| 2009-03-09 | I dream to work in the business sector. Should I pursue a master degree before I join the private sector? A lot of students are wondering what a Master of PhD would mean in searching for a job. Does it mean an advantage or disadvantage? If we want to work in banks or financial institutions, should we spend the time and money in pursuing further education?
What is a better preparation (in year 1, 2 and 3) if I want to work in banks or financial institutions after graduation?
These are important questions. Perhaps graduating students are in a better position to answer these questions than me. Here are some answers given by Ms. Geng Liting, who was going to graduate in 2009 Summer and going to work in the business sector.
-------- An analysis by Liting written in 2009 Spring, slightly modified by Ka-fu Wong -------
First, about the choice between further studies and working experience:
As far as I know, most of my friends who go for PhD usually aim at academic career (a teaching and research job in universities). If you target at jobs in banks or other financial institutions, I believe that it is better to forget about the Master and PhD study and to start working in the private sector right after your graduation. Indeed, we obtain different kinds of skills in these two paths. In postgraduate studies, we obtain research skills. In a job in private sector, we learn skills that are relevant to these jobs -- through job experience.
After so many years of learning at school, I really value some practical working experience at this point (I am about to graduate in a few months). We can always learn through work, especially in the first one or two years. I had this kind of experience when I worked as an intern for McKinsey. During these two months of internship at McKinsey, the job nature and environment was so intense that I started to feel some progress only after these two months.
For me, there is no urgency to pursue a postgraduate degree right after my undergraduate study. I can always pursue further education after several years of working, say MBA or something. Right now I consider working to be the most challenging. I am sure I am going to learn a lot from work. In my job interviews, I have met several applicants (interviewees) with master degrees. I have to say that I do not find them particularly competitive in interviews. My point is, unless you think a Master Degree is really going to improve your various skill-sets a lot, choosing to learn from work might be a better choice.
Second, about preparation for job-hunting in banks and other financial institutions:
There are various types of students who finally make their way into banks. Some may have very glorious GPAs, some may have impressive internship experiences and some may be quite balanced, with pretty good academic results and lots of wonderful extra-curriculum experiences. But I think there are several qualities that successful candidates commonly possess:
a. "Passable" academic results, at least enough to get you pass the first round screening of CVs;
b. Good presentation skills - English ability is crucial in interviews
c. Well-built experience pool - which make you different from others.
Don't panic if you think these standards are high. HKU really provides very nice platforms and tons of opportunities for you to build up yourself. For example, some rough ideas would be:
*** First Year - Start building up your CV as soon as possible
Keywords: GPA, Competitions
Try to ensure good school results, which is highly correlated with a series of opportunities later (attention! somehow I realized this quite late...). At the same time, it is highly recommended to try out different activities at this stage, when the course load is still relatively light. Competitions (YDC, financial planner awards, HSBC etc), hall functions, debate team, dance...you name it.
*** Second Year - Get to know more about the banks
Keywords: Exchange, Internships
Internships always mean a lot to second-year students. Exchange experience is usually a plus. For those whose English is weak, exchange is a great opportunity to improve English ability. For those whose English is good, exchange can allow you to expose yourself to a very different culture and language. If you don't choose exchange, there are still tons of things to do out there. It's time for you to get to know the details of the jobs you're interested in. What department would you like to apply? What are the key skill-sets required by that department? Which firms are best in that area?
Different departments in different firms can have very different requirements. For example, a sales and trading department would require continuous market updates, while an international banking department would require concrete corporate finance knowledge. So, even for investment banks, we should not treat them as one kind of job. It is better to think an investment bank as a pool of different jobs. Once we have fixed our interest, we have to tune our skill sets to their requirements.
If you have no ideas what you are interested, you may consider participating in one or two competitions. Through competitions, you may find our which profession suits or interests you most.
*** Third Year - Improve during job-hunting
Keywords: Interviews, Interviews, Interviews
Well, there are also a lot to say about this stage. Basically what you can do is to apply as many as possible, to practice various numerical / verbal / logical tests online, to further polish your CV, and to practice interview skills. Find friends to do mocks with you, go to CEDARS (although I never did that...), get the past interview questions...etc. What you have on your CV is basically what you will talk about for six months of job hunting (><). How to build up a good CV? If you start to think about it only in your third year, it is too late. You will need to engage in a lot of things in your previous years of study. All the rest is about presentation, and finally, luck as well.
-------- An epilogue (by Ka-fu Wong) --------
The undergraduate study at HKU lasts only three years. These three years can easily slip through our fingers. Thus, it pays to have a clear goal what we want to do after these three years and then do a backward induction on which we should do in these three years according. Postgraduate studies and working in the business sectors require very different sets of skills. We will be successful in attaining our goals only if we are willing to work extremely hard to develop the required skill sets accordingly.
| 2009-02-19 | Any economist can predict this... Can you? | | 2008-12-21 | My students performed poorly in the final exam.
Help me help them.... please. | | 2008-12-20 | Learning should not end with the final exam! | | 2008-11-19 | Exchange in Europe can be very rewarding! | | 2008-11-18 | UC Berkeley is my top choice for exchange! | | 2008-11-02 | Why did we not have fresh mushrooms twenty years ago? | | 2008-02-23 | Dialogue is preferred to monologue. | | 2008-02-13 | If I were a single unemployed old man who lives on Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) | | 2007-12-17 | Is forecasting a pure guessing game? | | 2007-12-16 | I want zero emission of CO2! | | 2007-11-30 | How would I choose universities for exchange? | | 2007-11-28 | Excuse me. Can you write a recommendation letter for me? | | 2007-11-12 | No pain, no gain! | | 2007-09-14 | Teaching is to be enjoyed, and so is studying. Grades should only be secondary. | |