Why you should do a BB Ops internship as a sophomore
Since everyone here has wanted IBD since coming out of the womb I thought I'd give some advice on how you young guys can position yourself to be a lock for junior year recruiting. Most BBs have soph programs in IBD but they pretty much only go to the ivy kids so a hard-working non-target has little shot if I'm being completely honest. This is not the end of the world since ops is a much more clear path for a sophomore.
- Network with ops employees. You'd be amazed how many people don't in BO.
- Be polite. NEVER EVER say that you want IBD to the ops people that you network with. More than likely you will spend your junior IB sa at a different bank so just keep hush about it.
- Overwork the competition in preparation. I highly doubt people who I interview practiced for over 100 hours.
- Do a good job and utilize resources. Many firms will have internal databases that have all employees names so you can email them or whatever. Very helpful if your group has a bloomberg terminal.
- Have fun and build rapport with the team. You still want to get a return offer since it may come up later.
Why BB ops is going to stand out?
You have the brand name and access to network. You will also be more respected since the people in IBD will know you did a decent amount of work over the 8-10 weeks.
I just went through SA recruiting and I don't completely agree. To me it seems the best possible think to do sophomore summer is to get experience in something as close to IB as possible, even if it's at a tiny firm. I agree with you that brand name is valuable, though, so I think either path can make you a good candidate for junior recruiting.
you're delusional. i always interviewed kids who had a non-bucket shop FO / MO sophomore year gig even if no brand name vs. the ones who did BB BO sophomore year internships.
How do you feel about BB PWM gigs?
Not the worst thing in the world but if you're talking BB PWM as in the local FA it will not hold the same weight as say PWM at GS. The good thing is you will get a lot of time to network from the local FA since they don't work their interns that hard.
Since when do interns interview other interns? I'm guessing you're at UBS?
throwaway BC people know my old account. did 2 years of m&a
As someone who did a BB IBD soph internship (and doesn't attend an Ivy), I can confirm that this is terrible advice.
There aren't that many spots for soph IB & don't you go to a target school anyways? Not exactly a far off school from the ivy league. Feel free to attack on semantics, intern.
I didn't even know ops had soph programs. All the applications I've seen have been for FO.
Have you actually landed an SA role yourself? Lol
Yeah maybe if your only other option is your neighborhood Edward Jones office then this is good advice, otherwise kids shouldn't be hearing this.
Let me just review this:
"You have the brand name" So does the high school dropout working in the call center
"and access to network" A network at one bank. This could actually lead to you putting too many eggs in that basket and inevitably screwing yourself
"You will also be more respected since the people in IBD will know you did a decent amount of work over the 8-10 weeks" Maybe if your competition was spending the summer lifeguarding, but they aren't. As someone on the other side of the table, we could set "prior IB/PE/HF experience" as an SA application requirement and would still have an annoyingly large amount of candidates. I know what you do in ops and I know what kids do who are interning at boutique investment banks, advantage goes to the kid with the banking internship every time. At this point, a sophomore internship in high finance is par for the course.
Not to shit on ops internships as they are still respectable positions, I just wouldn't advise anyone to spend time focusing on those for their sophomore summer.
Do you guys even realize that not everyone is going to kill it and land the IB job? I didn't know about IB until senior year, and only had a very faint clue of what it actually was (I thought ABL was in IB), so I know that I would've bombed an interview if one came my way sophomore year/junior year. People on here might not know the difference or might at least realize what they want when it's too late (IB recruiting starts in the summer if you count networking). At least showing up to the interview for your ops internship will give a person a chance to get some experience, and possibly lead to a FT job out of undergrad. Not to even mention that IB is traditionally for the target schools!
Guys! Be realistic. This is an Ops MD trying to sell his desk to gain new hires. Plus, I don't really think kids that walk into an ops interview will have their life ruined if they do decide to sign the offer. At the end of the day, it's about being practical. No job ain't better than some job. That way, kids can actually make their own choices, because realistically, saying you want IB is a different game than actually showing up ready. We all saw the Duval kid in the other thread.
In my early days, I did my BO internships at UBS and Citi - it was a complete waste of time. Doing BO internships just make you look really bad during the FO interviews. Questions always came up (during the FO interviews): "So you were not qualified to get an interview for FO roles?" - "I don't understand how you are spinning off your BO internships as relevant experience for FO positions".
So please do not preach the wrong information on an online forum where majority of the audience is clueless college students. If you really want to prepare for FO interviews assuming you don't have any FO internships even at small firms, take your time to 1) do self study, 2) make a case study, 3) build a financial model, or 4) or do some sort of indirect FO roles (i.e. Business Development, Corporate Strategy even at a startup).
This advice is about as useful as tits on a nun.
I'd always try to get as close as to what you want, so if your goal is FO at a BB (but you didn't get it) then go for FO at a MM, boutique; those are closer to FO at BB than MO/BO at a BB.
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