FT Recruiting in London after SA

Hi everyone, I am a penultimate-year undergraduate from continental Europe with an upcoming summer internship at a MM bank in London. Even though I am very grateful for this opportunity and would accept a full-time offer at this bank, I am wondering how the timetable for FT recruitment at BB/EB banks usually looks like in the UK.

As far as I know, interns receive their return offers at the end of the summer analyst program, meaning sometime in mid to late August. However, full-time recruitment seems to start around September (and takes place until around December). Does this mean, that if you receive and sign a return offer after the SA, there's no opportunity to apply or interview with other banks afterwards? Is that correct?

11 Comments
 

So I would have to sign my return offer, apply to other banks, and if I got another offer somewhere else, rescind my first offer? Wouldn't that really upset HR or even the whole team?

 

Yes you would need to accept your return offer and renege later when you get something better. Yes it will upset your team and HR but who cares you will never go back there anyway. Just do it politely

 

Did SA at a MM and starting FT elsewhere. Applications opened in early August and interviews kicked off in September. 

As mentioned, you can accept the offer and later reneg. The competitiveness/ high demand & low supply of position makes FT recruiting harder. There is no gurantee a bank will be doing FT recruiting and is purely driven on if they have enough people to fill their analyst class. 

If I were you, secure the FT offer first, learn as much as possible (which preps you for interviews anyway) and then see what opportunities are out there. All the best!

 

This largely depends when your internship ends, however, in my experience, at least 3/4 FT applications were already open before my internship ended with another 5-10 opening days later. 
 

However, before you even apply you need to update CV, Cover Letter and have everything ready technical wise, as processes move very quickly and because you already have pre-experience, these interviewers will be a step above SA recruiting. Processes can often start and have already handed out offers within a month. So even if, a large groups of banks have not opened during your internship, you need to prepare yourself for when they do.   

 

What happens when you accept an FT offer and renege it afterwards? What are the consequences?

 

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