I got an IB SA offer from a mostly S&T firm that has a small M&A team. It’s a legitimate company that pays a decent hourly wage for summer analysts and past interns have spoken very highly of it.
However, today I just got invited to an all day interview for a BB commercial banking role.
I want to work in IB but I honestly can’t even find that much on this firms IBD and I’m wondering if a BB CB job would be better
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M&A team hands down. Will have the optionality to recruit FT for better opportunities if you wanted to and could always “move-down” to CB in the future if you desired (not sure why you would) significantly less likely the opposite route. Just my .02
Honestly that was the exact answer I was hoping for. I was almost certainly going to take the M&A offer because I’ve tried for IB for years but just had that shred of doubt.
Thank you for this!
Yup, take offer and dont look back. Best of luck
There's a few factors that matter here. If you're at a target school that gets looks for solid FT IB roles, then I would take the M&A internship and leverage it to get a better FT offer next year.
If not at a target school or one with an alumni presence then definitely take the BB commercial banking role if you get it. At the minimum you'll be able to network with folks from other groups at the BB and get access to internal postings. That's a pretty high floor in my opinion
Think about which opportunity will be the better role to be in if you were to do it full-time. It'll be an uphill battle if you're at a no-name boutique and trying to switch to IB at a legit firm, but you could relatively easily move from BB CB to IB at a MM or something
I'm interested in what you said about moving from BB CB to MM IB as I am currently working at a bulge bracket in cb (my title is wrong I know). Do you know people that have made this move? How long did they wait and did it require a lot of networking?
Honestly I have heard of very few people who have successfully made that move
So I also would like to here more ab this.
Haha yeah my title is a little misleading too. I’m starting a CB role in a few months that has a group specifically covering Sponsors and LevFin, so I’m confident that having an understanding of debt products and LBOs, Recaps, ABLs, Mezzanine, etc. combined with industry specific knowledge/interest will set me up well for a lateral IB move. I have seen folks from other credit-focused roles (like credit risk) and CB from places like BMO, CIT, GS, JPM, and SunTrust having made the move to MM IB, if not better. My firm isn’t one of those listed, but regardless if I was OP I would rather take the odds of being able to grab coffee with someone that works in my building than trying to cold-network with randoms who 98% of the time won’t give me the light of day. I’m sure networking would be worthwhile if you’re trying to make the move internally, but from the people I have talked to it seems like recruiters were the best route. ~2 years in CB then making the switch looks like the average for those that were successful. Sorry, if my understanding of commercial banking vs corporate banking is a little off since I haven’t started my job yet. I’ve done M&A buy-side internships and the pitches we would get from no-name boutiques were never anything worth to be taken seriously, but that’s just a reason for why I’m biased against small boutique IBs
I would just network within your bank - do you interact with DCM/LevFin? Seems like everyone in my class who wanted to lateral got it.
Thanks for your responce!
No alumni deep non target.
However this bank is actually classified as a MM bank
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