How to Break Into Investment Banking as an Engineer With No Finance Background: Case Study

There’s no mystery why the (newly revised – check it out!) article on How to Break Into Investment Banking as an Engineer is one of the most popular on this site, with over 100 comments: it struck a chord with many readers.

You’ve studied engineering or you’ve been an engineer for awhile, and now you want to make the move into investment banking… only you don’t have much business experience.

Here’s how one reader did exactly that and defied the odds to break into investment banking in a terrible market.

Breaking and Entering Into Investment Banking As an Accountant

“It’s tax time. I know this because I’m staring at documents that make no sense to me, no matter how many beers I drink.”

-Dave Barry

Got “stuck” in accounting or auditing and now you want to break into investment banking?

I discussed this exact topic with a reader recently – as one of the bonus consultations for the Networking Ninja Toolkit 2.0 – and covered what to do.

So here’s your step-by-step plan:

Lateral Hiring 101: How to Look Before You Leap, and Then How to Make the Leap

“Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.”

-Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Except with lateral hiring – where “mistakes of ambition” are sometimes just not worth it.

Look Before You Leap: Should You Do It At All?

This is the first question you need to ask yourself. I get about 10 emails per week saying the following:

“I’m set to work at Deutsche Bank / Credit Suisse / JP Morgan / UBS next year and feel like a failure because I did not get an offer at GS or MS. To improve my self esteem and get better exit opportunities, I want to make a lateral move to a better bank 2 years from now. How can I do this?”