When you hear the term “lateral hiring,” your first thought might be: “Aha! A way to break into investment banking from another career – without an expensive MBA program – or a way to trade up to a larger bank and get better exit opportunities.” While those are both possibilities, they are not sure things. […]

Tired of audits? Want to earn more and get more exciting work? Looking forward to spending your time on changing font colors in Excel? Congratulations! You’re well on your way to transitioning from accounting to investment banking. Moving into banking from an accounting background is easier than moving in from engineering, but it’s about the […]

I thought that engineers would stop wanting to move into finance. After all, companies like Google and Facebook now offer higher pay, better hours, and more interesting work than banks. And students at top universities and business schools are increasingly interested in technology rather than finance. But despite all that, some engineers still want to get […]

Wait, WHAT?!!! Yes, I know what you’re thinking: you could see how liberal arts majors, accountants, consultants, engineers, and male escorts might want to get into finance… …but why would you ever want to go from running your own company to creating pitch books in a dungeon for 80 hours per week? At first glance, […]

Can you ever be fully satisfied? If you’re reading this site, the answer is probably “no.” You go through a ridiculous amount of effort to get into investment banking, private equity, or even (gasp) management consulting, but then… You want to move to a more prestigious firm… You want to work in a team with […]

If real life imitated TV perfectly, law would be an intellectually stimulating and exciting career path for everyone. You work with high-profile clients, try intense cases, make massive M&A deals happen, and empower the barbarians at the gate. Except… that doesn’t quite hold up in real life. The average corporate law job turns into a game of “How many documents […]

Wait, what? Why would you ever want to do this? Isn’t it the equivalent of dating a supermodel, and then breaking up with her and eloping with your pudgy, pimple-faced neighbor? Not quite. There are plenty of reasons why you’d want to move from a private equity, hedge fund, or other buy-side role back TO investment […]

“I’m writing in because I’d like to share with you my story of how I broke in against all odds. I’m a liberal arts major at a non-target university, and I decided at the end of my 2nd year that I wanted to get into investment banking. I won an internship at a local boutique […]

“Help! I hate my accounting job and want to move into banking, what do I do?” “What group should I transfer to if I want to get into finance?” “My Big 4 salary doesn’t give me enough cash for bottles!” If you’re at a Big 4 firm right now, you’ve had one of the thoughts […]

I’m not gonna lie: I haven’t treated consultants very well before – and even though that infamous Leveraged Sellout video is ancient history by now, it still pops into my head whenever I get questions from consultants. But despite that, I still do get lots of questions from consultants on how to move into the […]

UPDATE: Please see the “Part 2” follow-up article to this one, on 6 ways to beat the odds and break into the industry as an older candidate. That article expands on what’s here and gives you tips and advice for what to do as an older candidate. There’s no issue more sensitive than age. Ok, maybe […]

There’s no mystery why the 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 […]

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.” – Helen Keller I almost decided not to publish this article. But it needed to be said. This one is long – so grab some yerba mate, take a seat, and close your YouTube window before […]

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” -William Shakespeare, Henry VI Part 2, Act IV Lawyers don’t get much respect – whether it’s from investment bankers or Shakespeare. But if you’re a lawyer and you want to break into finance – investment banking, private equity, hedge funds, and so on – there […]