The biggest issue here is that you never use advanced math skills, or even anything beyond elementary school math (arithmetic) in investment banking. So banks will simply not value your background that highly and may think you’re over-qualified for the roles.

If you really want to use linear algebra and differential equations, you should think about quant roles, sales & trading, prop trading, or something else where technical skills are valued.

I can’t really say based on that description because your background sounds different from ~99% of the candidates we work with. If you’re a BIWS customer (I could not find your name or email address), please contact us there and give more specifics about your story and what you’re trying to do.

My gut reaction is that it will be extremely difficult to get into IB as an Analyst when you’re 34 years old because you have far too much work experience already. But if you just started undergrad and appear to be a normal university student, who knows, it might work.

Right now im trying to transition towards the financial industry, particularly in the corporate investment banking side as a best case scenario involving junior banking (anywhere in USA). Keep in mind I’ve never done an internship and I’m still an undergraduate.

But retail banking is also okay as well. Not entirely sure if I should specialise in industry or product side.

After returning to university at 34 years of age, I’ve been getting full marks/As in all my classes so far in the eller college of business, and I’m overly passionate about finance and helping company’s grow to benefit society as a whole, and let’s face it make money.

Ive also been reading breaking into wall street religiously. So my question is: at 34 years of age, living in Hong Kong and self employed business owner, no prior finance or investment experience specifically, however I have experience using some of the analytical techniques involved in the job and visualisation/ presentation /pitches.

what are my chances of getting an entry level job as an investment banker nowadays in USA have studied “Breaking Into Wall Street” rigoursly? And also taking my accounting and finance classes at the moment. I’ve got experience analysing and forecasting biopharma Company’s, which I truly enjoyed as it’s so much different than regular companies.

I want to be an investment banker more than anything and will do anything to make it happen.

(Getting an investment banking job would be Considering I’ve got some form of connection as I’ve heard this is key to secure an interview)

Probably trading or something like a “quantamental” hedge fund that uses both quant skills but also fundamental analysis and due diligence.

What do you want to do? Finance does not require much real math outside of quant finance roles. If you want to do sales or work with clients or work on deals, you can still study finance.

Did you read what was stated in the article? Yes, you obviously need some mathematical ability to make investment decisions, but:

a) Fundamental analysis is fairly simple – arithmetic, algebra, and basic statistics. You don’t need to know PDEs to analyze a company’s financial statements. In quant roles this changes, and topics like linear algebra and calculus become more important, but this article was specifically about investment banking.

b) Investment bankers do not “invest” – they are agents, like real estate agents, that earn fees for completed transactions. They need to know how to market and sell and build relationships, but advanced math is unnecessary because it’s a relationship-based sales role.