Certifications are not going to help. The market for IB in India is quite bad, and you don’t have a great chance of winning real IB roles unless you went to one of the top 2 IIMs. See:

https://mergersandinquisitions.com/investment-banking-india/

If you already completed an MBA from an unknown school and you already have research experience and equity/mutual fund advisory experience, I’m not really sure of your best option at this stage. My advice would be: “Leave India and go to a market with more front-office jobs.” But if that’s not possible, you might think about boutique banks there or maybe Big 4 firms or something else related to IB that is less competitive than winning jobs at the biggest firms.

The biggest issue here is that you are going to get A LOT of questions about why you want to move into IB if you already started 4 companies. If they were even modestly successful, you should have so much money that it’s not really worth it to work in IB (i.e., $5-10 million+ or at least $1 million+). I’m not trying to pry or ask you for a number, just explaining how bankers will think about this (even if they don’t state it directly).

So, you really need to nail down an answer to this question before you do anything else. If/when you have that, start thinking about networking, interview prep, learning the technical side, etc. See:

https://mergersandinquisitions.com/mba-investment-banking-recruiting-process/

I am 30 years old and starting my MBA program (Cornell, SC Johnson) this year. I am an entrepreneur having started 4 startups. Never had any finance related job, experience or exposure. I am looking to switch to IB post MBA. What can I do to recruit succesfully in IB post MBA?

The point of this article is that if you think about everything you could do to improve your chances of winning job offers – going to a better university or business school, improving your grades, getting better work experience, networking, etc. – earning a “certification” should be near the bottom of your list.

“You literally said that working in IB is just impossible for me, but also because you said that the ONLY way to enter in IB is by having studied in Harvard or related universities.”

Where, exactly, was this stated in the article? Your chances are much higher coming from a top university, yes, but it’s not impossible from others. We deal in probabilities, not certainties.

Your chances are “low” if you go to a university that most banks are not familiar with. But people do get in from this background; it’s just that they need to do more networking and start earlier. We’ve covered this topic dozens of times since I began writing this site in 2007, and I’m actually a bit tired of people bringing it up and acting like we haven’t addressed it. See:

https://mergersandinquisitions.com/investment-banking-recruiting-timeline/
https://mergersandinquisitions.com/no-return-offer-investment-banking/
https://mergersandinquisitions.com/international-student-investment-banking/
https://mergersandinquisitions.com/last-minute-investment-banking-recruiting/
https://mergersandinquisitions.com/how-to-get-into-investment-banking/

I would recommend familiarizing yourself with the IB recruiting process, why it starts so early, and what banks are looking for before jumping to conclusions.

As for your chances: they are not good if you’re planning to graduate from a top 29 university with a 3.0 GPA in a country with a relatively small IB industry (vs. places like the U.K., U.S., or even France/Germany).

The best way to improve your chances is to complete a Master’s degree at a top university in the U.K. and use that plus some off-cycle finance internships to get in. The CFA might give you a marginal benefit, but it’s not a top-priority item vs. everything else on this list.

I write this comment because I do not know if you just wanted to create discussion or because you really think that it is impossible for an engineering student (specifically Civil Engineering) to enter in IB, even with a 3.0 GPA from a top 29 university in the subject of Civil Engineering with a CFA level 1.

I still don’t think it’s all that helpful. Yes, you might get a marginal benefit from a certification, but if you want to get a good full-time finance-related job, you need to start emailing/calling smaller firms in your area to ask about off-cycle/informal internships (or try applying to big non-finance companies that may not necessarily care about your lack of internships).

Maybe you can put a bit of time into a certification and say that you’re “working toward it” without actually completing it so that you get some of the benefit without spending hundreds of hours studying (yet).

With this background I know there is little hope of swinging an IB internship/job/anything, but what I was thinking was to acquire and brush up the skills necessary for a general “finance” job/internship and either try and make job switches towards IB after a few years or hunker down, work a finance-related job, and go down the MBA route since I’m pretty confident I could get into a top program.

In regards to the Certification, my question would be if they are a good idea to shore up/establish skills for people that have little to no experience with them (i.e Econ majors) but still want to make their way into finance. Should a person with my background or similar rely on these courses to establish these skills, or acquire them another way? Thanks so much for your help.

Exeter is not normally considered a “target school” in the U.K., so it’s not the best choice. It’s more of a “semi-target,” so if your goal is to work in an IB or investment role in the U.K., you should aim for a better university there.

I do not think a specific certification would significantly boost your chances of winning jobs/internships in the first place (unless you count something like the A-Levels as a “certification,” which they’re not).

You may get a marginal boost from something like the CFA, but if you look at the time required to study for and pass it, the time would be better spent on learning financial modeling/deal analysis and networking. Certifications tend to be more helpful for people who decided on finance very late and need “proof” that they know something, not university students who start the recruiting process very early.