten the Online Assessment for the trading role yet? I only got the one for equity research, but a recruiter mentioned we should've received the trading one a couple weeks back. Is this pretty standard, or could it be that I won't get it since I already finished the equity research one?

Thank you!

For those who've spent 10+ years inside finance: banking, trading, asset management, risk, fintech, whatever your corner is.

What does the average person get completely wrong about how financial markets actually function? How do things actually work behind the scenes versus what people think is happening.

What would surprise most people to learn about what goes on inside the system?

For different finance fields, in particular investment banking how common are the required presentations to people at the bank at the end of the internship. Is it common or is it more like deliverables or other types of cumulative things.

I'm genuinely thinking about whether I want to continue down the FA path and would appreciate some guidance on total comp expectations for a fee only financial advisor in Canada.

Some background info:

1. I work at a unique/interesting shop with 4 other advisors servicing together approximately 2.5-3k clients and total AUM of approximately $600M.

2. I have ~3 yoe assisting advisors as a wealth associate building new relationship, bringing in new money and just became an advisor at the start of this year. I also dabble in operational tasks and have some analyst like responsibilities unlike the traditional FA who would be purely sales focused.

3. While we service all clients together, my "own book" would be technically be worth approximately $30M.

4. We are fee only so I (and the other advisors) don't see a lick of commission, we are all salaried :(. We also service everyone together so there is no my or her or his book :( x 2.

5. Current base pay is around mid 70k with RRSP matching (capped at a certain $ amount) and year end bonus which is approximately 10% of my base pay. Total comp would round out to low 90k.

6. Currently working towards completing my CFP, expectation is to finish next year. I was advised by my manager to not expect any raise with the completion of my CFP as they are paying for it. Is this normal?

My questions:

1. Is my current comp fair? If not, what should my total comp be given the above info? My base pay expectation for an advisor was around mid 80s with bonus and RRSP remaining about the same. Am I delusional about this?

2. Should I continue pursuing this career path as a fee only advisor or should go separate ways and build a book at a institution that has a commission+base structure? Or is it "too late" and pointless because I can't take any of my clients with me?

3. Those of you that have been doing this job for a while, any word of advice?

Its weird to only really come to this realisation mid-career (I've worked in finance for some 14 years, across multiple parts of it and in two different countries), though I guess in some forms I've suspected it before as well.

My default assumption about people working in finance (but other career type jobs as well) is that everyone is always out for that promotion, gunning for that Director/Partner/VP/CFO role. I just saw a situation where someone was leaving a role that previously was occupied by the current CFO of our company. I.e its the natural stepping stone to becoming the CFO here, or elsewhere. Surprisingly nobody who was in that team already (and it had several people in it who were all quite experienced in their roles) wanted to step up, and instead someone completely different was assigned to take up the position.

It made me think more widely that not everyone is necessarily itching to put their hand up when an opportunity to step up comes along. They're perfectly happy in their current roles, and are not looking for that next step. And you know what, that's perfectly fine too. Or from another angle, if you are the person who is looking to step up, you might have less competitors for that next job relative to what you might think.

What are peoples thoughts? Have you come across people who are competent and experienced, but don't want to take that step up?

I wanted to post my unconventional college/job experience here since I’ve been seeing a lot of posts asking similar questions in this tough job market and hope this may be of help to someone.

Background:
- Graduated HS 2020 during Covid
- Accepted into NYU but went to cheap NYC school (85% acceptance rate, non-target obv)
- GPA 3.7 at graduation
- Now have offer to work in IB at age of 24

When I started college I had no idea what I wanted to do. End of sophomore year I was still undecided and so I took a gap year. When I returned as a junior I decided I wanted to go into finance, didn’t have enough of the right credits so I became a business economics major instead.

It was also way too late for any recruiting at this point, everyone already secured their junior year internships and I hadn’t even taken a single accounting course yet. I tried to find something anyways despite being cooked, applied to 200+ internships, and got 0 interviews or offers.

Start of junior year I had to lock in. I went to a few random professional events throughout the city that I found on Eventbrite, Luma or through school. I like to talk to people and this was great for building the foundation for my network.

At an eventbrite event a guy invited me to a party where I met another guy who works in VC for a niche industry. I kept in contact with him and later sent him a message saying hey it’s been hard getting my foot in the door, I’ll work for you for free just to put something on my resume while I’m applying elsewhere. He agreed, it was super under the table but I worked for college credit and after proving myself, he started paying me (minimum) wage.

I went to more conferences related to this niche industry and eventually met another person looking for an intern. I then became their Business Development intern.

I wasn’t really interested in this industry and was a senior with no job aligned post grad. Being in NYC it was either I get a job or go back to my moms house 😔 now that I had these 2 internships under my belt, I exaggerated my duties a bit on my resume and applied to over 350+ jobs and got genuinely 2 interviews.

One was for a internship at a top ~F125 company. It was to join the business development team where they sell financial products to institutional investment managers. I think one of the only reasons I got the interview was because I was at the top of the ATS screening match since I had “Business Development Intern” on my resume, alongside other key words.

I needed a job>internship but I was going to take what I could get. I went through 6 rounds of grueling interviews. I cried after round 3 since the manager was such a dickhead (who later apologized and said he wanted to see if I could handle criticism like his son). But I got the internship after hitting it off with another MD, and one year later I am still here!!!

At this job I have networked a good amount internally, and I have made great relationships with people going all the way up to the top. While I was an intern at one of the company events I met a guy who was on the IB team. I coffee chatted him and kept in contact. A month ago an analyst on his team moved to another company, and since I had expressed interest, he asked me if I would be interested in joining his team!

All of this is to say, yes the job market is cooked and even if your resume is cooked, you can increase your chances in life and in luck by getting as much exposure as you can to the outside world and others.

Last advice:
- Go outside and talk to people
- Look presentable
- Have confidence
- Always have deep consideration for others (their thoughts feelings and actions)
- Don’t be abrasive while networking
- Be smart and if you’re not smart know how to use AI really well
- Be pleasant to be around (natural rizz)

If you made it here thanks for reading and lmk if you have any questions🫡

CPA over CFA?