BB Ops, or Fortune 50 Corp Fin for Banking

Back office is not so awful for internships as compared to it being a "kiss of death," as M&I says, for FT work. That being said, as a corporate finance intern at an F50 company, you may actually be closer to deals than at the BB in ops. If you're super outgoing, the BB ops may actually be ok, if you network well and get as close to deals as humanly possible in such a position.

I am just wondering, if I cant get into IB for the BB that I would intern at, how bad would back office look going into full time recruitment? In that case wouldnt it be better to have corp fin than back office?

I don't know. Anybody else have any thoughts?

I think CorpFin is the way to go. Tons of juniors this recruiting season who made it to the top (JPM, MS, GS) had Fortune 50 companies on their resume, which I think gets you noticed.

Overall, if you're super personable, have a high GPA, go to a good school, and worked with a big company/bank, you should be in good shape. #obviousAdvice

Thanks for the the tip Tennis Champ, now I am currently a junior, do you think the same applies for full time recruitment?

Oh I see..

Hm that's a little tricky. From what I understand, it's pretty difficult to move from Ops to a front-office role anyway, so the name of the BB won't be that helpful.

I think the best way to go is take the F50 offer and reach out to your school's alum/use LinkedIn to prepare for FT recruiting.

If you have the option, I would really try to go for a MM/Boutique. Getting deal experience and being able to say "Investment Banking Summer Analyst" on your resume WILL get you noticed a lot more than both of your current offers. Definitely do your due diligence on opportunities around you. It'll take some work, but the payoff is worth it.

Yeah, I am definitely trying my hardest to find something from a MM/Boutique but it seems almost all of my options have dried up, not only is recruitment done at my school, it doesnt help that the economy sucks. I will try to get placed into corporate development.

I know one kid in my analyst class who interned at my bank in ops and made it into IBD for FT. He hustled, and I give him all the credit in the world for pulling it off, but I would not say ops is the better launch pad here. Go with one of the corpfin internships. As an analyst, I'll tell you straight up that when I look over resumes, I favor the kid with the corpfin internship.

Unless you're fantastic with people, and can sell MBS to Dick Fuld, I would suggest going for the F50 Corp Fin. When I select resumes, ceteris paribus, this is the hierarchy:

BB SA>MM SA>Boutique SA>PE SA>HF SA>MBB internship>F500 internship>Any other FO finance internship>BB Ops internship>Other BO finance internship>Internship in unrelated field>Research with Professor>flipping burgers at McDonalds>no summer job.

Corporate Finance at F50 hands down.

Alright, thank you everyone for your comments and suggestions, I really appreciate it. In terms of Corp Fin are there specific groups I should aim for? ex Strategy, Treasuries, etc?

Wanna give us a rough description on what each team does?

Just going by title I would say Strategy because it's likely more high level and you may get more exposure to management. If that is the case, you can paint a great story for your interviews (how you got to see what the decision makers did, got to see and understand big picture, how decisions and LT planning are made etc). However with Strategy, you could run the risk of doing a lot of small bits for a powerpoint presentation or go-nowhere research.

'Treasuries' is a bit vague... if it's a team where you could help with some of the modeling and internal capital raise team, it could potentially be useful because it's relevant for banking. But if it's closer to say a pure 'finance' team (as in closer to reporting and accounting) then it won't be as attractive as strategy.