Hey guys,
I'm about to graduate in may 2012 from a school in the US that's top-30 rank-wise with a degree in international relations and economics. I'm looking to get into finance in HK. I've had internships at an investment bank in NYC doing wealth management and at a boutique firm in Shanghai raising capital for private equity funds. I am an ABC and speak Mandarin relatively well (prob 8/10) but reading/writing is still weak (5/10). I don't speak any cantonese. I wanted to do investment banking in HK but it seemed like they have high language requirements these days for entry-level analyst spots and only really take people who grew up in Asia. So I applied for institutional sales and had a bunch of interviews with the big banks but came away without an offer.
I'm still looking to get into finance in HK. My options are 1. to move to HK after graduation and hopefully network around to get a job before the 3-month tourist visa ends, 2. get a masters of finance in HK to learn more about finance and buy some more time to look for a job, 3. spend 2 years in rural china teaching english in a peace-corps like program (which would position me well for business school and make me fluent in chinese), 4. move to shanghai/beijing to look for any job business or finance-related and improve my chinese for 2 years before trying again for HK
At this point it seems like investment banking is out of the picture, but I'm still unsure of what I REALLY want to do so would be open to suggestions (consulting, management trainee programmes, business development, finance middle office jobs, etc.)
Anyways, I was wondering if anyone could provide advice. Some concerns are: 1. crappy job market, 2. language skills (is being fluent in mandarin that necessary? I feel like even if I spent x number of years learning I still would not be able to translate as well as a tsinghua/HKU grad who grew up in china/HK), 3. positioning myself well for a top-tier business school in the US or INSEAD Singapore, 4. not being HK resident and needing a work visa, 5. paying off student loans (not a crushing amount but working in China with a RMB wage would make it difficult to pay off)
Anyways sorry for the long post but I would appreciate it if anyone could provide some advice. I don't know anybody who's tried to move to HK as a fresh college grad; most friends I know in HK grew up and live there and others got transferred over by their companies. I really want to go directly to Asia after graduation and don't want to settle for a job in the US.