Reconciliation Departments: Worth the Experience?

It might be back office work, but you will be communicating with the front office - make the most of it by letting the traders know you are interested in talking to them and learning what they do. They might be assholes and blow you off, or you might find someone willing to talk to you and teach you.

Bottom line - if you don't have any other opportunities, why not do this? At the minimum you will learn a lot about the way that a desk operates and ISDA documentation. Best case, you make some good contacts and learn about how a desk works in the real world. Any of this information would be valuable in an interview and at least you get a brand name on your resume.

I agree with the latter portion of randomwalk's post. If you don't have any opportunities, then yes this seems like a logical choice. However I doubt that you will have any front office contact at all, at least, this is the case with the Recon dept at my BB (NYC based). The interns have no contact whatsoever, so this is what I'm basing it on. I'm not sure how close the higher ups are with the trading desks, more likely, they speak to the Finance guys who support the Trading desks.

Also, I don't know about the "skills" aspect because more likely than not you'll be using firm-specific software to accomplish such tasks.

Hope this helps.

Also, in the case you don't get anything in IB. this type of internship will help you secure some other sought after position... it'll give you a leg up regardless.

WW,

I worked at a smaller bank and the ops guys didn't have any interns, as the sales and structuring intern I had a lot of contact with them and they seemed to interact with our traders a lot, but at a large BB this might not be the case.

Couldn't hurt, might help...

Thanks so much for the comments guys.

I would like to clarify one thing, though. I'm not looking to try and use this as an opportunity to transition into the trading division, nor am I looking to stay in Japan. I am here for only one year as a function of my undergraduate program, and would definitely like to stay in the States. Therefore, the purpose of working here would be only to gain a few months worth of experience and (possibly) learn in the process.

Having said that, it seems like the primary advantage would be adding the name of the firm on my resume, other than gaining an understanding of some back office operations and the firm's personal software. Or am I still misunderstood? I'm also somewhat lost regarding future interview perks.

Thanks again for everyone's comments and suggestions. I really appreciate it.

Are you looking to get into banking eventually? Get into trading (seems like no but just checking)? Do something finance-oriented?

To be honest even if you are planning to do one of the above, I'm not sure how great an experience this will be. Actual experience matters more than brand name for internships, at least when the experience is back vs. front office.

Next, what are your options? Is it either this or not work at all? Or are there other things you're considering?

If this is just during your spring undergrad vacation (as opposed to a summer internship) I would almost recommend finding some other activity to do over doing a job that is only moderately interesting/lukewarm good on a resume. You'll only be in Japan once and you have the rest of your life to work.

I wouldn't recommend taking this just to earn money because I'm guessing the pay will not be great either.

Pay is a non-existent issue. I'm looking to grow as an individual and/or gain any possible advantages that I can in the process.

I will not have the opportunity to apply for summer internships at traditional BBs since school here is on a different schedule and ends in late July. I only require one more semester to graduate and will, therefore, be returning to school for it in January (not September). This is why I will be searching for a 3-5 month internship somewhere from August-December.

While banking is not my ideal goal, it will be an employment opportunity I vie for to keep my options open (ideally I am more interested in an asset management/HF shop related role). However, as I have stated, I would be willing to do anything that would help be grow in the process, be it corporate finance, research, M&A-related, just about anything. So this will be a 2 month period open (February-March) which I would like to spend working somewhere (hopefully doing something meaningful).

It sounds to me like you are saying it might be best to focus on something like the CFA rather than doing reconciliation-type work while having the firm name added to my resume.

Thanks again for the feedback. I can not stress how helpful it all is.

Hell, you could do a pilgrimage or learn a martial art or something. Although people on these board emphasize financial knowledge and being really hardcore about business/finance, when interviewing for ibanking jobs I actually found myself speaking about other experiences/study abroad more often than finance-related stuff.

That said, I would encourage you to find something that will help you grow more over those 2 months... if you can't get anything and are set on working I think it's ok to do that for a short while, but you could definitely do better.

Thanks for the input, dosk. I was thinking the same thing. The work seems as if it would not help further my growth very much, which was why I posted here to see if others felt I could gain something from going there. It seems as if most people are saying it will be a name added to my resume, but if that's all, I'm sure I could find something better to do.

Thanks again for everyone's suggestions. If there are any others, I'm happy to hear them.

Yes, there will be no personal growth / development from this type of role.