Urgent Help Needed: Tier-1 IBD or Bloomberg in China
Hello everyone,
My background: US high school diploma, UK top 5 undergrad (think semi-targets in London), low GPA, but will likely gain a 2:1 next year when I graduate. Trilingual - Mandarin, Cantonese, and English.
No BB offers this year. Not surprised at all since I had my gameplan wrong at the first place. I couldn't decide if I wanna do IBD in Hong Kong or in London last fall. Ended up networking with both sides and wasting a lot of focus/time.
Done PwC M&A advisory in China before. Currently interning with EY Assurance in Shanghai for 4 week. I plan to do another internship in July and Aug this year to get my resume boosted.
My options are:
- tier 1-1.5 IBD with one of the Chinese Banks (Haitong/Galaxy/GF Securities).
- Bloomberg Analytics & Sales in Beijing.
In terms of my career trajectory, I'd like to stay in core finance and preferably in London. I know most of you would recommend picking one of the IBD gigs and getting the best out of it, and I would most defo agree. I am also preparing GMAT this summer and hoping to get into LBS or LSE if I don't get an IBD FT offer this fall. But the thing is, I landed these gigs by pulling family strings. Common practice in Asia (you know what I mean...). Being a vip intern sucks... and HRs in London surely aren't dumb to notice this. I really don't know how much weight a chinese IBD internship can add onto my resume, especially considering I will be going into FT recruiting without a significant SA experience.
Conversely, Bloomberg's rep is international and the Analytics & Sales program, though not respected, is still selective. I even had four rounds of interviews with them, including one on-site in HK. I know the Bloomberg gig is notorious for trapping people into a pigeon hole as you won't learn any marketable skills for IBD/S&T/AM. I wasn't seriously considering Bloomberg, but the HR told me there will only be 4 interns this year and the return offer is almost guaranteed. Hours are strictly 8-6 and they even offer global pay in Beijing (that's crazy). With the price level in BJ, you can live very comfortably with $60k+/- a year as a graduate. That is slightly less than what an analyst makes at a Chinese Bank. And I guess I can always go get my MBA in 2-3 years if I wanna crawl back to IBD.
I have only about 48hours left to sign the Bloomberg offer, so I seriously am having a hard time to choose. What are everyone's thoughts? Any advice is appreciated. Thank you guys!
