No IB SA Offer & Re-Recruiting: What Do I Do?
I'm a current sophomore at a target (think NYU/Georgetown/Cornell) but not in the business undergrad school. Although I do have the option of switching into the business school, I didn't transfer because I am in a selective research program at my undergrad that explodes if I transfer schools into the business school.
I originally wanted to go to law school, but reading into bankruptcy law + insolvency cases really got me interested in Rx banking. That led me to initially pursuing exclusively Rx banking, but I underestimated the amount of technical prep I had to do, evidenced by how I started this January. I got 2 first rounds but blew both of them over technicals due to lack of preparation. I then made a full switch to pursuing investment banking, but only started looking at BB/MM internships around late February since I hadn't really considered them as a path forward. This also meant I sadly sent in many BB applications without even networking a single person. I also underestimated behavioral prep, and wasn't able to go much with that.
It feels as if I'm smoked for SA 2025 recruiting, and I accept this outcome, due to my lack of behavioral and Rx technical prep. I also understand I didn't do the best job at networking. I've already been doing sort of a post-mortem, and I wanted advice from the community on the best foot forward. I've reflected on my mistakes and shortcomings (although there's much more to reflect), and I'm open to criticism. It seems like I'm going to push out my graduation to at least December 2026 but take a semester off this fall to work either a PE off-cycle (have the option of converting soph summer PE to off-cycle based on performance) or go help launch a tech startup with my friends.
How can I put my best foot when re-recruiting for SA 2026?
Stats
- Regional PE internship for Freshman + Soph summers (Freshman PE internship was really just to gauge whether I wanted to go into finance coming from a non-business/finance background)
- GPA: High 3.9s at target (think NYU/Georgetown/Cornell) but not business school
- Finance club at school
- Non-diversity
How can you recruit for SA2026 consider you are a sophomore graduating in 2026
I would have to push out my graduation for at least a semester to December 2026. I understand the confusion and I'll make an edit. Thanks!
Why are there so many of these posts this year of sophomores talking about giving up SA recruiting 3 months into the new year? Copying and pasting my comment to an identical “I’m a sophomore and want to give up recruiting” post from last week:
It’s March, you still have time and it’s not the end of the world. Speaking as someone who recruited for Summer 2024 SA and didn’t get an offer until November. There are still plenty of great front office intern roles that you should be applying to and networking for, and there will be more intern roles opening up into the spring, summer, and fall. There will even be a handful of intern roles randomly opening into the new year as well, I know of a bunch of people in my grade still trying to make something happen for this summer.
You shouldn’t take me assuring you that you have time as a reason to be complacent though. If you haven’t already been casting a relatively wide net across different offices, firms, industries, etc, then you need to start doing that, especially as we progress into spring/summer and more and more intern spots are taken. Take some time to self-evaluate your recruiting efforts as well. When are you being rejected? If it’s at the application or resume screening stage then you aren’t networking enough. If it’s at the interview stage, whether it’s a first round phone screen with HR or a superday with an MD, then dive deep into what you think you did well and more importantly, where you think you can improve and go from there. Do behavioral and technical mocks with friends, upperclassmen, mentors, anyone you know that could help.
It’s not over until you give up and say it’s over. Right now there are sophomores in your shoes still without offers, there are juniors still trying to find an offer for Summer 2024, and there are seniors graduating in 1-2 months still recruiting for FT. The job market’s tough for everyone right now, don’t give up.
thank you so much for this message! any advice on where to find internships that are still open or should i continue my way of manually looking at open positions at each bank. if i already applied to 3 positions at a bank for IB in december at like say DB and no response, would you reccomend me still applying for open positions when they open up even though i alr did 3?
It's not the end of the world.
First and foremost, there are still a ton of front-office IB roles that are available. However, you might be only targeting BBs and EBs. But there are ton of MM firms, LMM, firms, and other rounds of BBs and EBs still going. You are not behind. Furthermore, it might be a select few offices.
It seems that you are dead-set on RX, but you can't find a spot. First, see if Rx is something you want to do, and second, see if IB in general is something you want to do.
But here's a gameplan since you are deadset:
1. Go back out and stop this post-mortem. Consider it done and finished by the time you hit summer. Keep grinding and you will hit something,
2. At the same time, spend some time looking for a sophomore internship. Make it finance/distressed related if that's something you still want to pursue.
3. If that fails, land anything adjacent to RX IB. It could be Big 4 Advisory, accounting, legal due diligence, but something.
4. Gear up for Full-Time recruiting and network ahead as possible. Use your prior experiences as a stepping stone.
It's not over until you give up. So don't give up.
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