You're in the army now (but could go into banking later)
If you don't succeed in securing a graduate position in investment banking first time around, but remain determined to do so, it's best to look at ways to make yourself more employable in the interim. You could do worse than signing up to officer training in the military.
Moving from the military to financial services has traditionally been viewed as a relatively common transition. Officers are highly-motivated, possess leadership qualities, organisational and team-work skills, all of which appeal to banks' recruitment teams.
However, they also often lack the a knowledge of the technical aspects of banking and - following the enlistment requirements - will be a few years older than typical graduate recruits, so is it really such a good idea?
What army officer training involves
The natural choice for any graduate harbouring military ambitions is to sign up to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst to undertake officer training for the British Army.
The official qualifications bar for this at least 180 UCAS points, but more than 80% of cadets are graduates. If you're accepted, training lasts for 44 weeks (starting in January, May or September) and, upon completion, a minimum of four years service is required.
Officer pay comes in at 23.5-28.5k, depending on level of education. There's also the option of taking a sabbatical, including time out to complete an MBA. The army could subsidise the cost of this "if it is of benefit to the service" an MoD spokesperson tells us.
Will it help my banking career?
This is debatable. The investment banking graduate recruiters we spoke to said they hadn't seen a great deal of applications from ex-army candidates over the last two years, but that people within the business and in the City had been talking as though it "was set to become more of a trend".
Sadly, the MoD doesn't track the career paths of ex-officers, so wasn't able to provide any firm statistics on this.
However, sitting firmly in the pro-camp is Andrew Pullman, who joined JPMorgan's graduate scheme after seven years in the army and now runs City HR consultancy People Risk Solutions.
"Military trained people are disciplined, are used to performing a high-level and have a natural tendency towards team-work. These can't be easily trained in people, while the more technical elements of banking can," he says.
In the current environment though, banks might not have the luxury of giving lengthy training periods to military types, and candidates would therefore have to demonstrate knowledge of business and finance.
The best way of attaining this is to complete an MBA, suggests Derek Walker, director of careers at Saïd Business School and former head of graduate recruitment at Barclays Capital.
"They will still need to demonstrate a good understanding of the key components of a business they're interested in working in. Some roles increasingly require previous technical experience so these positions are more difficult for these people to move to," he says.
Other options?
Obviously, a four-year term in the army is something of a big commitment, particularly if a banking job (which isn't guaranteed) is your ultimate aim.
One way of demonstrating the qualities attained in the military without going the whole hog would be to sign up the University Officer Training Corps.
This allows you to get involved in military training while studying and could be a good way to polish up your CV before applying to investment banking graduate schemes.
