Difficult Summer Internship Choice
Hi everyone,
I am a freshman at a target school on the West Coast intending to major in finance, and hoping to land a good investment banking internship junior year. For reasons I won't get into I sort of missed the boat on summer recruiting in the fall (not that most freshman have much luck), but I hustled and managed to get two relevant offers this summer. The first is an internship at a very small (~5 man) restructuring shop; the MD and I have an absolutely bizarre amount in common and he loves me. The people at this shop are all from top-tier restructuring shops (think Lazard/PJT/HLHZ), HYPSW schools, and are really close with C-level people at major banks. However, they are sort of semi-retired and don't see tons of deal flow, so I may or may not get good deal experience and may end up doing a lot of pitching/marketing stuff.
My other offer is from a larger boutique in a nearby city with a ~20 person IBD team and ~60 people total (I doubt anyone would recognize the name). The people at this firm are a little less impressive but still went to respectable schools and seem like smart people. The thing is though, that this firm sees really solid deal flow for its size, and I have been told that I will get staffed on a $1B+ merger they recently landed (if not, they have plenty of other projects to staff me on).
What would others do in this situation? I really like the people at both shops but the first would be more convenient from a commuting perspective, and the MD would definitely do his best to help me get a good gig next summer. I really believe in having a good mentor and this guy would be a great one to have. However, I am leaning towards option 2 because I'm not sure if I prefer restructuring vs. traditional M&A long-term, and I want to get some deal experience on my resume.
What would others do in my situation? Thanks!
I forgot to include some more relevant considerations: for the first internship, I would be able to take a few summer classes to boost my gpa before sophmore recruiting season from low 3.7 to high 3.7/low 3.8, but I wouldn't be able to do this for the second option.
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First off - good fucking job landing such impressive internships your freshman year. I would also go with the second choice, reason being that if you are given assurance that you will be staffed on a live deal, you will learn infinitely more than being at a boutique with measly deal flow, no matter how impressive the team's background.
If I were an analyst looking at your resume for your soph/junior year internship 1) I wouldn't care about the name because like you said no one has probably heard of either and 2) the difference between writing a few bullshit lines (most likely outcome of option 1) and having "selected transaction experience" (high possibility of option 2) as a freshman is invaluable.
Note that your status as a freshman means that you will almost automatically be relegated to doing stupid and menial tasks, but why not do a stupid task related to a real, tangible deal? (inb4 snarky comments about how everything ib analysts do are stupid and menial)
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