Signed offer letter from SA...sending in apps for FT recruiting..can I get in trouble?

So I signed my offer letter for SA, but received an updated letter reflecting new analyst salary pay raise at a BB - my initial deadline was 9/15, but after I signed, received updated offer letter with deadline of 10/1. This is still too early for me to recruit again as I haven't heard back from first rounds, but I've just been telling them that I haven't signed yet - can I get in trouble for this? First question is if I'm technically breaking any rules by doing this as I received updated letter and second is if these banks usually call up the banks you interned at if you say you got an offer...what should I do?

Thanks!

Reason I am recruiting is because offer letter is for a location I don't want to be in.

 

People renege on offers...ALL. THE. TIME. It's crappy to do, but very common. If your old firm finds out, they could potentially rescind your offer. If you do end up receiving another offer and reneging on the original, expect a few angry phone calls but that's about it. Depending on your school's relationship with that bank you might get barred from the career office but who care if you have a FT job. You're an analyst and people will forget about it within the week. Too busy to worry about some might-have-been first year.

Hope that helps.

 
SmokeyG:

People renege on offers...ALL. THE. TIME. It's crappy to do, but very common. If your old firm finds out, they could potentially rescind your offer. If you do end up receiving another offer and reneging on the original, expect a few angry phone calls but that's about it. Depending on your school's relationship with that bank you might get barred from the career office but who care if you have a FT job. You're an analyst and people will forget about it within the week. Too busy to worry about some might-have-been first year.

Hope that helps.

You're saying if they find out I'm even interviewing they could rescind my offer?

 
EquityDebtFinance:
SmokeyG:

People renege on offers...ALL. THE. TIME. It's crappy to do, but very common. If your old firm finds out, they could potentially rescind your offer. If you do end up receiving another offer and reneging on the original, expect a few angry phone calls but that's about it. Depending on your school's relationship with that bank you might get barred from the career office but who care if you have a FT job. You're an analyst and people will forget about it within the week. Too busy to worry about some might-have-been first year.

Hope that helps.

You're saying if they find out I'm even interviewing they could rescind my offer?

They can and they will if they find out.
 
EquityDebtFinance:
SmokeyG:

People renege on offers...ALL. THE. TIME. It's crappy to do, but very common. If your old firm finds out, they could potentially rescind your offer. If you do end up receiving another offer and reneging on the original, expect a few angry phone calls but that's about it. Depending on your school's relationship with that bank you might get barred from the career office but who care if you have a FT job. You're an analyst and people will forget about it within the week. Too busy to worry about some might-have-been first year.

Hope that helps.

You're saying if they find out I'm even interviewing they could rescind my offer?

Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. That is why it is more risky to CONTINUE interviewing. Consider, however, an applicant that has interviewed at two firms. They receive and accept an offer to the first only to later receive the second and more preferable. In this case the blow back is minimal, and it happens all the time.

If you're going to continue interviewing just be quiet about it. Yes, the Street is small. But we overhype that too much sometimes. My best friend kept interviewing after accepting MS and reneged for a group-specific JPM offer. He thought it minimized his risk of getting a shitty group at MS, and based on his PE placement this year he made the right choice. The point is, even between two competitors that are historically intertwined nobody found out. Because he was quiet and professional.

Good luck with it. Do you and remember that you're an employee-at-will to these people.

 

In practice I think they're highly unlikely to discover that you are interviewing. If you do accept an offer at another firm, there maybe a phone call placed just to make sure that you were in fact employed there etc., but by that point you've probably already come clean that you are reneging the offer anyway. Expect angry calls from any fellow alums at the firm you've reneged on (I think I had two, plus a guilt trippy HR rep), but other than that, 'you've gotta do you'.

 

If the firm you are interviewing with finds out, you will most likely get the axe.

At a second round interview with a BB, a candidate revealed over lunch to one of the analysts that he had accepted an offer somewhere else hoping--I think--to impress the analyst. Well needless to say the MD in charge of hiring overheard and questioned the candidate whether he actually accepeted an offer. The candidate stuttered, tried to make an excuse and just trailed off.

I didn't see the candidate in question at the final round interviews.

Of course this may differ from analyst to MD since analysts may empathize with your situation. I've spoken with analysts on the phone before who told me to accept the offer I already had and to just recruit again anyway, renegging if I got another offer.

 

How can you say there's a little chance you'll get discovered? Let's say your interviewing at a BB, and just so happen to encounter an ivy-target associate in the chair. Having been to an Ivy, you probably have a miriad of Alumni at every bank and likely have best friends at every bank on the street. In about 10 seconds, the associate can call one of his buds at the bank you interned at, ask for his opinion of you, and whether you got a full-time offer and you can see how things can turn south from there.

tdlr; wall street is smaller than you think .. don't fuck up

 

I know what your saying but I really don't want to take the risk of being jobless once I graduate. I have massive amount of loans to pay off plus my parents are retiring soon so they cannot support me after I graduate. If this make my case any better, during my superday for Ops, I interviewed with mostly ivy kids or all target school kids and most of them accepted the offer because they were also afraid of not getting anything for FT.

In addition, my GPA has dropped a lot this semester since I'm taking extra classes plus working part time. Like I said, I'm more risk adverse. Yes, Ops is pretty shitty but I don't want to end up with nothing at all. I do not have that much confidence in my resume or interviewing skills. I like finance, but sometimes it's not enough to land you something that you want.

But thanks for the advice Dubsfan, I appreciate it. I really do. I just don't want to be unemployed since my parents are really counting on me to support them. They're immigrants and worked extremely hard to get me to America and put me through school. So they want to, and I want them, to to retire soon since the work that they do is literally breaking down their health. Family is the most important thing to me and if I need if being in ops will let me support my parents, I'll do it. But that doesn't prevent me from wanting more since, as banal as it sounds, I want to be intellectually challenged. I worked in PWM for MS for my first internship and I hate it because I didn't learn much and did mostly administrative work. After doing some technical analysis for fixed income securities, I realized that trading was something that I wanted to get into. I'm OK with being in Ops, but if there are other opinions which will not jeopardize [too much] of my chances of being employed after graduation, I will gladly pursue that route.

 
sixrings:
I know what your saying but I really don't want to take the risk of being jobless once I graduate. I have massive amount of loans to pay off plus my parents are retiring soon so they cannot support me after I graduate. If this make my case any better, during my superday for Ops, I interviewed with mostly ivy kids or all target school kids and most of them accepted the offer because they were also afraid of not getting anything for FT.

In addition, my GPA has dropped a lot this semester since I'm taking extra classes plus working part time. Like I said, I'm more risk adverse. Yes, Ops is pretty shitty but I don't want to end up with nothing at all. I do not have that much confidence in my resume or interviewing skills. I like finance, but sometimes it's not enough to land you something that you want.

But thanks for the advice Dubsfan, I appreciate it. I really do. I just don't want to be unemployed since my parents are really counting on me to support them. They're immigrants and worked extremely hard to get me to America and put me through school. So they want to, and I want them, to to retire soon since the work that they do is literally breaking down their health. Family is the most important thing to me and if I need if being in ops will let me support my parents, I'll do it. But that doesn't prevent me from wanting more since, as banal as it sounds, I want to be intellectually challenged. I worked in PWM for MS for my first internship and I hate it because I didn't learn much and did mostly administrative work. After doing some technical analysis for fixed income securities, I realized that trading was something that I wanted to get into. I'm OK with being in Ops, but if there are other opinions which will not jeopardize [too much] of my chances of being employed after graduation, I will gladly pursue that route.

Seems like you already made up your mind and are just trying to validate yourself... then why ask people at all?

 

By the way, not all is lost if you're in ops. I know a guy who started in technology, got close to the FO people, did a night time MBA at NYU (paid for by the firm, I think), and then was immediately transferred into FO as an associate. Based on my conversations with people in operations-like positions, the main reason they don't move into FO work is because they don't want to after a couple of years. Their money is quite good, albeit not amazing, their hours are amazing, and frankly, it's a huge pain to motivate yourself to network / go to school when you're already starting a family, etc.

 

There seems to be a little confusion on my situation. I spoke with a lawyer, and on second thought, this isn't exactly the situation I thought I was in. I am planning on backing out of all potential leads I have at the moment, and taking my offer at BB. You guys think I'll get rescinded in this case?

 

you aren't doing much to advance our understanding of your situation... as stated I don't see what the problem would be.

@"wikileaks" I agree in principle. It is a pretty small world. But in reality I don't think ppl talk all that much, certainly not for junior level hires. When an associate is slammed a couple deals, side projects, marketing etc. plus dealing with recruiting, the last thing they are going to do is start calling up old buds to discuss a potential analyst hire. Now if you're pulling in a VP/Dir. level person than ppl will talk all kinds of shit in private.

 
Best Response

You are going to renege on an offer for a temporary SA position at a BB bank because you can't bear being in a particular location for 8-10 weeks? Which won't really matter given the hours you'll presumably be working and that the whole purpose is to beef up your resume for whatever round of recruiting is next down the line.

Did you ever hear that story about that trailer park community down in Florida back in 2007? Well they decided to get greedy when a developer offered them each 750k per lot, so the trailer owners decided they would band together and wait it out until they each got $1MM. While they were holding out the developer went broke and they got nothing.

I don't know why your post reminded me of that.

 
ArcherVice:

You are going to renege on an offer for a temporary SA position at a BB bank because you can't bear being in a particular location for 8-10 weeks? Which won't really matter given the hours you'll presumably be working and that the whole purpose is to beef up your resume for whatever round of recruiting is next down the line.

Did you ever hear that story about that trailer park community down in Florida back in 2007? Well they decided to get greedy when a developer offered them each 750k per lot, so the trailer owners decided they would band together and wait it out until they each got $1MM. While they were holding out the developer went broke and they got nothing.

I don't know why your post reminded me of that.

He meant a FT offer from SA. He messed up in the body of the text but the title is right and in the context of the rest of the post, I'm pretty sure he's looking at FT alternatives vs the FT offer he got this summer.
 
EquityDebtFinance:

Yep. FT offer was for Houston, and trying to stay on the East Coast. Had first rounds on campus for some elite boutiques (Greenhill/Lazard) and upper MM's (Jefferies/RBC) and decided to stop interviewing and take what I got.

Well that wasn't a smart move. You left out the most crucial piece of information. We were all working under the assumption that location was the same (ie all NY). There's a very remote chance that the guys in NY are going to talk to guys at a completely different bank in a completely different city, especially Houston. And generally, guys in banking know what's going on when you're shopping an offer and aren't going to broadcast that you're recruiting with them to your old team. We all get the drill, we've all been there.
 

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