Taking Merrill over M/B/B?
I have been fortunate enough to receive an offer at ML IBD as well as an M/B/B consulting firm. I never really considered consulting as a career, but a lot of my friends are incredulous that I would pass up the opportunity to work at MBB. ML isn't a total wow firm but it's definitely respectable. I think I prefer banking right now simply because I haven't really looked into consulting, but to pass up an offer at m/b/b, you guys would do it too right?
Round 6 of apples vs. oranges.
You managed to get an OFFER from M/B/B without "considering" a career in consulting?
Riiiiight
I agree with Schumacher. Something to keep in mind, it is much more difficult to get a summer MBB offer than IBD. Therefore, I would take the MBB offer, leverage it into a full-time one after the summer, and then interview for IBD next year. Having the MBB name on your resume should make you a more attractive IBD candidate--hence, allowing you to get a better IBD offer next year. There are no guarantees that you'll have the same success with MBB recruiting next year (unless you are one of the rare studs who received offers from all 3), while your chances of getting a good IBD offer are pretty high.
As previously mentioned, summer internships w/ top consulting firms are extremely hard to come by (way harder than IBD; it's not even comparable). I would personally take the MBB offer. I applied and interviewed w/ a few of the top consulting firms, but ended up getting dinged. My goal, however, is to get into the best bschool possible, and MBB is the best feeder into top bschools. If your goal is long-term banking/finance, ML may be the way to go.
I tend to agree with Ideating. As much as B and Comblue's posts make sense intuitively, I think the only real question here is whether you want to do consulting or IBD. Sure, you can leverage MBB up to a better IBD FT offer, but then again you can do the exact same thing with an ML SA position. Not to mention, you'll learn applicable IBD skills along the way.
Figure out what you really want to do and go from there. Afterall, it's an apples to oranges comparison.
Yes it is really hard to get a MBB summer position, and yes it is possible to work that into an IB offer. However, if you want to do banking go with ML and actually get banking experience, the ML offer will be at least as good for getting you a FT IB offer as the MBB experience. Remember, one of the big things they always ask you in interviews is why IB and why finance. Having an internship at consulting puts you in a position where you have to make quite a good argument as it provides a signal that consulting is what you want.
My advice, take the internship that is for the job you want. Don't worry that, "OMG its soooooo hard to get a MBB internship, you should take it."
There is another perspective; since you haven't considered consulting, you could put your mind at ease by doing the MBB internship, seeing that you don't like it and then have peace of mind doing banking full-time.
Not something I would recommend or do myself, but I had a close friend do that during college (the other way though, decided the hours weren't worth it).
Are the offers for full-time or summer? Couldn't quite tell by the original post...
I disagree with monkey regarding that having a consulting position somehow puts you at a disadvantage for full-time IBD recruiting, considering that, at least at targets, IBD and MBB interview many of the exact same people. I don't think that saying you did consulting for a summer and didn't like it is a bad answer to the "why ibd and why finance?" question, especially since u are a finance and acct major. In fact, I think it makes you a more dynamic candidate than someone who interned at a less prestigious BB and is leveraging their summer experience to get into a better BB. There are literally hundreds of these people each yr.
At the end of the day, it's only 10 weeks, so take the job you really want. But you have to be mindful that your consulting chances will not be better next year.
You should also consider what FT recruiting might look like next year. For example, this year FT recruiting was absolute shit, and even many target candidates got the shaft. Up to 90% of FT classes were being filled by retained summer interns. If you emerge from the summer w/ a ML FT offer, you're guaranteed an IBD position. If you come out of the summer w/ MBB and realize that you want to do IB, you might not have that option. That said, I would still (personally) take MBB (but I do know a bit about consulting and am also not dead-set on IB).
No one can predict what the economy will look like 10 months from now, but some people definitely have a more dismal opinion than others.
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