Did I Mess up Recruiting?
So with summer 2023 SA recruiting coming to a close, I've just been looking back on my recruiting season and can't help but wonder whether I screwed up or not. For context, I'm at a target, have a competitive GPA (>3.7), have relevant coursework in finance, relevant work experience (prior IB internship with deal exposure), and yet, my recruiting hasn't gone all that great. I never got past hirevue for any of the BBs (didn't even get past resume drop for some), got an interview at only one or two EBs, which I failed to convert, and ended up signing an offer for a MM firm next summer (the only firm that gave me an offer). To put these numbers in perspective, I applied to around 50 firms, basically every single EB, BB, and MM firm that had an open application.
Prior to recruiting season, I went to a bunch of resume workshops and got my resume to be as strong as possible, edited the crap out of it and perfected it to the point that there really wasn't any suggestions people had for me towards the end. So, I was hoping I'd get past the resume drop at least for most of these firms.
Now given my background + school + prior experience, I was expecting I'd at least get a few more interviews at BBs and EBs, even if I didn't end up converting all of them. Don't get me wrong, obviously I'm happy I have an offer at a solid, reputable bank for next summer; I just can't help but think that maybe I could've done better, and I don't know where/how/if I went wrong in this process.
Hey dude, def don’t stress at the end of the day I think everything happens for a reason and you still ended up securing a MM offer which many people would love to have (I think we tend to discount how competitive IB recruiting is, regardless of the firm).
It looks like you did everything on your end in terms of the application process, but I think the only thing you didn’t mention (and arguably the most important thing) was your networking efforts. How’d that go for you? If you ideally had 1-2 contacts who liked you at each firm you applied to and you still didn’t get past the resume screen that’s just bad luck unfortunately. And as for not getting through the interviews, I think that’s largely dependent on how well you did when answering behaviorals/technicals relative to the other applicants who I’m sure were also highly competitive.
If you just posted this so that you could reflect on things you could have done better then that’s great, but def don’t beat yourself up over this - be proud of your accomplishment! A lot of people would love to be in your spot, it’s all about perspective. Enjoy the rest of your summer man
Yea honestly networking might be it. I started sending out networking emails in like February, but kind of lost consistency because I was getting a crappy response rate. I ended up not getting contacts at most of the firms I applied to in time for recruiting season, but I guess I thought networking didn't matter as much (relatively) since I was at a target. I'm definitely happy that I have a decent offer next summer, and yeah I guess I should put things in perspective more in terms of even having that offer.
If I had to guess you aren't networking at all or very effectively. Your issue was not really making it to the interview stage which is generally indicative of failure to network, especially with your credentials.
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