Can You Really Use Business School to Re-Brand Yourself and Break Into Finance?

“Just go to business school.”

“Go to a top MBA program.”

“With HBS on your resume you can do anything you want.”

It’s one of the most common pieces of advice given to anyone interested in consulting or finance: get into a top MBA program.

Even if you went to a no-name undergraduate, did nothing finance-related since then, and you don’t know anyone in the industry, a top MBA program will let you break in.

Or will it?

Investment Banking: Italy Edition

Continuing our series on finance in different regions of the world, today we go to Italy and hear from a reader who completed an MBA program there and then had an internship this past summer at a local Italian investment bank.

We cover a broad set of topics, including how he decided to study in Europe, how he applied and got into a top MBA program there, and then how he used that experience to land his banking internship.

He also had some very interesting thoughts on networking, especially when you’re going for international positions – something on many of your minds these days.

This interview turned out to be quite long (over 3,000 words), but it’s full of insight so I decided to keep the entire transcript intact.