Early IB Offer with exploding deadline - months before normal recruiting

As many of you know, the timeline for junior year internship recruiting has been pushed up a ridiculous amount. I'm currently a sophomore at a target business school and I just got an offer to IB at a MM global firm summer 2019. A lot of my friends already have their offers (one of my buddies who just got Guggenheim IB today doesn't even have a sophomore summer internship lined up yet). The crazy thing to me is that they put a 2-week deadline on responding or its pulled. My plan for recruiting was AM at a BB and Corp Fin at Google (I did a consulting project with them and am guaranteed a first round). I want to recruit for those still, but their timelines don't start until the fall. I feel like accepting this offer now wouldn't let me look into any other opportunities. That being said, to be done with the dreaded junior year recruiting period 14 months before the internship even starts would be great. Would appreciate some advice as I am a 20-year-old with no real idea of what I'm doing in life (like most people my age).

 
Best Response

I would accept the offer and keep recruiting but only reneg if you get a significantly better offer or have a change of heart later in the year...

If firms are going to force your hand for the summer AFTER Junior year before you've finished sophomore year, then I think it's best to protect yourself and take the offer.

In the meantime I'd continue to do research and talk with people working in AM and Google Corp Fin to try and get a sense of what you would enjoy most and what you think would set you up best for a long career (IB, AM or CF at Tech).

Best of luck, Patrick

 

As someone in a very similar position (given offer for SA 2019 exploding after 1 week), I ended up accepting because 1 in the hand is better than 2 in the bush. Remember, this is just for 2019 SA, if you do IB and realize you don't like it, you can always go FT for CF or AM and IB will give you a skill set that will be great to reference in those recruiting cycles.

 

In a similar situation to OP right now, got an exploding offer (5 days) for SA 2021 at well-known boutique bank but in a very niche group. I'd be happy working there and the group is the best at what they do but I'm not as interested in compared to other IB groups -- exit opps from what I read online are also limited. Going to take the offer and reneg only if I get a significantly better offer as Patrick said, definitely the best way to hedge my risk.

Going forward, should I not tell firms that I already have an offer and haven't signed (but I did)? Trying to think through scenarios where I am left with nothing -- not sure if recruiters across firms talk about candidates. From what I hear, worst case is I get a better offer and never work at the firm I already have an offer for. I don't want to lie to anyone but I don't want to limit myself to taking the first offer I get.

 

Highly doubt you will see this, I'm in the same exact position though. Honestly, we may be talking about the same position, did you end up reneging or sticking with the group and how did that turn out for you

 

I am going to be at a BB this summer and got my first choice in group selection. I lucked out and can definitely see myself returning the following summer. That said, if for whatever reason I didn't click with the group, it would be a shame to be left high and dry because recruiting has already ended by the time the summer is halfway through. Hope there's a few slots available at other banks for people in that situation.

I wonder how long this metaphorical arms race can go on before all of the banks realize how unsustainable it is. I can see a fair amount of people reneging on their offers for Summer 2019.

 

If someone desires to stay in finance, sure. However, the purpose of an internship in every other field is to get a feel for if you like a job well enough to do it professionally. If I were going to take an offer with another bank before my internship started this summer and it turns out I HATE banking... I wouldn't really care if I reneged or not.

On the other hand, what if I absolutely love my group that I was with this summer? Why wouldn't I say fuck that other bank that made me sign an offer before the summer started?

I also think you might be blowing it out of proportion- most people don't stay in finance long enough for it to matter. You're not going to be sourcing any deals as an analyst and you're not really going to be interacting with the bank that you reneged on. I highly doubt it would damage your professional reputation, either. I've talked to a fair amount of senior bankers lately about this and they all think it's equally stupid.

I think the biggest take away from this is to avoid reneging if you can, but if it's in your best interest to do so... do it.

 

I never understood why everyone is so afraid of reneging on here... I mean if you're going to get slammed by your OCR that's one thing... but as long as you play your cards right I think there's extremely thin odds that it bites you in the ass. Maybe just avoid posting your new spot on LinkedIn for a couple months

I bet the reneging will ramp up with recruiting this early... banks will realize it's dumb af eventually.

 

This is getting insane... I had no idea what I wanted to do career wise as a freshman or sophomore in college and these banks are expecting kids to commit TWO years before they graduate.

You gotta take the offer and protect yourself. Don't feel too bad about if you have to renege. These banks would throw you out onto the street without thinking twice about it if they were going through a downsizing or financial crisis.

 

Because they don't want to give an offer that some punk kid can just take and leverage at the BB. They want to know that when they interview a candidate, there's a reasonable chance he will accept a potential offer.

“Millionaires don't use astrology, billionaires do”
 

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