It may not be every child’s dream, but it was yours.
Other kids wanted to be rappers, or movie stars, or senior sturgeon slicers behind the counter at Zabar’s. Not you. “Someday,” you said, “someday, when I grow up, I’m going to be an investment banker!”
It was a beautiful dream. What child wouldn’t dream of making millions without any skill beyond the ability to shuffle numbers, gouge consumers and fleece entire nations? Yes, you do have to drive a Bentley and dine in fabulous restaurants on expense account, and maybe, just maybe, spend a few years in a white-collar country-club prison for trading insider information, but if that’s the price for a Park Avenue penthouse and a Nantucket Island beach house, you’ll pay it, gladly.
Alas, your dream was not realized, but don’t blame yourself. Many banking jobs are dynastic, passed down from one generation of robber barons to the next. You should have been born with a silver spoon in your mouth, instead of a Jell-O Pudding Pop.
But now there’s good news. Scanning Business Insider, as is my want to do on an enchanted fall eve, I discovered a way for anyone to achieve their dream, even you. Yes, according to Ellen Hoffman of the Business Insider Insider Picks team, which I trust totally, there is available for purchase an “investment banking training bundle that could help you land a job in finance.”
“If you’re vying for an entry- or junior-level position at a top investment bank,” Hoffman explains, “like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, or Morgan Stanley, eagerness and even having the right skill set will not guarantee you a spot.”
We know this is true. You definitely have the right skill set – greed, ruthlessness, a total disregard for the well-being of others – and yet, not one of these top firms has raised a finger to recruit you to their executive ranks.
This is where the “Investment Banking Training Bundle” comes in. It’s a “comprehensive and cost-effective tool to consider if you’re one of the many hoping to secure one of these competitive roles [and the six-figure salaries that generally accompany them”].
But wait! Blessed with a suspicious mind and a deep distrust of humanity – two other essential skills in your skill set – you wonder how many of those six figures you will have to shell out to make this magical bundle your own. You decide it has to cost $1,449!
And you are right! The original price for the bundle was indeed $1,449, and well worth every penny, I’m sure. Fortunately, the bundle is now available to you at a slight discount. Thanks to the eleemosynary efforts of the bundlers, you can start on the road to obscene wealth as an investment banker for only $39.
Now, frankly, I know that, for you, scraping up $39 is as large a hurdle as the $1,449, but since I also happen to know you are responsible for collecting donations for your company’s annual orphans and widows Thanksgiving turkey giveaway, you should be able to finagle the financing required. [You’ll pay back the orphans and the widows from your first paycheck at JPMorgan, promise.]
And before you accuse me of leading you astray, let me inform you that this bundle is irresistible. Friend, it includes 99 “top caliber” courses, and “500 plus hours of video.” I’m not sure where you’ll find the time to watch all those videos – you’re very behind on the 2015 season of “The Mysteries of Laura” – but the subject matter is intoxicating: “analyst accounting, valuations, discounted cash flows, IPO modeling & more.”
Good heavens! I’ll bet you’re drooling already.
There’s also 150+ hours in “20 different financial models, including FMCG Sector, IT Sector, Gas & Oil Sector.” That’s right! The hottest sectors out there, including the super-hot Pharma Sector. If you can learn how to charge $5,000 for a pill that should cost $5, the bundle would have made you a bundle, 10 times over. And I’m not just talking about money; I’m talking about the emotional satisfaction that comes from knowing you’ve made a killing for doing nothing more than tacking on a few zeros.
Now that’s what being an investment banker is all about.
The bundle also includes “soft skills for investment bankers,” but there’s only 40+hours devoted to how to “become an excellent communicator and a shrewd negotiator.”
Frankly, I think you can probably skip this part of the bundle altogether. As long as you can say, “Park my Bentley,” what more do you need to communicate?
Bob Goldman was an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company, but he finally wised up and opened Bob Goldman Financial Planning in Sausalito, California. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at bob@bgplanning.com.
