Journey to the Front Office

Hello monkeys, just wanted to give an update of my own situation and throw out a few questions for anyone who has advice.

A year ago I started searching aggressively for internships and was lucky to snag a fall analyst spot at a boutique firm in Fairfield County, CT. Middle market shop, excellent experience, learned Capital I.Q., built my network a bit and some basic excel modeling. I graduate this fall semester and just accepted a summer gig at RBS in Stamford. The position is in reference data, which to my knowledge is middle office, but should give me some exposure to what working a big firm is like and I plan on networking extensively to hopefully make it into the corporate finance dept.

  • I go to a non-target, but will have 2 internships, good extracurriculars and a 3.6 G.P.A.
  • My goal is to start full time in corporate finance, either equity or fixed income capital raising, but I will not be close minded in my job hunt. -Does anyone on this forum have experience transitioning from middle office to front office, and if so, how did you break in? -Does reference data add any value to achieving my goal? If you've worked in middle office at a big bank, could you please share your experience here?

Thanks!

3 Comments
 
Best Response

If you're in MO at a large bank, I would try to get as much exposure as you could to FO people. If you're working on the same transaction as them, make it a priority to do well and network with those people. I don't really know what reference data is (sounds more like BO to me), and if you find yourself stuck after one year in that gig then I will seriously consider looking at business school.

It sounds like what you were doing at the boutique was more in line with FO. Were you not able to stay there?

 

The recruiter I worked with referred to it as M.O. I'm not 100% clear on where that line is drawn of course, but I will be working on excel predominantly (duh), shuttling data from our external sources and relaying it to our internal users. To be honest the description was vague, but the offer was relevant enough for me. The boutique I was with would best be described as minuscule w/ staff, big on deals in their respective space, so there was simply no "analyst" program for me to stick with. I was offered to work as a consultant past my original pre-determined end date though, which was for a single project and was completed on good terms. In all honesty, I see myself gaining more in a big bank atmosphere, I really want to meet new people, especially younger college grads with a similar mindset as my own.

PoorFairfieldCounty
 

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