You’ve seen the news articles about people making millions from investing and thought ‘ah that’s a bit of me’. Well, news flash! You can make this mystical thing called ‘Investing’ into a long and lucrative career.
A career investing usually means you’ll be looking for an investment analyst/banker role. First, you need to find firms that offer the job you’re looking for. Then, apply to the jobs you’re suited for i.e. school leaver/graduate/experienced hire. Write yourself a killer CV and make your way through their recruitment process.
Want to learn more about how you can start taking steps to getting yourself into the career path of an investor? Let’s break down each step and see what’s what.
Joining an investment bank
What is an investment bank?
An investment bank is a fancy term used for a company that manages client money and invests it on their behalf.
These investment banks often have tens to hundreds of millions of client funds at their disposal and have crack-shot teams of investors who do the leg work. They also provide other services alongside investment management but obviously, we aren’t interested in those.
This is where the opportunity lies for you – you could be one of these investors! It’s not all fast cars and nice food though. Being an investment analyst/banker involves long hours of preparing pitches, market research and cold calling (you need to entice new clients somehow right?).
Finding an investment bank
This is probably the easiest part of the whole process – you can simply just google ‘Investment jobs’. For me, the 4th result is ‘UK 300 | top investment banking and investment employers’… sounds promising?
The top 3 are very well known companies – JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Barclays. If you’re wondering why a popular highstreet bank is on our list… you know what they do with all of our money right? Invest it!
What jobs should you apply for?
Now this is ultimately going to come down to you and your experience. Have you dabbled in investment at a lower level before? You may be able to slide into a job under the ‘Experienced Hires’ section.
Just reading about this as a teenager? Maybe take a look at some School Leaver programmes! Or maybe you’re fresh out of university and looking for that first investing job – Graduate schemes are where you want to be looking.
Writing your CV/Resume
The most important part of the process (debatably over the interview) is preparing a killer CV so you can secure as many interviews as possible. Personally, this is more important than the interviews themselves as without a good CV, you’ll get zero.
I’ll write a more in-depth article on how to write the best CV but here are a few pointers.
Covering Letter
Absolutely vital and missed by most candidates. You want to keep it to one A4 page and tailor it to the company you’re applying to specifically.
I like to keep the first paragraph about what you’ve achieved – say you achieved X degree at Y university and finish it off with ‘which is why I feel I’m suited to this role at [Insert company name you’re applying to]’.
In the second paragraph, mention why you feel you’re well suited to the job – call on some past experience! This will give the reader a bit more context to what they’re reading on your CV.
For the final paragraph, round up with the reason you’re looking for a job in investing – this is a common question they ask in interviews so it’s great to show your intent at this stage of the process.
CV/Resume
Now for the good stuff – the actual CV itself! You’ll want to begin with your Education & Qualifications – keep the font readable but not so it takes up too much space. Bold it too!
Bullet point as much as you can – this is a tip I took from my time working with recruiters whilst climbing the ranks in the Accountancy world. It improves the overall readability of the CV and therefore your chances of getting noticed.
Next, you want to move onto your Relevant Employment Experience – I like to underline my each company name, dates worked then my roles and responsibilities underneath. Something like this:
Relevant Employment Experience
XYZ Limited, September 20 – Present
Trainee worm catcher
- Responsibility 1
- Responsibility 2, etc..
Single line spacing also keeps it nice to read – if I’m reviewing CVs and I’ve got a CV that is one block of pure writing… Do you think I’m going to read it all? Definitely not…
Next, give a few lines on your Hobbies & Interests – after all, you’re a human and no-one wants to go for a drink after work with a robot! It also lets you demonstrate what you’re like working in groups (if you have a hobby that is a team sport).
Finally – mention some key skills. Doesn’t have to be anything too fancy or elaborate – just a few bullet points that help give a sense of what you’re good at.
Nailing the interview
Now you’ve produced the best CV of your life, applied for a few jobs and had an offer for an interview – now you’ve got just to smash the interview and you’re home clear!
Most big companies have thousands of applicants for each role so they put you through a rigorous vetting process to wean these numbers down – obviously the CV application stage is going to do most of that but the normal structure is an initial interview, an assessment day then a final interview.
Initial interview
This interview is usually competency based and is used to get a feel for what you’re like as a person as well as if you’d be a good fit with the business’ vision.
A nice hack I like to use is to explore the company website and see what their core competencies are – I then prepare examples ahead of time on how I demonstrate these competencies.
Interviewers LOVE this as it shows you’ve done your research and also get to see how you would be a great fit for the company without having to dig with questions.
You can find competencies for most companies – especially the bigger one! In the event you can’t find competencies, scour over the job specification you applied to – there will be a few hints on what they value in a candidate so aim for those.
Assessment day
I have done a fair few of these in my School Leaver days – mainly with top Accountancy companies rather than investment banks. Assessment days can be fun but also quite intimidating… you’ll often meet other candidates that you’re up against for the role.
There is a nice sense of ‘we’re all in this together’ usually but sometimes you get the odd ‘me against you’ person but they’re never usually a good fit for the company so don’t get too far.
The tests are usually a logic test – you know, if I put a square into a machine and it turns it into a triangle, what would come out if I put a pentagon in… that sort of thing.
Other tests are specific to the firm and what they value – for Smith & Williamson, I had to write a letter to an upset client explaining why we did what we did and the way to move forward. With PwC, they gave us a booklet of scenarios to test our email inbox management – you get the idea!
Final interview
For the final interview – this is where you just need to chill out. After this point, the job offer usually comes and you’ve made it, this is your last hurdle.
The interview is usually conducted by a partner or senior director of the firm – likely head of the department in which your team is situated so all of your work will eventually be seen by them in one form or another.
It’s SO KEY to remember, you’ve passed the initial/competency test and assessment day – they know you’re smart and would do well in the company. The partner wants to know whether you’d be a cultural fit.
What is a cultural fit? Well, it’s whether they’d want to have a beer with you essentially… not literally but in that sort of way. If you go for a young and vibrant office, everyone dresses down and wears jeans that don’t reach their ankles – you will want to give off that same sort of ‘vibe’ – if that makes sense?
With the bigger corporate jobs, you obviously want to have an heir of professionalism about you but you also need to show you’re a human. Have a sense of humour and laugh at their jokes – at the end of the day, the partner is a human too and no one wants to work with a mindless robot.