Uma Maheshwaran belongs to the heart of Tamil Nadu, Chennai.
Science was always fascinating for him, and since childhood, he wanted to become a doctor. But his family conditions led him to another path, which turned out to be tough but most positive influence he could ever have.
How did your family conditions drastically affect your career decisions?
When I was a young boy, my father didn’t have a steady job. My family was not well off to pay an extravagant Medical college fee for pursuing my dreams.
This condition kind of shaped my decision to take commerce after completing HSC.
I scored 98% in 12th standard and made my way to one of the most prestigious commerce college, Loyola College, Chennai
As I had a monetary pressure from my family side, I had no other option but to opt for the placements after college.
So in order to build up my profile and get a decent job, I did some internships during college. I was always intrigued by how do investment banking firms work, how do the companies connect with the investors because after studying and interning at some finance profiles, I realized my interest lies in this field.
I was selected as an intern at Goldman Sachs. It was a 2 months internship in Investment banking operations (Backend). I was offered a full-time job after the completion. I didn’t take the offer because I was offered a job at PWC as an Audit associate.
What were your plans after graduation?
From 2015-2017 I was working in PWC as an audit associate, but after having 2 years of experience I concluded that Audit is not my thing to do and honestly it’s little bit monotonous.
I realised that I should switch to some other profile. Thus, I requested to shift my profile to Transaction Advisory in PWC. But my request was rejected on grounds of inexperience.
My sheer interest in investment banking compelled me to do something so that I can change my job profile. I felt that CFA would be a good choice. So, I started preparing for CFA Level-I and qualified it in my first attempt.
But only after 100s of cold emails to HRs, I got a job in EPC Co.(Mumbai) in corporate finance team.
Still I was not satisfied with my job profile as I wasn’t given the mainstream work.
How did you get your Dream Job then?
In 2018, I decided to give another level exam and qualified it with 90%, in the hope of getting a decent job. I left my job at EPC after clearing CFA Level – II, but unfortunately no body was ready to take my interview. I even applied through CFA Institute’s website and I didn’t even get back a call.
After researching about a lot of options on Linkedin and Quora, I came to know about the 6 Weeks Investment Banking Program at The Wallstreet School.
I visited their website where they have mentioned their Live Placement updates, along with the Linkedin profiles of the placed candidates. I connected with their alumni, who had same profile as mine. I was very much intrigued by the transparency in their placements.
My subconsciousness was suggesting me to go for it. I took it, I took the plunge and joined the 162nd batch of the Wall Street school, Delhi Branch.
How did ‘The WallStreet school’ help you in getting placed?
After joining, I literally felt that CFA was just the ‘theory version’ of the core practical training at the WallStreet school was. All the data for Valuation and Business models was taken from Real Company Accounts and fitted into MS – Excel from scratch.
When I told CA Himanshu Jain (Co-Founder, The Wallstreet School) about my family conditions (My father’s heart disease) and that I am really under intense monetary pressure, he vouched for me with his affiliate HRs.
In the 6th week of the Course, I got two interview calls – Deloitte being the second one . Fortunately, I converted both the calls, but I chose Deloitte (Business Valuation) for its brand name.
All in all, The Wallstreet School was an amazing journey!
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