I don’t know that a single strategy will always work best, but there is one that several readers have used successfully: Applying for an MBA program without having full-time work experience first.

If you do not have a military background, this is almost always a bad idea because you need full-time work experience to win Associate roles.

But military experience is somewhat different, and even though it’s not “corporate work experience,” you can still use it to recruit for Associate-level roles if you’ve served and are now in an MBA program.

And as our reader today found out, this same strategy works even from Executive MBA (EMBA) programs:

Military to Investment Banking, Part 1: Picking an EMBA Program

Q: Can you start by summarizing your story?

A: Sure. I went to a solid, 2nd tier university in the U.S. and majored in finance there.

I saw finance as a great career, but I had always wanted to serve in the military, so I commissioned as an officer after graduation and split my time between the infantry and special forces.

After nearly 10 years in the army, I decided it was time to leave. There were regular deployments and moves, even within the U.S., so it was tough to raise a family and maintain friendships.

I left and enrolled in a “low 1st tier” EMBA program, which was well-known in the EMBA world but wasn’t necessarily a target for IB recruiting.

At the same time, I used networking to find and win a full-time role in the corporate finance career path, which I started along with the EMBA.

In my second semester at school, I decided to apply for investment banking roles, so I began an intense networking process to win interviews and job offers.

I won a few interviews with regional boutiques in my city (outside of major financial centers), as well as opportunities with elite boutiques, middle market firms, and bulge bracket banks.

I ended up winning an Associate offer at a bulge bracket bank, which I quickly accepted.

Q: OK, great. If you wanted to be in the finance industry, why did you choose an EMBA program rather than a traditional MBA?

A: It was a combination of factors. For one, this program was in my hometown, and I had a lot of friends and family there.

Next, friends in the industry had told me that it was possible to get into banking from a lesser-known school because banks always reserve a few spots for veterans.

I also liked the part-time nature of the program because it meant I could gain work experience and use it to “de-risk” myself as a candidate (a big concern for anyone moving from the military to investment banking).

Finally, I wasn’t 100% certain that I wanted to do investment banking when I started the program, and I wouldn’t need a top school for non-IB roles.

Q: Thanks for clarifying. How did you win that initial corporate finance role that you completed at the same time as the EMBA program?

A: I started speaking with family, friends, and acquaintances about my plans, and one family member had a work acquaintance from 25-30 years ago who had founded an upper-middle-market company (revenue between $1 and $2 billion).

The CEO of the company was looking for someone to do assist the CFO, and he offered to take a look at my resume because of this connection.

He didn’t care about my lack of finance work experience because he was more concerned with the intangibles: Leadership, honesty, and project management, all of which I had developed as an army officer.

I won the role after a few interviews, and I spent most of my time on the job doing internal reporting, buy-side due diligence for acquisitions, post-purchase analyses, and expense and liquidity forecasting.

It wasn’t too difficult, but it made my skill set look far more relevant for moving from the military to investment banking.

Military to Investment Banking, Part 2: Networking from a Non-Target EMBA Program

Q: OK, so you have this corporate finance role, you’re in the EMBA program, and you decide on IB in your second semester. What was your next step?

A: I started reaching out to as many people as possible, including friends in IB/PE and Fortune 500 corporate finance roles.

Then, I built an event-based timeline for winning interviews and offers based on deadlines at different banks.

The timing of the EMBA program helped me as well – since it coincided with traditional MBA programs, I could hop into the recruiting process.

I spent 2-3 months sending 5-6 informational interview requests per day via LinkedIn and email, and I set up as many phone calls as possible. Sometimes I scheduled 7-8 phone calls for a single day.

Altogether, I contacted hundreds of professionals and spoke with dozens on the phone.

It was a huge amount of effort, but it worked.

Q: Did you target a specific industry, such as healthcare or consumer/retail?

Previous interviewees have said that you “need” an industry at the MBA level.

A: No. Industry expertise can be very helpful, but I felt that I didn’t have enough work experience to demonstrate it.

Also, I knew I had an uphill battle as a career changer at a non-target school switching from the military to investment banking, so I didn’t want to limit myself to certain sectors.

So, instead of screening by industry, I looked for professionals who had anything in common with me: Military experience, similar home region, similar interests, and so on.

Going exclusively for alumni would have been pointless because there weren’t enough of them in the industry to be helpful.

I played up my life experiences and how different they had been from those of other candidates.

Q: But did that work? I imagine that some banks would just say, “Intangibles are nice, but we need technical prowess. Please complete this Excel practice test.”

A: It tended to work better at the bulge bracket banks and sometimes at the regional banks; middle market firms and elite boutiques often cared more about raw technical process.

For example, in one interview at a middle market bank, I had to complete a case study and then pass several technical interviews.

I spoke with 9 people total, and 8 of them pushed for me to receive an offer.

But then one MD reviewed my case study responses, felt they were just “average” and rejected me, overruling all 8 other interviewers.

So, this angle won’t work everywhere, which is why you need to spread a wide net when recruiting.

Q: Agreed.

What about veterans’ programs? Did you do any recruiting through them?

A: I used them, but none of them led to a job offer.

The biggest issue was the timing – many of those programs start in March or April, and they target people who have just recently left the military.

But if you’re completing an MBA or EMBA, you won’t be able to match the timing of your classes to those programs.

Also, many of the veteran spots at banks are in other areas of the front office, such as equity research and prime brokerage, which didn’t interest me.

It’s worth attending the networking events and participating in these programs if you can do so, but you should not rely on them to go from the military to investment banking.

Other graduates of these programs have told me they’re great, but they just weren’t for me.

Q: Thanks for pointing that out. What other challenges did you encounter in networking and interviews?

A: There are advantages and disadvantages to a veteran background. On the one hand, it makes you stand out and demonstrates your leadership, commitment, and ability to burn the midnight oil in a non-finance role, which few others have.

But some recruiters also have the stereotype that veterans are all Type-A personalities who don’t work well in teams, or they believe that veterans lack the required technical skills.

So, I focused heavily on making teams feel comfortable with me and pointing out facts that played against those biases.

For example, I always cited life and military experience in demanding or difficult situations when responding to fit questions.

Even if they didn’t ask a teamwork question explicitly, I always wanted to remind them that I worked well in teams.

Q: Great. What advice would you give to other veterans who want to move from the military to investment banking at the MBA level?

A: The application process is a rollercoaster with plenty of highs and lows, so you need to reduce uncertainty as much as possible. That means:

1. Start networking and studying the technical side as early as humanly possible. If you can start 6 months in advance, great; if you can do it 12 months in advance, even better.
2. De-risk yourself by showing that you have finance experience and have worked in a corporate environment before, even if it was a part-time or project-based role. Banks prefer to hire a “good” candidate with no major weaknesses than a candidate who’s great in some areas but who has glaring weaknesses in others.
3. Always take advantage of diversity and veteran hiring programs and the veteran network. There are quite a few veterans on Wall Street, and you’ll often get the best results by going through them.

Q: Thanks for your time!

A: My pleasure.

The post How to Move from the Military to Investment Banking at the Associate Level appeared first on Mergers & Inquisitions.

Can you get into finance coming from a military background?

Just how many bankers each year break in from the Army, Navy, and Air Force?

I get a lot of questions on these topics, but up until now haven’t had solid answers beyond “yes” and “quite a few.”

But that changes today with an interview from a reader who broke into investment banking from a military background – keep reading to find out how he did it and how you can do the same.

Plus, advice on part-time vs. full-time MBA programs and starting in a location that isn’t New York.

Nuclear Submarines & Business School: Perfect Match?

Q: Tell us about your background and how you got started operating nuclear submarines.

A: Sure. I accepted a Navy ROTC scholarship right before attending college, because my priority at the time was to serve my country.

At school I picked a highly technical engineering track, but ended up taking a lot of financial math classes on the side – that’s how I originally got interested in finance.

After graduation, I wanted to work in a high-impact environment and since I had a technical background, I figured that nuclear submarines would be a good fit for me.

The Navy has a rigorous selection process for this kind of role, but I passed and started operating nuclear reactors aboard submarines.

After a few years there, I decided to attend a top MBA program as my next move.

Q: I guess you had an easy time proving your “attention to detail” in interviews. Coming from that background, why did you decide to go to business school as your next move?

A: I got a lot out of the Navy in terms of leadership, teamwork, and meeting deadlines, but I wanted to hone my financial skills and learn more about business.

I knew that moving into finance directly would be challenging since my background was unrelated, so I decided to use business school as a steppingstone.

I still had a commitment to the Navy, so I decided to attend a part-time evening program at a well-known business school while finishing my obligation of service.

Q: Most people would say that it’s very tough to break into finance coming from a part-time evening program – why did you decide to go that route instead of waiting and applying for full-time programs?

A: I could have waited, but that might have cost me 1.5 – 2 years due to my Navy commitment. I figured that I would be more competitive if I made the move sooner rather than later, so I opted for the evening program instead.

If you have the option, though, I would strongly recommend full-time programs.

I had a unique set of circumstances, and I ended up transferring to the full-time program anyway to take part in recruiting – looking back on it, starting out there may have made more sense.

Transferring & Recruiting

Q: You mentioned switching to the full-time program for recruiting purposes. When did you decide to do this, and how did you make the move?

A: In the evening program I couldn’t even drop my resume for recruiting purposes – I could still go to events and network with bankers there, but I couldn’t formally apply for internships or full-time jobs.

Recruiters also viewed me with a lot more scrutiny coming from the evening program – they would ask, “Was he not able to get into the full-time program? Were his GPA or GMAT scores not up to par?” If you’re not in a full-time program, you need good answers to those questions.

So I realized early on that transferring would make recruiting much easier.

As for the actual process, I just applied through the school after going through all the core classes, earning good grades, and developing a competitive profile.

The key is that the school doesn’t want you to hurt their average GPA / GMAT scores – as long as you’re above the bar there, it’s doable.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy – only a handful of people do it each year – but it is possible.

I would also add that a couple of classmates stayed in the evening program and successfully landed investment banking internships, so switching is not absolutely mandatory.

Q: Right, that makes sense. What about your networking efforts? Once you made the leap to the full-time program, did you just rely on on-campus recruiting or did you also use alumni networking?

A: I used both – early on, I relied more heavily on networking with military alumni. I started months before the school year began, and began by searching for former naval officers who now worked in investment banking, via LinkedIn.

I got around a 40% response rate, and leveraged the responses into phone calls and in-person meetings during the weekend trips I took to New York and other financial centers.

As the school year approached, I widened my investment banking networking and started going beyond naval officers to other “military alumni” and also went through the alumni at my business school.

I waited to speak with the alumni last because they were in the best position to get me first-round interviews. Additionally, they were bombarded with emails from all my classmates so I wanted to ensure that I always made a strong first impression.

Q: What about the networking process itself? What did you do, and how effective was it?

A: In my initial emails, I would usually ask for 30 minutes to speak on the phone – but as I moved further in, I took trips to New York and other financial centers and met with bankers in-person.

Most “target schools” have a pretty regimented process for MBAs, and I used recruiting events to make a better impression on bankers in a social setting. That’s a huge advantage of target schools – these investment banking information sessions are the key to receiving first-round interviews.

Because I was aggressive with networking and made a good impression on the recruiting teams, I managed to win first-round interviews with most major banks.

How to Convince Them You’re a Financier

Q: So it sounds like you had a lot of practice with interviews, whether they were official interviews or unofficial informational interviews. What were the key challenges you faced coming from a military background?

A: The advantage of a military background is that you can sell your management experience, leadership, and teamwork skills more easily than, say, an accountant looking to break into investment banking.

And since I had operated a nuclear reactor, it wasn’t hard to convince bankers of my attention to detail. The same goes for unpredictable hours – going out to sea on a whim’s notice or being extended during a deployment were routine in the submarine force.

But there are a couple problems you’ll face coming from a military background:

1. There’s the perception that ex-military guys don’t know finance.
2. We also have a reputation for being overly blunt and trying to exert too much control over a situation.

Q: So how did you overcome these problems?

A: For the first one, I pointed to my high GPA and GMAT score as evidence that I could do quantitative work.

I know you’ve criticized it before, but I also enrolled in and passed Level I of the CFA – which at least showed them that I knew something about finance. Plus, I had all my finance classes from undergraduate.

On the second point – about being overly blunt – you just need examples of how you’ve compromised and worked successfully in a team without being overbearing.

A lot of this also comes across in your tone and presentation – if you’re a direct person, sometimes you have to take it down a few notches.

Regional vs. NYC Offices

Q: You ended up accepting an offer in a regional office rather than in New York – how did you think about this one, and why did you decide to start there instead?

A: Most people tell you that New York is the end-all when it comes to finance, at least in the US – but I’m not completely convinced of this.

For one, lots of regional offices actually do full deal execution themselves – SF is a hotbed for tech and biotech, LA for media and gaming, Houston for energy, Chicago for industrials, and so on.

If you already have an industry you’re interested in, going somewhere other than New York could be a good move.

Also, the cost of living is much less in other regions, the lifestyle is not much worse, and the deal teams are leaner which means more experience for junior bankers.

The main disadvantages of not starting in New York:

1. You do miss out on networking opportunities by being around fewer bankers / financiers.
2. You’re more limited in terms of moving to different regions / groups.

If you’re just out of university and you’re not sure exactly what you want to do, New York could be a better bet – but if you’re older, you have a family, or you have a good idea of what industry you want to work in, there are considerable advantages to starting outside of New York.

Q: Right, I agree completely. The obsession with New York in the US is similar to the obsession with exit opportunities. Thanks for your time – you have a very interesting story, and I learned a lot.

A: My pleasure.

Want more?

You might be interested in How to Move from the Military to Investment Banking at the Associate Level.

The post From Nuclear Submarines to Investment Banking: How to Make the Leap from the Military to Finance appeared first on Mergers & Inquisitions.