Not enjoying summer internship: What to do?
Hi all,
I have somehow been lucky enough to secure an IBD summer internship at JPM/MS/GS.
I had really thought carefully through my motivations and really thought I would like it. Turns out I find the job lacking stimulation and intellectual challenge. That should be obvious, but I have not realized until I got the offer. I am thinking about pursuing consulting and seeing whether that is for me.
What should I do? Tell the bank that (they are amazing bla bla but..) I don't think it is for me? Or wait and (hopefully) get a return offer, and then turn it down (and leverage that for other interviews)?
I believe they won't give me an offer unless I tell them I want one, why I would not want to piss them off by rejecting an offer I otherwise said I wanted.
Any thoughts?
Absolutely not, why would you ruin such a perfect opportunity? Use this internship to get a consulting gig next year. If you don't do this internship what else will you be up to this summer? Probably bit late to get a summer internship in consulting anyhow..
Moving from IB to consulting is pretty standard. Definitely take the internship and use the brand name from that to score better interviews with bigger consulting firms next year.
It's only ten weeks. Anyone can do literally anything for ten weeks. Get the return offer and then recruit for consulting in the fall. Without an offer, you will have to explain in every interview why you didn't get one. Think about it from the interviewer's point of view: why take a chance on a candidate who wasn't asked back to his bank when there are countless individuals with the same resume who did. Who's the safer candidate? Futhermore, a banking return offer in hand during consulting recruiting will give you the opportunity to show that you honor any commitment you have, regardless of whether it is "for you", while still putting in your full effort. That translates to the commitment you would show any consulting client work.
Are you saying to accept the IB offer and then renege or to reject the IB offer if he gets one?
He needs to get an offer in order to have that optionality (i.e. staying with banking or recruiting for consulting.) Depending on how long he has before a banking offer expires, he could start to enter any accelerated consulting FT recruiting (if there is any; I don't know if it's like finance). Even if he rejects a banking offer, he can still say that he got one. Consulting recruiters will look much more favorably on a candidate that was vetted by Goldman as opposed to one who "couldn't cut it" there (for whatever reason). So, if he does not get an offer, he won't have banking to go back to AND he greatly diminished his chances of getting into consulting. Considering where he is now, this could lead to a relatively bad career situation during senior year (potentially all because of a search for "intellectual stimulation" at the entry level.)
In terms of accepting and reneging vs. rejecting assuming he gets a banking offer: That would be up to him depending on the timing of interviews, offers, offer expirations, etc.
I always caution people to beware the greener pastures. Make sure you really want to do consulting. If you're looking for intellectual stimulation, I would argue that it is far from a given in an entry level management consulting position. Or any entry level position for that matter.
If banking really isn't for you, then congratulations! You are a sane human being. Just make sure you fully think it through and don't make a decision you'll regret.
Regarding pissing a bank off...who cares? They will forget about you so quickly that it would almost hurt your feelings.
As above definitely make getting a return offer your priority, and then decide what you want to do carefully.
I would echo what was said about being careful in assuming you'll find intellectual stimulation in consulting - I imagine you may also be in for an unpleasant surprise there.
what are your expectations for a first job and internship as far as intellectual stimulation?
I think what you'll find is that the real world isn't as intellectually stimulating as you'd like it to be. if you want to be stimulated, try to invent something, design software, build stuff, or get a PhD and write a thesis.
all of this is not to say that you should avoid banking. you're fortunate to have gotten an internship at one of those firms, but I am saying that you should not get your hopes up that anything discussed on this forum will be very intellectually stimulating.
I think it's worth noting that very few people actually enjoy their internship. It's not really meant to be a fun experience even if you think you love the role/industry. Also, to reiterate once again, you really, really want to get the return offer. Speaking from experience, even with an internship from GS/JPM/MS, you'll have a really tough time landing another top tier full-time offer without a return offer from your internship.
So many responses - thanks guys. I am almost halfway through the internship already, so I am not stopping it, but thinking about how to end things properly.
To narrow down the talk: how much of a downside - in the view of a consulting company - would there be to telling the bank at the end of the summer "you are great, but its not for me". Not "not getting a return offer", but telling the bank in a nice way that it's not for me.
Then, when asked in consulting interviews, tell them the truth and tell them that they can feel free to ask the bank about whether I am telling the truth. Also, maybe, ask for a recommendation to ensure the consultancy that I did not do poorly.
How's everybody's thoughts on being "honest" about the whole thing, yet getting a recommendation or the like?
Dude just work your ass off get the return offer! You can always write a nice letter telling the bank you won't be joining once you have a consulting offer.
1) How are you 100% confident that you will get a consulting offer? What if you have nothing at the end of senior year. 2) It's not that easy to get an offer.. how can you already assume the bank will be making you an offer? Have you had a great mid- review? 3) Maybe look at other areas of the bank which might appeal to you more and try and network with them. 4) As some one already pointed out.. consulting for starters is not intellectually challenging in a anyway! You will spending time doing ppt decks and understanding process flows.
Get the offer first, and see your options once you something else to fall on to.
Nothing wrong with rejecting the offer after you get it - as others have said, the bank doesn't care about you that much, you're one of many many people who could fill that role satisfactorily.
However, you want to be very careful rejecting that offer if you don't have a consulting one in hand already - at the end of the day consultants may be impressed you did well enough to get an offer at an investment bank, but you could have a bad interview, not get along with someone, blow a case study etc and end up with nothing at all very quickly.
telling them you're not interested before they offer anything is one of the most arrogant things you could possibly do. it's assuming that they are interested, you need to exercise some humility brah. TLDR: DO NOT DO THAT.
also, you're missing the MAIN point of all of this. work in finance, consulting, whatever, is not super duper intellectually stimulating, ESPECIALLY at an entry level. lower your expectations of what the real world actually is and you might be pleasantly surprised. if you want to be stimulated all of the time, do things that are designed for that, banks and consultants make money on fees, not on enlightenment.
Never burn your bridges
I got this written on my bedroom wall.
I hope you never find yourself in a situation where you need to remember this though ha
What class year?
It makes a big difference because if "intellectually challenging" is your #1 criteria those jobs aren't going to be anything you can do with a business degree. As much as we like to pat ourselves on the back for being "smart" in finance, we aren't even close to the most book smart people out there(although our job requires one of the highest combined totals of book and people skills). You'd want to go to law school or get an engineering degree, both of which are considerably more demanding of book smarts than "business" is.
Obviously it isn't going to be worth your time to do that if you're in the Junior year. If you just finished freshman year then there's plenty of opportunity for you to change tracks.
Take the offer. You are still a whole school year away from even starting there. You don't know how you personally will change over those next few months and what you will think of the job at that time. If you still don't like it when you are set to start next year, you can always renege. Again, don't even worry about it. The bank will forget about you very quickly. Hell, they even forget about you pretty quickly when you are there.
If you want "intellectual stimulation" become a neurosurgeon or some shit.
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