So, somewhat out of the blue (I had applied online), I get a call from Citi Public Finance offering a superday spot this Friday in NY.
Last week, I had interviewed with banks on campus, including Lincoln International and William Blair. I haven't heard back yet, but felt good about the interviews, and both have superdays in Chicago this Friday.
Which one would you choose?
The pros to Citi are the brand name, it's in New York, and my summer internship was in public finance, but on the government side. The con is that I'd rather do corporate finance, all of my interview prep has been for IB, and interview expectations may be higher due to my internship (not sure if I could back it up).
The pros to Lincoln/Blair are its corporate finance, and all of my prep has been for these types of interviews. The cons are that they're in Chicago and lest prestigious.
My two biggest concerns are exit ops, and to a lesser extent, NY over Chi (would be happy in Chi though).
if your concern is exit ops, then why would you do pubfin?
Citi is a better brand name. Perhaps it'd be easier to get into B-School? Supposedly Lincoln places well too, but that's just off their recruiting material.
Also being in NY would probably provide a greater opportunity to network with people who work in areas I'm interested in.
But, yeah, I'm just speculating. Could be way off. That's why I'd like to get more opinions.
I'm glad to see you're beginning to worry about exit ops before you've even gotten an interview invitation. Always good to see people keeping their eyes on the target in front of them.
This could probably be added to about 60% of the threads on this forum. Well said.
lol... seriously.
OP - why don't you worry about getting the job first, and come back here to do a 'versus' post after you've got the multiple offers? Count and grade your chickens after they've hatched.
But to answer your question. Citi has better brand recognition - but public finance is a different animal - if you want say PE, might not be the best option. Lincoln M&A (based on several past posts, from PE guys that worked with them, and posters' friends who work there) seems like a pretty stellar place to work and could be good for MM PE.
My dad was a pubfin banker and now does related work. It's a pretty good life. Doesn't pay as well but usually people have fewer moral qualms about their work and work fewer hours than the other guys, while still having intensity and dealmaking etc.. Only thing you have to do is watch your back because right now a lot of municipalities are broke.
Speculating out of my ass, but I imagine the minutae of issuance and syndication on the pubfin side is a bit different from corpfin, what with the differences in taxability etc. This might make a lateral transfer more difficult, but you'll know fixed income instruments pretty well either way. It's not the worst way to go to business school.
Pops says Citi is a pretty good brand for pubfin and is reasonably well respected by municipalities. Remember it's a trust-based business with civil service people and the PFM group, so I would not immediately recommend going all Gordon Gekko.
Fine, I'll forget about exit ops. I'll just take a job at the local Applebee's. Maybe by the time I'm 30 I'll be promoted to manager. Sorry for the sarcasm, but for a kid coming right out of undergrad, isn't exit ops a huge consideration when thinking about where to work? Especially considering these types of jobs are often only 2 years.
Because this question relates to my choice of Superday. The input I'm hoping to get would be needed before I get to the point of having multiple offers. I certainly don't think anything is a sure thing---it's probably far from it. Therefore, I need the best info to maximize my chance of getting any offer, hence the post.
Thanks for the responses regarding the topic. Much appreciated.
You haven't heard back from Baird and Lincoln yet (you're only assuming you'll be invited based on interviews that went well), right?
Do you know what time the superday is for Citi? Try and find out when Baird and Lincoln are. See if there's an overlap. If there isn't, great. If there is... pick the one you like least and ask them if they are willing to meet earlier or later than friday. Here I'm assuming that perhaps you can make 2 out of 3 superdays on the friday... but chances are you'll still have overlap for your 2 top choices... I've had this happen to me before. I had to ask one bank to do my interviews a bit earlier in the day (e.g., if they planned to do from 10am to 4pm, it became 8am to 2pm, or just have no breaks in b/w)
For what it's worth, Citi ,although not the most prestegious name on the street, is the industry leader in public finance for quantity of deals and total par. Hours will still be relatively long, although not as bad as corporate banking. Salary will be the same, bonus will be slightly less. Once you commit to pub fin, transferring back to the corporate side will be difficult without going back to b-school. Pub fin analysts usually do well getting into good schools as they tend to like the "giving back to the community" aspect of the job...
if you want to go to PE , do NOT enter pubfin.
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