Sophomore Summer Internship (F500 vs Boutique)

I'm currently a rising sophomore at an Ivy, and I'm working as an FP&A (Corp Fin) intern at a F500 company for my Freshman summer internship.

I've started looking into plans for my sophomore summer internship. I am virtually guaranteed a return offer for a sophomore 2019 internship at my current firm. It has made several major acquisitions over the past few years, and I do think I'm getting fairly good experience for a Freshman summer internship. Would returning to this internship for next summer be adequate to best set myself up for SA 2020 investment banking recruiting (my junior summer)? Or would it be more beneficial to try to seek out a different internship at a different F500 (to show some more varied experience) or try for a regional boutique internship at an investment bank?

I'm sure that the regional boutique would be better because it directly aligns with later plans. However, if I were unable to find a regional boutique internship would staying at my current company hurt me when recruiting comes along?

Any thoughts or comments are appreciated

8 Comments
 
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If you think you’d like to work in IB, then it would be smart to try to secure an internship at an investment bank, regardless of its size or prestige. An F500 FP&A internship in the summer after your freshman year isn’t going to hurt you at all; on the contrary - it’s impressive that you were able to secure that position at a large company in your freshman year, and it’ll look great on your resume.

Given your current status (e.g., Ivy, internship already under your belt), I’d be very surprised if you weren’t able to land an SA role at a bank. In the strange case that you don’t, returning to the F500 is obviously better than nothing (WAY better than nothing, I might add).

An extra word of advice: Don’t get sucked into the retarded idea that you’ll never be able to work in IB if you have a few FP&A internships. It’s something that is unfortunately perpetuated on this board by children who know fuck-all and have no idea what they’re talking about.

Keep working hard, pat yourself on the back for what you’ve accomplished, don’t obsess over “muh prestige”, and best of luck to you!

 

I’m in a similar situation. At a target but not ivy. I’ve been applying to all the sophomore 2019 summer programs I could find (only BBs I could find so far) though I feel like I’m wasting my time being non-diversity and that things are already moving to fast so I need to start working to secure a boutique or something for sophomore summer

 

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