Reneging on Spring Week Summer Internship Offer?
Title says it all. Recently converted my spring at a MM/lower BB into a summer internship offer in the Investment Banking division. I signed a contract and accepted the offer because it was exploding. Thing is I want to try for a BB/EB summer when they open in August/September, or even for HF/PE. What are the consequences of reneging and how would you go about doing this? How is reneging different in London compared with US and for Spring converts vs people who renege during the summer recruitment process?
Congrats on WF or RBC
It's worrying me, mainly because I've not seen any threads on Spring converts reneging on their offers.
In fairness this wasn't IB, but I reneged Big 4 for an MM and just said it was for personal reasons - they didn't ask further
I have known people who have done this in the past when springs and summers were much easier to get. However, now, in an environment where everyone and their grandmother knows about IB, summers are going to be extremely difficult to secure at top firms (any BB or EB).
My two cents is, if you really wanted to bet on yourself, you should have declined the offer and gone through the application process for other firms in the summer. On your resume, you could have put 'received return offer', which would have given you a bit of an advantage when HR screens candidates in the initial stage. However, when you get to the later stages of the interview, they will ask you, 'why didn't you take your offer at XXX firm?' This could be a problem because it might look like you turned down the offer because you wanted a bigger brand name (which you did). This is a massive red flag for people in the industry because it indicates you are not in the job for the right reasons.
The only plausible spin that people use is if you were at a BB and you interview for an EB, and you say something about 'I LIkE wOrkIng iN sMaLLeR tEAmS' or 'prefer more responsibility' (trust me, as someone who interned at a top BB and is currently at an EB, you won’t).
Despite this, let’s say in your current situation you do end up reneging. My friend, I'm sorry to say that you will get blacklisted by XXX firm’s HR. Additionally, some senior bankers who might have vouched for you in some banks could call the firm you plan on reneging on and mess up your potential offer. This is extremely common as the banking world is so small and most bankers at most firms, whether senior or junior, know each other very well.
You will probably hate my response, but just be humble and grateful for the offer you get. You have done extremely well to get the spring conversion in undoubtedly a hard year for hiring across all levels of seniority. You need to understand that the banking landscape for hiring and reneging is not as it was from 2014-2021, where average candidates could gain and renege on multiple springs and summers for a better brand name. These past two years have been absolutely brutal. So think about the above reasons and do what’s best for you.
Thanks for this! Apart from the brand name, the main reasons for reneging are because I was allocated to a sector team that I explicitly told them I did not want to pursue (Healthcare/Industrials), and the pay is below market. I'm certainly not confident that I can get another offer of course, which is why I accepted the spring in the first place, but it's ridiculous that we have two week exploding offers in July when the rest of recruitment barely starts in August. I'm thinking of omitting the spring completely from my CV even - or just omitting any springs I've done at all (I have enough other related internships and come from a target school, so will pass CV screening).
How have they done group allocations already? Holy shit, they must be desperate for talent if they are doing early conversions + exploding contracts
As someone who reneged on 4 spring week conversion offers, please ignore that huge paragraph above. No one will care, accept it and re-recruit. When you renege, do NOT tell them where you are going.
Agree. Ignore title working analyst.
ignore the big paragraph above, fearmongering. Nobody gives 2 sh*ts about reneging.
Thanks for this! Would you place the spring that you are planning to renege on in your CV? My concern is that should I get another offer, they call the place up to confirm that I worked there for background checks, and everything tumbles from there
Keep it quiet, no linkedin posts or cv lines about a return offer.
Recruit for SA25 direct at better shops. If you get an offer, congrats - you can renege now. If you don't, you just do the MM firm.
You probably will be blacklisted from the firm - but who cares as you will unlikely ever work for them if you get a top BB / EB
Thanks, thoughts on whether I should just remove the spring from my CV entirely? I have a few more springs so I thought that may be weird especially if someone does a background check (why include the rest but omit this one), but my concern is that should I get another offer, someone may call up every firm on my CV to verify that I've worked there before, and this may come up.
Keep the offer and keep the spring on your CV/linkedIn to boost your chances and start recruiting for 2025 summers. Worst case you get nothing and have something to fall back on. Highly unlikely that reneging after you get a better offer will have consequences (the big paragraph is bs) if you keep the reason vague e.g. changed industries or personal reasons. The most important thing is that you don’t post the spring offer on linkedIn and don’t go into interviews with “Incoming IB summer analyst at …” on your profile and IF you get a better offer and renege your current one then delay posting it as much as possible (at least after the summer ends) so that HR/bankers at reneged firm would have forgotten you even existed by then
I’d start with changing this profile to something other than your full name
Just wanted to give an update for other people in my position in future now that London recruiting is almost wrapped up. Tl;dr, I got 10 offers. Got offers from BBs, EBs, LOs, Trading Firms, Private Markets, Hedge Funds, and even Quant. Didn't recruit for MMs, Consulting, or Big 4. Obviously I won't downplay the effort I put into recruiting, but I just want to let everyone in my position know that reneging to go somewhere better is VERY possible, and if you put in the work, you will do it. DO NOT LET YOUR SPRING DEFINE YOU.
As for the reneging... I just emailed them to let them know I was no longer interested after I got my first offer in October. No questions asked.
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