Hey all, currently an incoming SA to a Mid BB (Citi/BofA/Barc) thinking of applying to a top BB / EB for full time.
Can anyone who has done this speak on if it's hard to land a spot at a top BB / EB with a mid BB SA? When should we start reaching out? Also, for FT, do we apply directly to each group, such as HC at MS? Or is it generalist?
Appreciate the advice.
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Copying from similar post I’d written on:
I had done my summer internship at a MM bank in 2022 and successfully lateraled for FT 2023 at an EB. Since the market conditions were pretty bad it was quite tough to re-recruit but you just have to be consistent. As a timeline, my summer internship ended in the first week of August and as soon as I was told that I had the return offer, I immediately started FT recruiting. Basically during the summer internship, I had done all the prep I needed to for interviews, etc and once August started I began to reach out to all the top banks for networking, coffee chats, etc to get on a call and see if they were going to be hiring more FT people. As I said, I reached out to all the top banks BB and EB and luckily I was able to get on call with most of them and make a good first impression. In the end, it was disappointing because almost everyone said that they weren't hiring anymore and even places where I had networked with 2+ people told me that they couldn't move ahead because they weren't adding more FT people. By early September, I finally had interviews lined up with just two EBs and one worked out and I got an offer.Hopefully this helps. I can't tell you whether it will be easy or hard for FT 2024 but if you keep at it there will definitely be at least 2-3 top banks with spots open.
Thanks for the detailed response. Do you know if BBs recruit directly into groups for FT recruiting?
I rerecruited FT from a financing bank to a BB and had supers for a couple MMs, and it was group specific for almost all of them. I think it’s because only interns go through placement and they’re trying to fill out residual positions due to additional group hiring/no return offers
How long does ur return offer usually last?
Usually it varies between banks but it’s around 2-4 weeks
appreciate the insight here. super helpful. just a quick question - when emailing for networking, we’re you straightforward in the subject line saying “interested in FT” or did you keep it more vague and say “reaching out” i’m trying to lateral as an analyst so just wondering thanks!
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do you get asked group specific questions for FT recruiting if you just finished you SA? other than the why __ group.
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