How cooked am I for summer '26 IB recruitment?
I do go to a target but I had to deal with a bunch of rough personal/familial issues that brought my GPA down to a 3.65. I did an AM internship at a bank with an AUM of $25B and I'm doing a REPE internship.
I fumbled recruitment back in Jan-Feb and I'm desperately tryna make up for it now so:
1) Do banks reopen near fall this year?
2) What's the best approach to target a '26 internship or do I just have to go for FT recruitment?
3) Are there any boutiques in NY that recruit in the fall for the coming summer?
4) Any general tips?
Thanks WSO monkeys!
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For context I was in your exact position two years ago. From a target school but only had a VC internship lined up for my sophomore summer and nothing for junior summer. Got an internship in DCM at a MM bank for junior year summer at the start of my junior year, and was able to get an offer at a better MM bank for FT during the start of my senior year.
From my experience when I did recruiting at the start of my junior year, most firms did not have SA roles open, the only ones that did were smaller boutiques. You might see a few SA role from bigger firms but I never got an interview for any of them and they filled pretty quickly (like within a few days), so I assume those went to kids who barley missed getting the offer when they recruited earlier and had networked well with that firm.
I would try and get an internship in PE, VC, S&T, AM, anything finance related and then recruit for FT. Ft recruiting was more structured and had more opportunities. If you have any questions about FT recruiting or anything else Id be happy to answer. Also don't worry about your GPA, a 3.65 from a target school is great. Mine was lower than yours and it worked out. Good luck!
Thanks so much for the help! It's kinda reassuring to know that I'm not screwed yet haha.
For FT recruitment, I'm assuming that the process would be around June-August my senior year? When would be the best time to start networking for FT? Ik that the technical depth you need for FT is greater than junior SA, but in terms of subjects what else would I need to know (like LBOs and merger models)?
Thanks again!
To preface this worked for me and was my thought process:
I did not network at all when I was looking for FT roles, I think you are better off using your time perfecting interviewing. Be perfect on the technicals and tailor your behavioral for each firm you get an interview with. I treated interview prep like a full time job did ir for at least 6 hours a day recording myself talking in a full suit. If you are good enough in the interview they wont care if you have a referral or not, be so good they cant say no. In my opinion it is a bad look to start networking while you havent finished your internship yet, regardless of why.
The interviews were harder but nothing crazy, I also looked at only MM banks. BB/EB FT roles are almost all either lateral hires from the internship class or they already have someone in mind so they might not even post a job opening for it. The interview process was more technical, but nothing crazy. Some paper LBOs, case studies, but no merger models or accretion / dilution analysis.
If you really want to network this is how I would do it: Grind this summer, get a return offer and say no to it, so you can go into networking calls and use that as a demonstration of how bad you want to do banking.
Any other questions please lmk, was in your shoes and I wish I had someone to help me out with it. Good luck!
Based on the most helpful WSO content, here's what you need to know:
Do banks reopen near fall this year?
Yes, some banks and boutiques do reopen recruiting in the fall, but the opportunities are limited. These are often for smaller firms or regional boutiques that didn’t fill all their spots during the main recruiting cycle. Keep an eye on postings and leverage your network to stay informed about openings.
Best approach to target a '26 internship or go for FT recruitment?
Boutiques in NY that recruit in the fall for the coming summer?
Yes, there are boutiques in NY that recruit in the fall. Regional boutiques and smaller firms often have less structured recruiting timelines and may hire later in the year. Examples include firms with 10-25 people or those that focus on niche markets. You’ll need to “pound their doors down hard” by cold emailing and networking to get on their radar.
General tips:
Remember, while your GPA is slightly below the typical 3.7+ norm for IB, your target school background and relevant internships give you a solid foundation. With the right strategy and persistence, you can still secure a Summer '26 internship or position yourself well for FT recruiting. Good luck!
Sources: 2019 Investment Banking Full Time Recruiting - Do I Have a Chance?, How do I break in? What are the realities? Low GPA, Non-Target., Going from a non-target with low GPA to landing a hedge fund Internship, Intern Down - Advice needed for a new chimp, Junior In College Who Missed Summer 2022 Recruiting
Try Prudential/ PGIM they run fall recruiting and you have a huge leg up as a target
Could be wrong (someone pls correct me if so), but I believe Stephens, Stifel, and DA Davidson recruit during the fall of junior year
Stifel ran their process in winter-spring. I think Stephans might do fall - someone in my school got a 2025 offer this past october
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I work as the point person for capital markets recruiting for a top target team at a BB and also work to help source incoming SAs for placement. Here are my thoughts
- Your 3.65 GPA is definitely not a non-starter and is likely not an issue at all. Our recruiting for SA spots is exclusively for my school, so I’d be comparing that GPA to what I generally know about the average and standard deviations. I’d also be looking at your course work for more context. Just looking at one number isn’t the full picture. I personally had a 3.8 with a moderately challenging course load and one of our incoming SAs had a 3.5 with a brutal schedule. I’d consider the 3.5 with the harder schedule more impressive knowing what classes and work came with that schedule. Having said that, this only comes with school specific knowledge. For resumes at other school, I have 0 context to really understand your GPA and if I really did care, I might google/AI search the average GPA at your school just to get a benchmark. Bottom line, I wouldn’t sweat it
- Your timing might be more of an issue. I’d probably defer to others with more knowledge about recruiting later and what opportunities exist, but I can say for us, I don’t believe we have any FT spots open and that has been consistent for a few years now. I believe pre-2022 we used to have FT spots open but these days I think we just fill exclusively from the SA class. I think we’re just trying to manage analyst class sizes now. I do personally know of someone at my school that landed a FT SA position as a junior, but from what I heard it’s in-line with what someone said above - one spot opened up and he immediately filled it.
- If you still want to target BBs, have you networked at all at any of those places? If you know the right people running recruiting efforts for your school, you can definitely be on an implicit shortlist if opportunities come up, but if you haven’t started networking yet it would probably be a long shot to 1 - get your foot in the door with them and 2 - be lucky enough for a spot to actually open up. Even if a spot opens up you can’t be picky. If you haven’t started networking yet, I think your best bet is to target whatever opportunities are still ongoing now as opposed to trying to catch up at places where spots have been filled.
As a separate note, I think it’s absolutely ridiculous how early things have gotten. I remember recruiting in August/September my junior year for a banking spot. Now we start recruiting at the start of sophomore year, but sadly that’s just how it is now
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