Three routes beyond the graduate scheme
Candidates in this field weigh them against banking, consulting and the buy side, and the comparison goes wrong when two different decisions are treated as one. Working for a startup is a job. Trading your own money and building a newsletter are businesses. The risks are not the same, so they are kept apart here.
A job
A salary, a manager and a hiring process. Equity, where there is any, is a bonus on top.
Your own business
No salary and no hiring process. The cost of being wrong is yours, and the first year is more likely to be a loss than an income. Nothing on these pages promises or implies an income.
Independent trading
This is a business with no salary, not a job. The evidence on how individuals fare is consistent and unwelcome, so read this page as a map of what you would be taking on and not as a plan for income.
- The decision
- Whether to put your own capital at risk as a business, with no salary, no employer and no one to share a loss with.
- The risk
- You lose some or all of the capital, and the time spent was unpaid. The studies below suggest that is the common result.
Creator businesses
A business built on an audience you own. The writing is the smaller part of the work, the published rates are lower than the stories suggest, and the time is the largest cost.
- The decision
- Whether to spend your own time, unpaid at first, building an audience you could earn from, in place of or alongside a job.
- The risk
- The audience stays small, the revenue does not cover the hours, and the time was spent without a salary.
Each of these also appears on the career track map, beside the seats it is usually weighed against, and consultants and bankers move into all three. The graduate routes are set out in the consulting hub and on the interview preparation pages.