How I Started My Career in Finance at 16
In the Easter of 2013, I was doing what all 16-year olds were doing… endlessly revising and stressing over my GCSE Exams (Yes, I’m a nerd and I’m proud). In the midst of that, a family friend told me that I could apply for a two-day insight programme at Barclays that was being run by an organisation called SEO London. I was interested in finance since the Global Financial Crisis and I needed to fill up my summer holidays after my exams. So, I created my first ever CV and a cover letter and applied.
Fast forward to August and I’m standing outside of Canary Wharf station in the same grey suit I wore to prom (don’t judge) with twenty or thirty teenagers looking up at the skyscrapers that occupied the Docklands. This was a world like no other I’ve seen before: men and women dressed to perfection in suits and dresses, news headlines flashing on the Reuters Plaza building and everyone was busy running around. Looking back now that feeling was intoxicating, and it still is today.
We walked down to the Marriott where we spent the next two days learning about the world of finance and investment banking. It was the first time encountering what an IPO was, how a bond works, what market making is and so much more.
The most memorable part was going up to the trading floor. When you walk onto a trading floor for the first time there is this buzz and energy that pulls you in and all you want is to be a part of it. While the environment was great, the people were even better. One of the first traders I met had a PhD in Theoretical Physics and another was a competitive cyclist and they were all smart, driven and were fun to be around. As a teenager, I hadn’t met anyone like this before let alone a whole group of them - to me they were all extraordinary. When I saw traders talking with two phones to their ears; shouting out prices and the dozens of changing numbers on their eight computer monitors I thought this is a cool job and I want to do this one day.
I learnt a lot from that two day insight, but you might say that isn’t really the start of a career. You’re right it wasn’t but it was just the first domino… Things started to snowball from there. The next year I came back for three days; my first year of university I did the spring week programme; the same year I was invited to do a one-month internship; in my second year I did a two-month summer internship and at the end, I received an offer to join the graduate programme at Barclays. With each of those experiences, my passion and interest grew further. Now, its 2020 and I’ve been working as an Emerging Markets Credit Trader at Barclays for over two years.
There were a lot of other careers I tried and explored when I was in my teens: accounting, consulting, law, medicine and more. After trying so many different things I feel so lucky that every day I get to do something that fascinates me, and I truly enjoy. I don’t think it's easy to figure out what you want to do at any age and I’m really fortunate I figured it out so early.
I wouldn’t have thought that one opportunity seven years ago would lead me to the career path I have ahead of me today, but it did. There is still so much I have to learn and so much I want to achieve, but it started with one small step back then. So that’s why I’m starting this blog because I don’t know where this one small step could take me, but I want to find out.