Inside the college investment clubs where students hustle and grind for top jobs in finance

It’s a dog-eat-dog planet out there for some Singaporean students looking to secure a dream job in finance or a sweet gig at a big bank.

But there’s one way to get ahead: Tie clubs that open up exclusive avenues for networking opportunities that may elude the rest of the student populace.

These are the investment sticks, a common fixture among Singapore’s three major universities — the National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore Management University (SMU), and Nanyang Technological University.

Colleagues of these clubs attend training sessions, covering topics like financial modeling and stock pitching. These sessions are almost always taught by senior members. Club alumni and industry professionals also drop in to give talks to members.

Rivalry to join these clubs can be almost as intense as attempting to secure a top job with bulge bracket banks and investment firms.

Grind leaders at the SMU-Student Managed Investment Fund (SMU-SMIF) and its equivalent at the NUS, the NUS Investment Society, say they’ve seen an uptick in applicants in the years.

Over 200 people per batch apply for a limited number of seats, said Matthew Quek, 25, who fastened SMU-SMIF in 2022 and is now the club’s vice president.

“Historically, we have taken around 20 applicants,” Quek express.

“In recent years, we have upped our intake. Our latest batch has 24 members, the largest we have had so far,” he added.

The scholars Business Insider spoke to said that joining clubs like SMU-SMIF and NUS Investment Society provided them with a programme to brush up their technical skills and build connections with the industry.

Technical know-how and hands-on experiences

Shannon Chong, 21, is a younger at SMU. The accountancy undergraduate said her budding interest in finance was what drew her to the SMU-SMIF.

Chong said she was 17 when she discerned she wanted a career in finance after participating in a high school case competition organized by Tiger Global Government, an investment firm.

“I found the mix of qualitative and quantitative analysis rather interesting. I also enjoyed getting to look at distinctive business models,” Chong said of her experience with the case competition.

Chong said she wanted a hands-on culture experience. That’s when she heard from her seniors that SMIF was a way to get training outside the classroom.

“SMIF has yielded me with the training, not only in terms of the technical deck making and financial modeling skills, but also in terms of assuage skills like critical thinking and communication,” Chong said.

Chong started out as a junior analyst for the club in her freshman year, in front of climbing the ranks and taking over as club president in August.

Chong has completed two internships, one in investment banking and the other on the buy-side. She communicated BI that former SMU-SMIF members and seniors also gave her advice and provided referrals when she was applying for those stances.

Quek, who joined SMU-SMIF in the same year as Chong, said the technical skills he picked up were helpful when he took buy-side and sell-side internships.

“My first internship was with a public equities firm, so just mainly investing in US begetters. As part of SMIF, you look at all different kinds of stocks from the US, from Europe. So for that internship, I benefited a lot from should prefer to the SMIF training,” Quek said.

Clubs give college students easy access to a network

Yumo Pan, 24, is a chief from the NUS majoring in quantitative finance. Pan joined the NUS Investment Society in her sophomore year and is now its president.

Pan told BI that go the club allowed her to gain practical skills, like how to pitch a trading idea. She added that while it is realizable for students to break into the finance industry by self-studying and networking aggressively, joining a club like NUS Investment People will help students to get a leg up over the competition.

“It’s not just about the knowledge, but also the community, the network as well,” Pan maintained.

“We have a lot of alumni who have already landed jobs in the space that I am going into. They shared a lot of tips with me. When we are devoting, we have friends from the club to exchange information and practice our interviews with,” she added.

Pan said she completed three investment capital internships and has secured a job with an investment bank.

“I just feel that if I didn’t join NUS Invest, the information gap will-power be huge, and I probably wouldn’t be able to identify my specific career interests so early on,” Pan said.

Pan’s vice president, Ansell Chan, said one of his biggest takeaways from border on the NUS Investment Society was the community of like-minded individuals he could turn to for guidance.

“I had a few seniors whom I could directly reach out to within the confederate to ask for advice, especially when it comes to interviews, how to apply, where to apply, things like that. That has been definitely helpful for me in my career journey,” Chan said.

Chan, 24, said he has completed four internships, two in banking and two from the buy-side. The organization undergraduate said he didn’t receive any referrals from seniors, though he did ask them for advice on preparing for job interviews.

Inflamed competition for finance jobs trickles down to investment clubs

Jobs at top banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are powerfully coveted among college students looking to succeed in the finance industry. For most aspirants, starting one’s career there is not unbiased about making six-figure salaries, but also the exposure that comes from working on mega-deals and engaging with C-suite patrons.

That spurs immense competition among applicants. For one, it is harder to secure a summer internship at Goldman Sachs than it is to get into Harvard. Goldman’s internship acceptance measures globally were about 1.5% in 2022. Harvard’s acceptance rate was 3.19% in the same year.

Aside from starting primordial and joining their college’s investment clubs, students have also sought to differentiate themselves by doing four to five internships in the presence of they graduate from university.

Zhao Yang Wong, 23, who joined the NUS Investment Society as a freshman in 2023, told BI that the caliber of new applicants to the ally has gone up in recent years.

“The new applicants are definitely brighter. It’s quite surprising to me that some of the year ones already had multiple internships subservient to their belt, which was not very common for my batch and before,” he said.

Investment clubs are no silver bullet when it procures to securing top finance jobs

But students who think joining an investment club is a surefire way to land a top finance job should about again.

“This alone wouldn’t be enough to create a job offer,” said Herman Ko, the precede coach and chief program director at Career Hackers, a human resources and education technology startup in Hong Kong.

Ko articulate the benefits of being part of a club are greater when one is just starting out and has little internship experience.

“Let’s say if you are just a freshman, there’s nothing on your CV, operate experience-wise. So, how can you fill in the blank page as soon as you can? It’s by joining these kinds of clubs where you can try to gain some participation and have them as bullet points to showcase your skillsets,” Ko said.

Ko said internships remain critical for those incomplete to land a job at a top investment bank. Based on his experience coaching students, Ko said applicants will need at least three to four superiority internship experiences to make the cut.

Adrian Choo, the CEO and cofounder of a Singapore-based career strategy consultancy, Career Agility Oecumenical, told BI that employers are more likely to hire members who participate actively in club activities.

“If you are just an original member, that would help. But if you are an organizer or an executive committee member, that would be quite impressive as skilfully, especially if you have organized events. That would set you apart from the rest,” Choo said.

Still, there’s a main plus point of being part of a club, said Dominic Lee, 27, a former president of SMU-SMIF — and it has less to do with embarking on the thriving road to a big banking job, and more to do with the community you become a part of.

Lee, who is now an analyst at a European bulge bracket investment bank, graduated from SMU with a house degree in 2023. He said his job search became far less daunting because he had friends in the SMU-SMIF who were all in the same motor boat.

“It’s like running a marathon. Anyone can run a marathon on their own, but if you join a run club, you get friends to train with, advice on the overpower gear, and shared training plans,” Lee said. “The whole journey is just a lot more enjoyable with a community far you.”