Colin

Five years ago I was in my second year of graduate school and the job market was just beginning to recover from the bursting of the tech bubble. I had not worked in the financial services industry before going back to school so I knew that it would be challenging for me to land my dream job of working for a major financial services firm upon graduation. At that point, my goal was just to get my foot in the door somewhere. After a few years of post-graduate work experience, I was offered a position at Goldman Sachs that was a great fit with my experience, background, and interests.

To those considering a career in finance, I would say that to be successful in the long term, finance must be something that you are genuinely interested in and truly enjoy doing every day. The excitement and thrill of working on a deal or a trade will only get you so far. You have to be prepared to deal with down markets as well as periods that are slow and characterized by defense rather than offense. Markets are cyclical and can be extreme on both the upside and the downside – a long term perspective and focus is critical.