Many altruists are interested in earning to give, but don’t know where to start. Finance is an attractive option, and with good reason. It offers very high expected earnings, opportunities to use a wide variety of skillsets, and a wide range of career possibilities with different combinations of competitiveness, demandingness and compensation. Finance can be a good fit for someone who is good at analytical thinking, works well with other people, and willing to work hard in a serious environment.
If that sounds like you, then congratulations! Even if you have literally no idea what you are doing, you have come to the right place. In this short guide we will go over the basic types of careers in finance, make some points about various aspects of the finance industry that aspiring altruists should think about, point you to further resources and send you on your way.
Link to full article which I wrote
Special thanks to Kit Harris, Alex Foster and Robert Wiblin for looking over the draft.
Woah I strongly disagree with much of this. For example
You definitely don't need a 4.0 from Harvard to work at budge-bracket firms. In fact, at least one of the firms you listed hired literally no-one from Harvard in their latest analyst class! I would say that all undergraduates looking to get into finance should apply to all the bulge-brackets, not none of them.
Many of the big banks run affirmative action programs; it is easier to get hired if you are not a white male. Indeed, I know one bank's HR complained that there were no good black undergraduates for them to hire because their competitors had been offering them internships and scholarships since freshman year.
You should probably mention that IB is full of jocks and every EA who tried it has dropped out because of poor culture fit.
You are double-counting: buyside research is the same as asset management. But when people say 'equity research', they typically mean sell-side.
However I did like the joke about The Goldman Sachs!
Depends on what you mean by "apply." If it's someone who just read this guide, has been studying finance for a few weeks and goes ahead to fill out the online app for the next internship program, there are much better ways for them to mak... (read more)