Going to be at a BB in NYC this summer but don't want to do IB

What are my options after the summer? Would I seem like a moron for not taking this once in a lifetime opportunity If they extend FT, even if it's for a year? Reason I don't want to do IB is WLB, I want to work max 50-60hours / week.

27 Comments
 

Just do the summer internship for the branding, as well as the experience. End of the day, it is only 10 weeks, you will be compensated well. Use the internship to learn as much as possible, but also figure out what you enjoy doing, and what you don't enjoy doing. The internship will set you up nicely (depending how the economy is looking) for plenty of gigs outside of IB. We had multiple summer analysts leave and work in other parts of Finance after their internship. Feel free to PM me if you need any advice. 

 

In a very similar position. Will do an internship at GS/MS this summer. Have done prior internships in UMM PE and at a MM IB. I thought that IB was horrible. Of course, the hours were bad, but what bothered me most was how extremely boring the work was. I was lucky to get staffed on a $2B+ deal even though it was a MM bank. I thought writing the IM would be extremely exciting. Turns out it was just a bunch of digging in a data room and summarizing information from the company docs on corporate strategy, employee strategy, CSR etc. 

I have worked extremely hard to get into IB and I know what type of comp and exit opportunities I will have if I start full-time in IB. As a consequence, prestige/comp/exit opportunities seem pretty bad in most other industries. Starting directly in PE/VC would be nice but obviously very difficult. There are many other parts of finance that offer a pretty good combination of decent comp and WLB (corporate banking, equity research, sales & trading, private banking etc.) but the exit opportunities seem very limited so if you don't like it you're screwed. 

 

I think it's more interesting in PE because in PE you are supposed to analyse the information in the data room to decide how it affects a potential investment. In IB, you are just going through the data room to have information to put on slides. This is part of the broader issue with IB. The amount of critical thinking is quite limited. Most of the time, you are just looking for things that put the company in a good light and your focus is to produce materials. I have only been an intern in both sectors though, so my experience is very limited and it's very possible that I am completely wrong. 

 

If you're looking into high-paying careers with slightly more WLB, I would look into consulting. MBB and T2 shops (EY-P, S&, LEK, Kearney, OW) love taking BB SAs for FT roles. Otherwise, within the world of finance, you could go into ER (sell-side), a mutual fund (buy-side), an FLDP, or recruit into Corp Dev/Strategy. 

Have you interned in anything else? Are there other career fields you want to explore? Politics, non-profits, tech? If you have a solid alumni group out there, I would spend the next few months doing informational calls with people and learn more about what is out there. Your career center should have alumni connections that can help you make warm introductions if you are worried about getting ignored. I hope this helps. It is fairly common for people to do the summer and realize they don't like it. Good on you for realizing this now and not sacrificing your health and time for a job you hate.

 

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