5 Tips for Getting a Job on Wall Street

There is a certain prestige factor, as well as the prospect of earning a considerable salary down the line, that causes people to look up tips for getting a job on Wall Street. However, you are not the only one to have those aspirations, so you need to work on getting your resume from the large pile into the small one and on getting your foot in the door.

Network

Some are fortunate enough to already have contacts before even entering college due to familial or other connections with those in positions of power on Wall Street. However, all is not lost if that is not you as you can still make these connections on your own during and following your college days. If you are fortunate enough to get an internship, even an unpaid one, that would provide you with access to these individuals, take it. Attending a prime university will most likely provide you with these opportunities as well. If your university is not the type to get Wall Street employers excited, check the list of alumni who went to your school to see if any are working there and contact them, asking how they got to where they are now and how you might be able to do so too.

Get an Internship

Other than for networking reasons, getting a Wall Street internship may be the best tip that you can take advantage of. The main reason is that, even if you are going to or went to business school at an Ivy League institution, getting that hands-on experience or even simply being in the Wall Street environment without hands-on experience and instead learning from observation is invaluable. Many who have done this have been able to succeed in ensuing interviews as they knew how things worked better than those who only had only learned from textbooks.

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Attend a Top School

The benefits of following this tip for getting a job on Wall Street are numerous, but they focus on the networking aspect as well as being able to learn as much as possible about what Wall Street is about and what it would be like to work there prior to applying for positions. Focus on Ivy League schools and other top universities. If you are unable to get into those schools at the undergraduate level, apply for graduate work there as getting a master’s degree from one will cause those looking at your resume to no longer care where you completed your bachelor’s degree.

Major in Accounting, Business, Economics, Finance or Math (or Not)

It helps for a number of reasons to major in accounting, business, economics, finance or math, and this is especially true for graduate school work. However, note that people from a variety of majors have been offered positions on Wall Street, and ones like philosophy or theatre can provide you with a perspective that many of your competitors will not have. However, even in that case, you do need to understand business and markets in order to impress on interviews.

Be Persistent

This may be the most important tip for getting a job on Wall Street. Unless you are one of the fortunate ones to quickly reach your Wall Street goals, you are going to need to repeatedly pick yourself back up and keep pushing ahead until you get that internship or full-time position. Also, once there, you will need to be persistent as you get used to working what will most likely be extremely busy weeks.

Getting a job on Wall Street may not be easy, but it can be done, and people are making inwards towards careers in Lower Manhattan every day. Following these tips for getting a job on Wall Street will help you join that group.