GUEST COMMENT: You really don't need a graduate training programme to get into investment banking
Are you currently a student? Someone who wants to get into finance, maybe investment banking? If so, you're probably spending a lot of time filling in forms, worrying about which 'key words' to use and how to make a job in the local Tesco sound relevant to your career goals.
But do you really want to spend between one and three years being patronised by HR, and ignored at best (or abused at worst) by the business? In my long experience of working on trading floors, this is what being a graduate trainee all too often involves.
You don't? Then may I suggest that you take advantage of the fact that investment banks are fabulously fluid places for people with contacts, intelligence, and a willingness to work hard.
DON'T aim to start off where you want to end up
If you really think you want to be a trader, you don't have to start out on a trading desk.
Get a job, any job, somewhere in an investment bank.
Banks regularly look for temps, and even offer some perm posts doing seriously glamour free roles: managing databases, DTP, cost management, etc.
Get through the door, work really hard and make yourself indispensable to as many people as possible. The more contacts you have speaking up for you, the more able you are going to be to move around in the future.
DON'T be blinded by brands
The big investment banks (especially the HR departments) love their grad programmes. This is because sorting through all those thousands fo applications helps to remind them just how successful, desirable, and important they are (and in the case of some HR, give them a justification for their continued existence).
Big banks are great places to work, but so are many of the much smaller, less well known banks. These smaller players have the added advantages of fewer applicants, business people who are likely to be less up themselves and a bit more willing to spend time with you, and HR departments with less time to spend putting you through psychometric testing.
In addition, the friends that you make at a smaller house, will inevitably move on and become valuable contacts elsewhere.
DO use your skills where they will be needed most
The back office is not glamorous, but it's easy to shine and it provides great access to the front office. Many front office managers are so dissatisfied with the service they get from their back office counterparts that they hang on to anyone who listens and produces what they need. If you can be that person, they will be forever in your debt. The back office is also a great place to learn how to make things work (and to observe what goes wrong when they don't).
Once you're in...
...network and build contacts everywhere with everyone (in and out of the office), learn the language and the structure of the business (it'll be roughly the same in most places), and work as hard as you can to build a strong reputation as a deliverer. Assuming that most grad programmes take two years, you'll be in your second job with a professional reputation and none of the hang-ups of the grads by the time they're released onto the floor.
