Bank of America Merrill Lynch Research Associates

I have been accepted to a top 20 MBA program and have started to do some research about MBA internships. One program that caught my eye is BoAML's Research Associate program. I was hoping some one could help me figure a few things out.
1. Who works on a research team/What is the make up of lets say the Hi-tech research team.
2. Does an Associate interact with external clients or only people in the bank itself.
3. I understand that people who go through a post MBA IB associate program have limited exit options (it they weren't IB before the MBA). In terms of exit options, is the same thing true about a research associate?

Thanks a lot,
Tech

 
  1. I'm only familiar with a few of the tech analysts over at BAML, but they usually have 4-5 associates each focusing on a specific set of companies.

  2. Associates, once they have their licenses, talk to external clients (read: hedge funds, mutual funds, asset managers) and internal sales/retail brokers daily.

  3. There are plenty of MBA grads in research - exit opps typicaly range from L/S hedge funds, long only asset managers, IR, corporate development, among other equity analysis related fields.

 

So i would say if you are going for a research internship you need to focus on research and apply to all the banks. Most banks excluding UBS only take a few MBA interns for research each year and most are from Stern/Columbia where they do a good job of preparing candidates for interviews with maybe a few other schools having one or two interns at the BBs. It's not like investment banking where they recruit an army of MBA interns each year.

 

This is the truth. Vast majority of candidates for these BB final rounds are Columbia/Stern. A few random kids here and there from other schools (Wharton, Booth, HBS) but it's an uphill battle from outside of the MBA business schools ">M7 and NYC. Most of these places just need 2-4 people and will fill them with the kids who they know best (i.e. the Stern and Columbia kids who networked).

If you're not in NYC, hit up some mid-market and small buy-side shops.

 
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