Choosing between 2 summer offers, Citadel Ops and Top 20 IBD, help?

Currently a junior at a semi-target school, I recently secured an internship offer from Citadel in their middle office as an operations generalist intern. Additionally, I've received an offer for an investment banking position at a top 20 league tables (BB/MM) investment bank. I'm seeking guidance on the prestige, learning opportunities, and value of each internship and the factors I should take into consideration.

For more information about the Citadel internship, you can refer to this link: https://www.citadel.com/careers/details/operations-intern-us/. As for the investment banking internship, I prefer to keep the details anonymous.

I'm particularly interested in understanding which internship would enhance my resume more. Is a middle office internship at Citadel valuable, and does it serve as a worthwhile entry point into the alternative investment manager industry? Alternatively, should I lean towards sticking with the investment banking offer?

Which one is more prestigious on the resume? Which one will likely provide a better learning experience?

I also have my personal preferences and interests towards each of these respective roles, but would rather just hear objective perspectives from all the IB & HF people here. Thank you in advance!

5 Comments
 

Bump. Curious of other's perspectives. Would advise you to look into whether Citadel's middle-office has promotion opportunities to reach front-office roles.

 

Take the banking internship. MO at hedge funds can lead to FO opportunities if you are a stellar performer and can convince someone to take a shot on you, but the path is way less clear than banking at any reputable firm. MO at multistrats in particular is much harder to transition out of since budgets are generally high to hire and PM turnover is high making it harder for you to build solid relationships with internal PMs. 

 

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