Breaking into smaller boutiques

Some context, I’m a sophomore at The University of Georgia, and we have some firms that consider us a target (e.g. Truist, Wells Fargo, Citi, and some other MM firms). I’m currently recruiting for Summer 2025 and Summer 2026 Positions.

My chances at these firms could be seen as a coin flip. I will prepare and network as much as I can in the attempt to get an offer, but if that doesn’t happen, I still really want to work in Investment Banking, as the nature of the work is interesting to me.

I’ve thought about the idea of joining a smaller firm, which likely will come with less deal flow. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the issue is that their teams are extremely lean, and lots of these firms don’t have a formal internship program set up. I do see myself making IB a long term career if these hours are less than the bigger banks, but how should I approach this, and would the pay at a smaller boutique be satisfactory (i.e in the ballpark of 6 figures as an analyst). The money is not of importance to me right now, but it’s something that could influence my career decision long term.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

4 Comments
 

By target, I meant semi target. We have a few kids each year that place at those banks and certain clubs do have alumni connections that help uga place kids.

 
Most Helpful

Fair, my bad for being a bit harsh.
-I recruited out of Emory and am at an eb but had 2 offers at boutiques/mm’s in ATL which is honestly your best bet at banking out of uga unless you break into NYC bb/eb
-in terms of boutiques it’s not formal so you just gotta be straight forward during networking, check boutiques in ATL or NYC through LinkedIn and there will be some uga alum especially in ATL.
-I’d reccomend going for ATL mm’s. WB,HL,Stephen’s,Regions, Citizens are all solid and take UGA students.
-Gugg ATL had 2 uga interns last year so look for that.
Overall go for every banking opportunity you can in ATL and you should land something and pay wise realistically you’ll be around 140-200k for all. NYC will be much harder however. Goodluck

 

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