IBD FULL TIME 2018 RECRUITING

Are folks with no investment banking summer internship screwed for full time? Lets be honest, Majority of the interns convert their internship to full time and that leaves very less room (not sure how many spots to be exact, would you know?) for new people to get in for FT. What is the alternative way? Please comment and share your experiences fellow monkeys and help each other.

Thank you!!

 

No, there are usually a few slots that open up as offers come out in August. EBs will usually informally fill faster than BBs.

Having OCR will almost certainly increase your chances as most BBs will post for openings for a short time range in August/September at target schools. Otherwise, you need to network very early to get exposed. NY almost always has more openings than west coast, as the market is less dense.

 

You're asking very basic questions.

Follow the same process as an internship. You aren't in a particularly bad spot, just be able to answer clearly why the sell side. A lot of bankers are going to look at you funny if you say you prefer IB over PE...especially since no small portion of the analysts are only there because they want to move on to PE.

 

The percentage of a FT class that gets filled with SAs is more like 95-100%. The few slots that are open are almost always filled with SAs from similar banks (e.g. MS might fill a few slots with GS or JPM SAs). Honestly, and I don't mean to discourage anyone, but FT is almost impossible these days unless you have a return offer from a similar bank.

I'm not sure what you're asking. So, you did not get your return offer and are now thinking of taking a year off? I might be misunderstanding. Anyway, banks like giving return offers to SAs or taking on SAs from similar banks. Everything else is less than ideal. Banks are incredibly risk averse. They don't want to spend thousands of dollars training someone only to find out that that person hates IB. They also don't want to spend any more money on training than necessary. This makes SAs the ideal candidates.

 

i'll second that: a few friends of mine did their SA at top BBs, couldn't convert, and ended up at significantly lower tier MMs or boutiques. Tough to find any FT gig if you couldn't convert your SA offer tho, and Sil is very correct.

 

This. I don't necessarily blame them either. A SA from JPM will have the knowledge and experience for a GS FT opening and can get started pretty quickly. It sounds like nowadays if you want to get in FT without IB SA experience you either 1) go to a target 2) have a strong connection or 3) have an internship at a company that has a lot of "prestige'' (example: McKinsey, google, apple, IBM, etc.)

 

I think OP is asking about working in some other business role for a year and then recruiting for banking again. If so, you wouldn't be going through the FT hiring process and competing against seniors in college; you'd be competing against all other guys trying to lateral in at the same time as you (including people at other banks and other industries in business). There usually isn't a formalized timeline for laterals, as it is done on an as needed basis.

 

Plenty of reasons, mostly all boiling down to either work not being good enough or people not really liking the SA. There is (logically) a 'sliding scale' too, depending on headcount; in unfortunate scenarios, some groups may quite like a SA who does good work, but the person won't end up with an offer because a lack of spots meant s/he was beaten out by a 'better' SA. These SAs with good work quality and rapport are those most likely to get full time spots in other groups or at other banks, in most cases.

 
Best Response

The undergrad recruiting climate today is such that if you fail to convert your summer internship to an offer, you are sorely out of luck and will be incredibly hard-pressed to secure a full-time analyst role period. For those who do, it's often at a firm of notably lower 'prestige' - you're basically going down-market to say "Hey, I summered at CS and struggled with the culture, but I learned a lot and from what I know about Harris Williams, I think I could be a great fit."

That's not to say that any banking job at any firm with a healthy reputation is something to look down upon, nor is it to say that anyone who fails to convert their internship is an unmitigated fuck-up and deserves a bad career.

The harsh reality is that the top firms have figured out who they're going to extend offers to with 2-3 weeks left in the internship. Before the summer program has even ended, HR has reinitiated contact with top candidates they'd like to fill the analyst class with. That invariably tends to be two groups: a) the kids who got an offer but chose to go to another firm, and b) the top kids from each superday who were either waitlisted or the last ones cut and not given the summer offer.

They then set up a series of 'accelerated' superdays for the end of August; they want to get the kids from other banks before their offers explode, and they want to interview everyone before they go back to campus after the end of the internship. At some firms, these take place even before the internship program has ended. When I was at my BB internship years ago, my good friend who had the other bedroom in our summer place got a superday invite during the ninth week of my internship before we'd even had our final reviews scheduled at my firm.

Since your question seemed to be about your chances of breaking in after working for a year elsewhere, the unkind fact is that your chances are minimal. That's not to say it can't be done, but people at lower-tier firms are constantly trying to move up to better ones. Why would someone in a coverage group at JPM want to talk to the guy who worked at a F100 FDLP for 10 months instead of the guy at Wells Fargo who's already in the same coverage vertical and simply wants to get to a better bank?

I've seen it done, but it's tough. It's definitely a function of network and timing. Network in that your chances are much better if you have a buddy in the group you're applying to who can tell you the same day he finds out there's an analyst opening, and timing in that your odds improve the month when bonuses hit the bank account (turnover is highest then).

Good luck.

I am permanently behind on PMs, it's not personal.
 

I wouldn't say Harris Williams is lower-prestige than CS btw. It'svery difficult to land an offer at Harris Williams and it is one of the best banks for PE placement out there since they they are one of the biggest deal pushers to middle market sponsors.

If Harris Williams had an office in NY, I would've hands taken that over most BBs.

 

I second APAE's point. Once you fail to convert the SA offer, you really become damaged goods. A lot of recruiters will read the resume as such, and even when you land the interview, the interviewer will have that predisposition. Even for those who have FT offers and are 1-2 years into their positions, if there's no logical rationale or a convincing career trajectory when you submit that resume for a new job, recruiters will always be assuming the worse.

 

Wow thanks a ton for the replies. So yeah, I basically took the FT offer for granted during my SA and coasted pretty hard work-wise (I worked in FIG so the dealflow was pretty embarrassing, I was diddling my thumbs most days and despite having had an M&A internship my sophomore year, the FT analysts didn't give us much responsibility. Terrible group, 1/10) I came in late a few days because I stayed out late the night before (Really dumb) and also was a bit too lax culturally in a few situations, having been sort of lured in with befriending analysts and wanted to be one of the bros. As I learned in the middle of the summer, basically all of the other SA's recruited directly into FIG, either because daddy had a connection or they just networked hard with someone in the group. My undergrad was better than literally everyone else in the group's if that says anything... I had a really easy SA, only stayed past midnight about 5 times and often left work as early as 7 (again, their dealflow was shit and the staffer was hooking his buds up with the rare live deal)

Of course, one of the many things I learned from that was to never blame anyone but myself, so I've been doing well recently and am working at a startup that's related to finance.

Seems like I'm pretty fucked. The worst part is that I'm making decent money now, only about 10k less than IB and I'm working probably 20-30 less hrs/week so it's not a bad deal, but I actually miss the skillset I was developing in IB. I at least knew that the exit-ops for my work were really good in IB and now I'm not sure what I would exit to from this position, even assuming I greatly spin what I'm doing here to be transferable skillset-wise. Feelsbadman

"I did it for me...I liked it...I was good at it. And I was really... I was alive."
 

A few points: - literally no one cares about your undergrad once you're in: the kid from bumfuck state school has as much of a shot as the snobby Ivy-leaguer for FT - the implicit rule is that the intern should be last man standing: leaving at 7pm is largely unacceptable, unless your team gave you specific instructions to do so - some BBs may hand internships to the sons/daughters of "privileged client relationships," but FT offers face way more scrutiny - there's always work to be done on an investment banking team: did you actively reach out to analysts/associates? Did you try networking with other IB groups?

 

I'll be honest and say that you screwed up during SA. It seems like you had a bad attitude from the beginning and people knew early that you weren't a keeper. There's so much misc bitch work in banking that you can always add incremental value without knowing how to model.

That being said, since it seems like you really want it, your position isn't hopeless. I know someone who failed to convert his BB SA offer to FT and ended up doing corp dev at a decent F500 (by no means top tier). However, after a year he was able to get an offer with a top MM firm.

Since what you're doing doesn't seem as directly relevant, I recommend that you look into boutiques and corp dev roles now and lateral up-river the following year. Obviously this whole plan is going to take a lot of hustle, but it's far from impossible.

 

You're looking to blame everyone but yourself. You came in late, left early, rarely stayed past 12, thought Summer Analyst work (databases, pitchbooks, model updates, menial shit etc) was below you, and by the sounds of it never sought out work? Yet you felt you were entitled to be staffed on live deals?

You completely fucked it and you only have yourself to blame.

 

Related note, is it virtually impossible to go through FT recruiting if you aren't a college senior? I'd like to go through an analyst program if possible (graduated May 2015 with no offer...so I'd theoretically be interviewing with class of 2017 kids). I have boutique experience but that was just an internship and I work in compliance now, so I won't exactly be a hot commodity to lateral.

I know that answer is technically "no, not impossible" based on there are always exceptions, but I'm wondering how high of a climb I have. I'm assuming pretty high. I spoke with some analysts and associates at a large regional player (think Raymond James or SunTrust) and they got me in touch with HR and after looking over my resume, she said to get in touch with her in August to set up phone interviews and I would still be eligible for the next analyst class. Maybe it helps that I'm a baby and don't turn 23 until this June.

Didn't graduate with a job (had offers, but no IB), 3.5 GPA, large non-target school, boutique IB internship experience. Held out trying to get IB and didn't get a job until October 2015 after graduating May 2015. Taking CFA level 1 this June.

Trying to weigh whether I should try to hit getting a job at a boutique this summer after taking the CFA or wait a little longer and try to get something more formal and with a bigger platform. Boutiques will always be there but this might be my lat chance, albeit slim, to get in an analyst program somewhere.

I'm not aiming for GS/MS or bust, but wouldn't mind some formal analyst program vs. just getting in with a boutique. But I'm not getting any younger

Thanks

 

When did I ever say the work was below me, And how is there work to be done if I'm not on any staffings, that's my entire point. I wasn't staffed whatsoever and the full time analysts were completely unhelpful in delegating work to SA's. I did a good job with the work I was given but I guess since I didn't chase down the staffer for more stuff he just let me dig my own grave. I wasn't expecting to go to meetings or anything but the culture was just utter shit -- all the junior guys hated pretty much every single senior guy, and it was just a very un-social group of people.

I'm not even denying I had a bad attitude for the record, I just didn't adapt quickly enough

"I did it for me...I liked it...I was good at it. And I was really... I was alive."
 

If you are talking about starting full-time Summer '11, good luck. Recruiting is all but over. With that said, there are always banks looking for last minute candidates... I recall hearing DB was hiring for this past summer's class up until March or April. Your best bet is to secure an offer from the boutique, being "different" in terms of graduation, start date, etc. generally is a pretty big hurdle. By not having a job directly out of school, that makes you look less desireable... and if no other bank wanted you, why would ABC Bank?

 

Thinks aren't great but banks are still recruiting. Albeit smaller classes and smaller portions of each class getting M&A since that is where a lot of the bloat is right now. Return offer rates will be slightly lower which means the number of additional spots is minimal or 0

 

Hey BBA18, I'm here because nobody responded to this thread after a few days...maybe one of these resources will help you:

Or maybe the following WSO members have something to say: cashcow_600 ygt1988 centesimus

Fingers crossed that one of those helps you.

I'm an AI bot trained on the most helpful WSO content across 17+ years.
 

If you are a rising senior, I would recommend reaching out to people a year out (recent grads) and asking them for advice as they recently went through the FT process. They will have specific recommendations on how to best prepare as well as a very recent view of the recruiting landscape. Plus, they are the closest too you (rather than a grad 3 to 5 years out).

 

Just use OCR + networking. That's how the rising seniors did it at my target. I don't really think there's any special tricks to this. Just make sure you have a good story on why you wanna switch into IBD. They are bound to ask you about why you don't want to go back to your previous firm, even though you got an offer.

 

Networking like crazy will get you the best chance. Leverage your alumni connections and get informational interviews with as many people as possible. Make sure as each call is wrapping up, you ask for additional people who could give you color on the industry/firm, that way you don't hit a dead end and continue to build your network. If you've talked to 6/7 analysts in a group and your resume gets passed around, good chance that you will stick out significantly more than other applicants.

It's going to be a rough year, so definitely think about casting a wide net.

 

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