An email from a kinky lawyer

The Thursday before Christmas, I received the following email:

Dear GB,

I just stumbled across your blog and it is great. (I should be in bed now, i am flying back to England tomorrow morning from Holland!)

Oh by the way, I am 23, bi-curious and very innocent looking, oh and I have a latex fetish (if you needed to know!)...and i am a little kinky too....

Well, I am writing to ask you for career advice, if you don't mind... :)

I have a 2:1 class degree in Law with LLB Hons, and i am hoping to do a Masters in European Economic Law soon. I am earning money right now by teaching English and translating.

I want to eventually become Barrister, but would like to try investment banking - it seems such a thrilling career. Goldman Sachs is so appealing, so I may apply there. To be able to buy a nice flat in Covent Garden would be bloody amazing!

Can you give me any tips at all, about anything really...I am genuine - not a ponce like most from Law school - and would work all hours to bring in the dough (to buy more latex). As a person I can get on with anyone - without being false - and I am professional, but have a good sense of humour.

This sounds like a type of lonely hearts ad! Sorry :) GSOH...WLTM...

But, any advice would be great.... I hope you are doing ok with all the boyfriends anyway Mr :)

Take care, and have a nice Christmas, but don't be kissing too many gents under the mistletoe now. Oh i must go to bed, i am half asleep....

I've had emails in my inbox before asking for career advice. However this is the first one since I started the Dear GB concept, so it seems like an ideal opportunity to broaden Dear GB beyond relationship issues. From what I can tell about this guy, looking at a couple of his web sites that he's told me about, he's actually got quite a significant latex fetish. But if a healthy sex life was a barrier to a career in investment banking I'd have been sacked a long time ago!

In his e-mail, the guy mentions Goldman Sachs, which is certainly a famous investment bank. But it's not true that one has to work there to have a successful career in investment banking. It's got a reputation for making staff work very long hours, however the potential rewards are very high too. If the guy wants to have some spare time for his latex hobby, he'd probably be well advised to work elsewhere.

For a guy of his age, I reckon the best thing he could do if he wants to work in investment banking is to apply for all the graduate training programs. Although I've never been involved in recruitment, my guess is that now is a good time to apply, because now is the time when banks will be starting to think about recruiting fresh graduates who are still in the final year of their degrees. He'll need to be very well prepared for the interviews of course.

Another possibility would be to continue in his career as a lawyer for now, and apply once he's a fully trained lawyer, because all banks have their internal legal departments. To do this, he should specialise in law which is relevant to investment banks, and once he's got a good knowledge in a suitable area he could probably switch from working at a law firm to working for a bank instead. But it's also true that you can find guys who've trained as lawyers in many different areas of a bank, where perhaps their legal knowledge is useful even though the main focus of their job isn't legal.

Do any readers have any more advice?