Is Retail Banking a Good Start for Investment Bankers?

I am a freshman undergraduate student looking for a summer internship and I have an interview for a retail banking position at a local bank. Would this be a good internship experience If I am looking to break into investment banking my sophomore summer? 

Edit: At this point I do not really have any other options for this upcoming summer so I am assuming it would be better than not having any internship my freshman summer

14 Comments
 

^ don't listen to this guy. If it is a brand name/you don't have anything better, go for it and spin it into how "you want that client facing experience but at a broader more corporate setting".

Good Luck!

 
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please do yourself a favor and pursue the position - don't listen to these retards telling you no. Any experience is good experience and the ones hating are usually the ones who are without a summer opportunity or the ones with a stick up their asses talking about fortune 500 internships after FRESHMAN summer

 

EU monkey here so take it with a grain of salt

Definitely go for it. I did my “freshman” equivalent summer Internship in a super shitty bank as credit analyst even if it was more like a back office role in reality. I’ve built a great story about it and now I landed a private debt seat in a pretty decent MM fund.

Better to gain some experience even if not strictly relate to “high finance” rather than nothing.

P.s I’m from a low semi-target were seats like mine are uncommon.

 

Yes. I honestly don't know what these people are talking about-- I worked a minimum wage job after freshman year and did commercial credit at a no-name bank after sophomore year and still had a pretty smooth recruiting process for SA. If the rest of your resume is up to snuff (high GPA and target school) I think you just need anything finance related and client facing that you can spin in an interview. Maybe if you're dead set on top BB/EB you need boutique IB early on but what you have sounds like a great start for your resume, you're certainly ahead of where I was.

 

Which retard is giving MS to people saying no?
 

The answer is no. Most people do a finance related internship at a F500 firm or boutique IB for their first summer internship in college. Network your way there. 

 

This is simply false. Freshman summer is your last summer you get a pass to do whatever you want, (bus tables, drive thru, other bs high school like jobs). Although of course if you can find something in an office that will be better. NO F500 will hire a freshman in finance unless daddy is the CFO. You COULD get lucky and find a boutique IB, but that is much more common for sophomores. 

 

People are saying no like this guy has tons of other options. Boutique IB is still hard to get especially if you go to a non target.

OP, it's not some super relevant internship experience but having work experience will help you swing something more related for sophomore summer. 

Array
 

Yeah I was surprised to hear so many people say no.  I can't imagine those posters are giving an opinion in good faith.

OP - rule of thumb for freshmen year summer is the more closely related to IB it is, but better - but totally not expected from someone looking at your resume in the future.  Anything even tangentially related to finance is probably fine.  I did an internship in the insurance space after my freshmen year in college (and no, not the Northwestern Mutual style internships...more on the structuring side).

 

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