FT Consulting: JP Morgan SA vs. Blackrock SA

Hey guys,

I posted this already in another section of the forum, and thought I'd post it here in order to get more insight from people in consulting. Essentially, I only recently realized that management consulting is what I want to do after graduation; by that point, I was deep into the interview process with various finance firms and I was too late to get enough case prep to nail a consulting interview.

I now have summer internship offers from mid-tier international investment banks (SocGen, Nomura), and offers at top-level asset management firms (portfolio management at BlackRock, equity research at JP Morgan Investment Management). Which would look best on my resume, considering that I want to get interviews with MBB or at least places like LEK & Parthenon next year?

Some people were saying that JP would be best, as consultants would not know anything about finance and would only look at prestige. I'm thinking BlackRock is pretty prestigious, and wouldn't an Asset Management internship at the world's largest asset manager be good evidence of having done good work/gained good experience/proving yourself and your skills? Also, IB (even at a mid-tier firm) is known to be intense work - would a consultant look at that favourably over top-level AM?

My FT career goal is actually neither of the above - I would like to be a management consultant, hopefully at M/B/B. With that in mind, which should I go for - mid-tier IB, or top-tier AM?

Thanks in advance for your replies and advice, and sorry for the really long question!

 

Why do you think consultants would know nothing about finance? I'd say about 25% of people interned or worked in finance before joining my firm.

Unless you want to work in Europe or Asia, I'd take Blackrock or JPM, the difference between the two is very marginal.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of Starwood Points
 
Best Response
petergibbons:
Why do you think consultants would know nothing about finance? I'd say about 25% of people interned or worked in finance before joining my firm.

Unless you want to work in Europe or Asia, I'd take Blackrock or JPM, the difference between the two is very marginal.

Thanks for your reply. I don't personally think consultants don't know about finance; in fact, I think the opposite. It's what somebody else suggested in my other thread.

Do Blackrock and JPM not have as much cachet in Asia. Incidentally, the two IB offers are in Asia, as is my Blackrock one; JPM's in New York. I guess my first preference would be NYC, but I know competition is tough and I'm totally willing to work anywhere. Asia would be my second preference (I'm from there and live there, but don't possess relevant language skills), it's more like 1A and 1B rather than New York being a strong preference. I'd take Asia over Chicago or Atlanta or some other US city. In light of that, would you say go with BLK or JPM > Nomura, SocGen?

 

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