Aakash Aayush Sahu, a Mechanical Engineer, now an Investment banker, says :
” If you are actually interested in a field, don’t curse your background. If you get the right skills, you’ll get through anything that comes in your way. “
Aakash comes from Durg, Chhattisgarh. He completed his Engineering in Mechanical, from SSEC, Bhilai in 2016.
How did he get the job?
Being an Engineer, Aakash didn’t have any background in Finance.
Surprisingly, he still managed to bag a job offer in one of the most desirous Finance profile, after successfully completing 6 weeks Investment banking course from The Wallstreet School through their dedicated placement cell.
He came to know about this course while surfing through his Quora feed, where he read a review by an Investment banker, who had already done this certification course.
He now works at Pure Research Pvt. Ltd (A business Intelligence and a Financial research company). His work includes front end roles such as –Financial Modeling, Business valuations, Equity research etc.
Read on to know about the challenges that he faced , reasons for making the switch and his review for this course .
Here is a transcript of our interview with Aakash
What were your plans after graduation ?
After completing B.E.(Mechanical), I decided to go for M.Tech from IITs, but I wasn’t able to make it.
I also applied for some exams like IBPS PO (Bank Entrance exam), SEBI, and while preparing for these exams, I came across topics such as stock market, company valuations etc. Eventually, I realized that my field of interest is finance and I really found finance as a very practical and an interesting subject.
How did you overcome the setback of your Non-Finance background?
Although, after much hard work I wasn’t able to clear SEBI’s entrance, but the knowledge I gained didn’t go in vain. It literally helped me to find the right field for me.
Now I was fully motivated to go ahead in the field of finance, but I knew no investment bank will provide me with a job, unless I have financial background.
To vanquish my setbacks, I started googling about Finance profiles, jobs in core finance, and I landed up on quora and started reading answers about core profiles in finance.
I found out about investment banking. One of the answers took me to the Wall Street school’s website and there I connected with Himanshu jain (owner of The Wall Street school). That was surely the turning point in my life.
What did you learn at The Wallstreet School?
After my conversation with Himanshu sir, I took no time and immediately joined the 6 weeks investment banking course.
And to my surprise, it was ‘zero’ theory course, everything was taught on laptop and we were given real life business situations and these situations were very nicely simulated in classroom and then valuation was done.
Every session created a new knowledge that Never existed before.
Himanshu sir helped me in making my CV adaptive to ‘what the recruiters are looking for’. He pointed out exactly where I was going wrong. He also guided me through the essentials for an engineering graduate to secure a good profile job in core Finance.
How did you secure the job offer?
After completing the course, I got three interview calls, from their placement cell. Finally, I was selected into Pure Research Pvt Ltd (A Business Intelligence and Financial research company) with the profile of Business analyst.
Now, as an analyst I do valuation, modelling and equity research for the company. And I’m earning a healthy package, above all I’m happy and satisfied.
Great ….
I too want to become like you.