Quarter Life Crisis

After a few interviews, here are my impressions on a large firm vs small firm in the financial sector -

1. Small firms have had more prying questions. More details for every word on your resume. They are more specific in their needs and requirements for you. Small companies simply don’t have the budget to send you off to analyst/associate training for 3 months. They want you to have the required skills before you show up, and they want to use you right away.

2. Large firms are just the opposite. More structured, yearly internship rotational programs, months of training if necessary. More general (but can be equally difficult) questions. Willing to shape you into what they need, willing to wait for you to develop necessary skills.

Conclusion? QLC’ers should start off at a big firm to utilize the training and resources. The common saying holds - Better to start off big then go small - difficult to go from small to large.

Here’s a list of tech’s top 10 worst jobs.  It just goes to reconfirm that you don’t need a  college degree, let alone an advanced graduate degree, to do a job, you just need them to land you these jobs.  Even if its a crap job, you’ll still be working for google, facebook, yahoo… It may not be fun, but someone qualified is going to do it. Here’s one example - an operations and sales account management type position at google.