Hey guys,
Been on this forum for quite some time but rarely post. Love reading about people’s experiences when I can. I am also a member of a local WSO meetup group.
I am raising a question that has been lingering with me a lot lately as I approach my senior year of college. But first a little background.
I am from a non-target T50 school that has a poor alumni network in IB and is not a campus in a major city, let alone a financial capital. I have a relatively high gpa and decent extracurriculars, enough to land me an LMM boutique internship in a small city. Employee size of about 5-7 made up of mostly partners. They do deals that are valued between $5MM and $300MM. I have only been working for a couple of weeks and I know that they’re doing anywhere from 2-4 deals at a time. I am mainly a generalist m&a intern that involves me doing a lot of sourcing prospective buyers (this company does 90% selling), as well as some minor valuation.
I am concerned that they will not be giving full time offers since they are such a small shop. So my question more or less is, what are my opportunities to move forward in IB? Am I sort of at a loss?
Bump
I knew a kid who interned at one of these tiny boutique places (albeit in new york) who jumped FT to a pretty strong larger bank (Wells/RBC/BMO) so I feel like the moves are definitely possible. Can't really advise much but just something I saw.
Thank you for the motivation. I am remaining hopeful that I can either be retained or find work elsewhere after graduation as this is a career I most certainly want. Glad to know that it isn’t the end of the road.
I interned at one of these smaller boutique IBs, with 10 employees. I think first of all, you should have an open discussion about the possibility of staying on for FT, because this is important and something I inquired about during the initial interview process. Picking the timing of this is difficult, but I have friends who waited until the second half of the internship and had no problems approaching the subject. There are many ways to do this, but I would find a VP or MD that you have a good relationship with and work under and ask for a feedback update. Likely you are doing fine or well, and this would be a good time for you to mention that you're interested in staying on FT if the opportunity presents itself (you really like the culture, the work, and the amount you've learned so quickly). When you do this, unless it is a shitty firm, they should at least give it to you straight. In the event that they say it is most likely not feasible, don't sweat it. It happened to me (I knew going in to the start of the internship) and I explained this in future interviews and never had anyone question it. I explained it in probably 5-6 rounds of interviews for IB internships and never had push back or skepticism.
Thanks for the comment. I am on pretty good grounds with one of the MP’s that I would also feel comfortable bringing this conversation to fruition with. I would like to stay if they’ll retain me, but am prepared to look elsewhere. As a separate question, would it be appropriate to use application processes for other companies to find FT given the internship experience, or should I still be geared more towards making connections and having someone push me forward?
Making connections and getting the resume push for sure. I had search fund, tiny PE fund, and boutique IB and still didn't get many interviews without networking and sending cold emails (non-target as well with pretty avg GPA for IB). The good news is that now that you have some experience to speak to, getting people to return your cold emails will be much easier. Are you the only intern at your current firm?
Pretty interesting resume you have there. I think PE is very interesting, but I understand how difficult it is to break into. The firm I am working at has one other intern.
Thanks, the PE firm was another situation where a return offer was not possible, but I was desperate for any experience I could get. The only potential hiccup you might run into is if the other intern is offered a return offer and you don't get one. Had a friend in that position and he got grilled about it during his FT IB interviews. Just do your best to kill it and don't make the same mistake twice and if they do have give out return offers I'm sure you'll be a strong candidate.
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