Wells Fargo Securities Intern 2017 Phone Interview

Not necessarily regarding the interview, but as a former WFS intern, I just wanted to give you a heads up from my post here: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/a-warning-on-the-wells-fargo-sec…

As a former "investment banking" summer analyst at Wells Fargo Securities a couple years ago, I wanted to give all of y'all a heads up before you sign an offer. The way that Wells did group placement was pretty ass back in my day (and I'm pretty sure they haven't changed it).

In terms of group placement after signing the offer, Wells combines their normal IBD groups (coverage, M&A, Sponsors, etc.), their capital markets groups (LevFin, DCM, ECM, Syndications), public finance, and their asset backed finance (structured finance/lending) groups into the same "investment banking" recruiting pipeline.

The real kicker is how Wells does location. Instead of applying, interviewing, and getting an offer for a specific city like every other bank in the world, Wells places you into a city AFTER you sign the offer. And what they don't tell you until you find out for yourselves is that around 70%+ of positions are in Charlotte, not New York City or San Francisco.

And while there is a group matching process, HR plays a heavy role and almost everyone preferences normal IBD groups in NYC, SF, or LA as their top choice so you can imagine how much of a shitshow that becomes. So after you sign the offer, there's a very likely (in fact more than likely) chance that you could get placed in something like syndicated finance or asset backed finance in Charlotte, especially with returning sophomore diversity interns taking up a lot of the NYC/SF spots before group placement for junior interns even begins.

There is the possibility of switching groups between your SA and FT stint, however there tend to be very few or no spots in NYC or SF FT and everyone in Charlotte tries to switch out of cities so people successfully doing it are few and far between.

There's a reason they do recruiting this way since they can't get a whole lot of good talent to come to Charlotte or work in their shitter groups without being super bait and switchy. I mean it is Wells Fargo, you shouldn't be surprised at this point if they're doing shady shit.

So unless you're super open to the idea of ending up working in Charlotte and syndicating loans or lending against mortgages despite signing an "investment banking" offer letter, I'd strongly encourage you to go through the recruiting process at other banks before locking yourself into Wells too early.

I’m doing my phone interview for this tomorrow, too. Wondering how technical it will be

anyone else hear back about final round interviews?