Hey guys, I very recently finished my undergrad, and have a commercial banking and corporate banking offer respectively that I’m trying to choose between in Toronto. Both are at different big 5 Canadian banks

I’m honestly leaning towards the commercial offer. It will pay quite a lot less (I’d estimate roughly ~80k TC vs ~120k TC first year), however I’d probably be averaging 40hrs a week vs 60 in corp banking. This is huge for me. I really value my free time and life outside work. I also don’t have a big desire for anything ‘extravagant’ that you’d need more $ for. (The crux of this though is kids are expensive)

There are two things catching me up though:

1. A 40k delta which is invested and compounded at ~10%/yr can be a pretty large difference over the long run
2. The people going into corp banking vs commercial out of grad generally are stronger applicants. Kind of feel like i’m selling myself short by taking the less "prestigious" offer

Not sure how long I’d be able to last though running 60 hour weeks over a long period of time. I feel like jumping right into commercial is the smarter move vs doing corporate for a year or two, likely hating the work life balance, and then swapping to something more chill anyways.

Would really appreciate any comments or thoughts

pulled straight from firms' own career pages, not linkedin:

https://github.com/mehek-builds/Hiring-Now/blob/main/lists/finance-internships.md

- 264 internships at 195 firms: Raymond James, Piper Sandler, TIAA, MFS, Fifth Third, TD Bank, the Federal Reserve, RSM, Plante Moran, Guardian Life and more

- 124 accounting, plus corporate finance, FP&A, IB and quant

- 58 posted in the last week; 70 at employers with a visa sponsorship record

rebuilt every monday.

comment which area you're looking for (IB, accounting, quant, corporate finance) and i'll send you a list for it.

Got the contract (no offer letter first, standard for banks). Now what do I do? “I think x would be more reflective of my experience and value in the market. Would that be possible?” Are they even capable of making changes at this stage given they’ve already made the contract likely had to go through a process of approvals to do so?

Hello I’ve posted here in the past regarding breaking into commercial credit. I’ve been trying to break in since graduating with bachelors in finance two years ago. I worked full time (most times 60 hr weeks) during college so no previous internship experience. Opted to get an into retail and eventually a licensed development program which I am now with a BB. Any advice outside of the usual internal stuff?

I'm a sophomore econ major at Columbia recruiting for investment banking. My GPA is a 3.64 (after this semester it should be around a 3.75) and I had a freshman-summer internship at a boutique PE firm.

I have made moderate efforts towards recruiting. I have sent ~25 cold emails to alumni at banks asking for coffee chats and gone 0/25. I have gone to some on-campus recruiting/networking sessions but nothing has come from them. I can massively scale up my efforts now, personal struggle has made me put this on the backburner through September-early October.

I essentially want to know a) how cooked I am, and b) what I can do, if anything, to turn this around.

So far in my time I've seen that successful people in the industry are usually already in wealthy families and well-adjusted backgrounds mentally. I'm someone who grew up poor and more humbler household compared to my colleagues who are kids of doctors, lawyers, and successful businessmen.

I'm also a first generation immigrant. I don't even have a car because in this country I'm in, car expenses can add up to over a thousand dollars and I'm just earning 75k annually. I net a little under 2k. I don't know how to play golf, I don't know anything about expensive watches, and I have no knowledge about cars. I can speak english and no other language

I feel left out and inadequate. I feel like I'm a fraud masquerading around clients and colleagues who are millionaires. I seem to have lost the confidence and fire that I thought I had coming into this position that I'm in for a year now.

Is there hope for people with my situation? I just stumbled into this position starting as a teller 5 years ago and just kept working my way up through hard work but I may have already hit a ceiling. I just need some guidance or support because I don't know who to ask for help since it's cutthroat in my role now and I feel hopeless.

I joined a startup straight out of school as one of the first few employees. They gave me a lot of room to experiment, so I took whatever got thrown at me and said yes to every assignment, whether it was engineering, financial research, business development, product or marketing.

Two years in, my CV is stretched pretty thin. I want a remote job paying in dollars, or a move abroad with visa sponsorship, but I think this CV hurts me there. Companies seem to like someone like me, but HR screeners want a specialist.

Honestly I have no clue which path to follow. I passed CFA Level I this year and sit Level II in May 2027, so I could go all in on financial analyst roles. I could also go for AI product manager, or AI implementation and adoption lead, since I’m very comfortable building with AI. Product marketing is on the table too because copywriting comes naturally to me.

If your goal was remote dollar income or a sponsored move abroad, which one would you pick?

I attempted for the HSBC on demand interview and got error and couldnt submit the recordings. The timeline is up too

I raised ticket on hirevue portal and have emailed the recruiter regarding the same

Will I get the link again

Have anyone faced similar issue

What can I do

Please assist

23, currently switching "careers". Finishing master's in International Business and started a second master's in Finance and Accounting (purely for knowledge, my uni is great and I have a weekend study program). I wanted to get more into politics initially but now heading towards the purely financial sector. Focusing on getting relevant knowledge and an international certificate that my uni course gives after completing (ACCA). Last year I got an internship in a bank in a random department (trade finance) and took it just because there were no other options. Finishing it in december so I look for a job and applied to tons of internships. They say they want beginners but my lack of financial skills resulted in getting no responses even via e-mail. But I got one offer - in supply chain in a very big company. Related to int. business so my first major but I don't know if I should accept it. I don't want to collect another irrelevant experience in my CV. I'm 23 and my CV still doesn't show a particular path, it's just a mix of random jobs. On the other hand maybe some experience is better than none. I just wonder if it will benefit me when I finally would be able to apply to my desired audit or advisory positions. What would you do? For context I can afford being unemployed for a while.

i attend a top ivy target and study economics, graduating in 2028. I have been recruiting for roles seriously since about may and have had no success in getting one. I can never get an interview to move to an offer. I am networking and am doing everything I am supposed to. Resume has no finance experience but a lot of economic policy and quantitative research. People at my school regularly get finance internships without experience. I have been rejected everywhere across consulting, banking, and other roles and it has been so hard for me. I have recieved a total of two interviews at some of the most selective firms: an EB and a top proprietary trading firm. I've been rejected after the first round twice. I am applying to more roles that are all located in my school's city and am not getting anything past OA's. This is weighing heavily on my mental health.

I have thought a bit about my interview experiences and I did struggle in my interview at the trading firm so I am not surprised they rejected me. However, I answered every question correctly for my interview w the EB but did have some delivery issues (messing up words and asking to repeat questions with several parts). It was not a typical role and my resume was unusually aligned to the role. I am trying to get feedback from the EB since the trading firm doesn't give feedback and fix my errors. I am absolutely freaking out and am trying to get a role for summer 2027. Managing recruiting while taking a full course load and facing repeated rejections is really taking a toll on my mental health..I'd really like advice on how to proceed. I just got a rejection and am so sad holy hell.

Thinking of switching into finance at 40 as a career change and becoming an advisor and eventually possibly a CFP. Anyone do this before? Whats your thoughts? Would love to hear some experience in the field. I imagine it’s something that can be done even well into age 70+ comfortably

I just started out with college and wanted to plan out whyether I should go for an MBA or a masters in management to break into IB. I will graduate with a 3 year degree, and I want to get straight into a masters degree right after (in management or finance)
for that I am eyeing the university of Mannheim for a masters in management.
How should I go about this ? I also plan on completing CFA level 1 by the second year of my undergrad
(sorry if thoughts all over the place, paragraph not structured)

Hi all, I'm an intl student who's currently a freshman in HKU. One of my biggest concerns as an international is my inability to speak either mandarin or canto, so I've been trying to practice 30 mins to 1 hour every day + tutoring 1x a week basically since I got here.

I'm from the chinese diaspora but grew up in Indonesia and my parents/grandparents never bothered to pass down the language to me apparently, but I do speak a little mandarin even before coming here and can therefore practice with my grandparents once im fluent enough with mandarin.

My biggest question is whether I should focus more on Mandarin or Cantonese. I know speaking both is ideal but trying to learn mandarin alone is already a struggle, so I'm trying to allocate my time as best as possible. From speaking with alumn, they said there are different coverage teams not covering mainland and I could lean into my Indonesian fluency/background to try and cover SEA teams, whereas speaking canto would be a huge plus for my future boss and the interview process for "fit". However, from what I could gather online, these are pretty rare and most of HK banking is still centered around mainland

So, for someone aspiring to break into front office IB which one should I focus on? Also for other roles in finance if i ever change my mind about IB (e.g. pb/am/s&t/banking more broadly)

Any advice/input is appreciated, TIA!

Hello, that's one of the hot topic these days at my company. I work for an asset manager (that only does active management) and we get a ton of side lettres every year. We are working on a solution to try and automate as much of the reports as possible but I dont really see that working, we would need to create code for all the différent types.

So im curious, how do they do it in other compagnies ? Did you manage to automate this process or is it all manual labor ?

My title is missing a word. I meant should I work at an MLM only to get my licenses sponsored to strengthen my resume for an eventual career in WM or FP

Should I just get a “financial advisor” job at northwstrn mutual or transamrica ? (Typos on purpose to not trigger spam filter)

I have a degree from CFP registered program bachelors in financial planning. Taking my SIE in two days. Associates in economics. I’m wholly devoted to the wealth management career path and progression. I do have several years of full time admin, sales, and customer service experience as well.

Yet, I cannot break in to any RIA’s. I’m not interested in corporate finance. I want my CFP and am self studying the series 65.

I know that if you work for MLM insurance companies they will sponsor your licenses.

Has anybody done this?

I’m just desperate and want to do anything I can to strengthen my resume to eventually get into wealth management.

It sucks because I’ve seen the eventual hires for some of the positions I was absolutely in the dot qualified for, getting awarded to people with degrees in communications with nothing but restaurant experience etc. and it’s clearly some kind of hire who got in thru a family connection or something.

But what can I do, gotta keep trying and making myself a more attractive candidate.

Hi guys/girls,

Does anyone want to hit up a cafe this weekend in the LES/Downtown Brooklyn to study for their FINRA exams? I get too distracted at home....

When I was an analyst some years ago. My work had a lot of ground work that I really didn't enjoy that much, e.g. pull data table from pdfs, clean data from messy reports send by the portfolio companies, create v51 for scenario analysis, etc. I feel like a lot of these work could be done by AI agent now (especially this year since Claude's breakthrough with Opus 4.6). But for complex xls modeling, it still feels like it's not there yet.

How do you guys use AI in your daily work?

As per the title, what are people's actual thoughts of Analysis Group or Cornerstone in economic consulting, both as a company/the work they do and the prestige? And how does it serve as a stepping stone for MBB if at all? What would be better to get to MBB if you can't get in right after school?

Currently an associate at a big bank in Wealth Management. I have a great team and total comp is around $135k a year in SoCal. Been with this team for 5 years and have promises of becoming an advisor and partnering but nothing in writing. Really respect my boss but I’m turning 28 and feel a bit behind as I want to move forward, not stay as an associate.

An RIA I interviewed at a few years ago has grown exponentially and reached out randomly asking me if I was interested in an associate advisor position. RIA is up in the Bay Area. I took the call with their director of operations and they’re heavily recruiting me since they remembered me and I came to mind. Was told they would match my comp and add 10% as well. Their associate advisor position would be me being partnered with one of their big producers, learn the ropes for a year or two, and then either become his/her partner or go on my own with a book of business set up. Their program seems great as they handle everything themselves and make sure to really train the newbies. While I’m in the program I would make a set amount via W2 with bonuses. They’re going to fly me out to meet the team.

Heavily considering this as I don’t want to sit as just an associate handling operational things and trading. Obviously, I’d need to move. Boss has treated me really well these past 5 years so part of me feels bad if I do this since he relies on me so much for our practice. However, I want to focus on my career growth too.

Anyone go through something similar? Any advice appreciated.

I graduated this July with a First in Finance and Accounting from a mid-tier Russell Group university. Tried to break into the UK market but it's rough as an international student. I decided to focus on finding something in my home country and managed to land an interview for an indirect tax role at a big 4 supporting the UK member firm.

Received an offer yesterday and the pay is horrendous. I'm still conflicted between accepting or not. I'm fortunate enough that money isn't a big factor but it's still hard to justify such a low salary given the shift timings and commute. I want to eventually end up pivoting into an M&A adjacent role with the goal of entering IB after an MBA. I already have another tax role on my resume and really don't want to get stuck in an industry where I don't find the work engaging. I'm still open to audit roles since they're at least more relevant to where I want to end up. At the same time, I don't want to sit idle at home and waste time. I've been building my own financial models for the last month but it's really not the same as real work. I want the structure of a job, which is another reason why I'm considering accepting.

Would you rather accept the offer or wait? How realistic would a transition be from indirect tax into transaction services/valuations? I also don't want to appear as a tax person to M&A recruiters and MBA admissions officers. At the same time, if I were to reject, how would you plan the next 2-3 months? I've been applying through portals, been busy with networking and have been emailing boutiques as well.

Would really appreciate advice from anyone who's been in a similar spot. Thanks :)

Hi all, I’m looking to do my masters next year and I wouldn’t be eligible for LSE MSc Finance but is the Accounting and Finance course seen as just as or similarly prestigious to the MSc Finance to land those roles at a bb / eb etc?

My girlfriend is Hungarian and lives in Hungary and I really want to build a life with her but she has to finish her law school and work for a few years for the degree to not go to waste so she can have a job in the future as a lawyer.
I live in Portugal and I have to decide between Nova, Catolica (which are in Portugal) or Corvinus in Budapest for my masters in finance.
Now if I stick to the rankings alone Crovinus is not even close to Nova and Catolica.
And I already work at BNPP as a KYC analyst which isn’t exactly what I want but I just wanted to get into the bank and without a bachelors degree of course I shouldn’t expect differently.
I am finishing my bachelor’s degree next year and I need to make a choice.
Am I correct to assume that having a degree from the Portuguese universities is like drastically better than from Corvinus?
I want to get into IB then PE, the usual path.
And I don’t want to waste years but at the same time I don’t want to lose my girlfriend.
Is it still possible to make it and become successful as a Corvinus degree holder?
And how would that compare to a Portuguese university degree?

Truist changed their Premier Bankers to Premier Advisors that require 7/66. Does anyone know the structure of this role for FL/GA area? Is it branch based/hybrid/salary range/bonus&incentive expectation? Any information would help.