MS Equities Sales vs CS Equities Research

Hi all,

I received offers for summer analyst position at MS Equities Sales and CS Equities Research.

  • Long term plan: PE/VC/Entrepreneur
  • Concerns: Return offer and brandname. MS has the better name but I am not sure about the return offer rate. CS research seem more relevant to my long term goals. Also, which internship will be a better leverage to IBD?

Thanks a lot for your inputs and comments. Any help is appreciated!

11 Comments
 
Best Response

MS hasn't been that strong in sales and trading for the past couple years. Don't get me wrong- there's a lot of smart people who work in S&T- but it's nowhere near as strong as MS's IBD.

It's tough to move directly and conveniently to IBD from Sales. Maybe if you work a lot of offerings, but otherwise, at least where I've worked, IBD comes down to the trading floor about once a month to give the desk a briefing on some offering. Most TAs and Sales Analysts (which you'll be working as), don't get a lot of opportunities to interact with them, especially if you're working in derivatives or a place where companies don't issue stuff. (Caveat: I'm just the desk programmer, so I spend most of my time working in my little pricing and analytics world.)

As an MS employee, if you develop a good track record, you've always got a good shot at moving over to IBD. But so does some guy in IT or operations who proves himself a hard worker and competent guy. For internal transfers, it's a pretty level playing field once you're in the door. It comes down more to how well you're doing in your current job than how good your placement is.

If you have your heart set on MS IBD, take MS S&T. Otherwise, I think CS research is going to give you more opportunities to learn, more opportunities to gain responsibilities that give you great experience for PE, and more "exit opps" into both IBD and perhaps PE.

Congrats on both offers. A lot of college students would kill to be in your situation, let alone get an offer from an F500 in this economy.

 

I agree with LLcoolJ, don't be so quick to look past the ER or S&T positions, as you;re prettly likely to get a FT offer from your SA..

Go with the SA in the area that appeals to you most, as it could very well be what you are doing for the next few years. Congrats on the offers.

"Major in economics; use your economics degree to get an analyst job on Wall Street; use your analyst job to get into Harvard or Stanford Business School; and worry about the rest of your life later"
 

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