Hey all, I am seeking some advice.
A bit of background on myself- I am a fourth year undergraduate student at a strong non-target school with good alumni connections on Wall Street (in all the BB's and some of the MM shops). I have strong stats, EC's, and I have 7 months of investment banking experience at a boutique IB firm close to campus.
I am in an interesting situation, I can graduate in either May and pursue FT offers now, or delay my graduation a semester and graduate in December, which puts me in the internship recruiting pool. I have gone through some full time recruiting and have made it to superdays, however I have not been able to lock down an offer. As of the moment, I am waiting to hear back from a large MM shop in Atlanta, however I do not believe I got the offer. Furthermore I think that full time recruiting at many of the large banks is wrapping up for the time being.
Should I begin searching for internship positions and delay a semester? What do you all suggest? Is it worth it? My end goal is to get an IB offer at a MM or BB shop.
For any members interested in seeing my resume, PM me. however I prefer to not post it publicly.
Thanks!
It would be ideal to graduate in May. You seem to have good experience as of now. What advantage is there to graduating in December?
1.) Do you have any offers or potential offers in the pipeline? 2.) Are you paying in-state tuition? What is the cost of another semester?
An offer from the boutique or somewhere better would make this easy; failing, that paying in-state tuition for one more semester and doing BB recruiting in January would make this easy.
The boutique is not taking on any analysts at the moment. I am paying in-state tuition, the cost of another semester would be relatively low. The opportunity cost lies between choosing a smaller firm and graduating in may, or delaying a semester and finding an internship with a larger firm. Given this, what do you think I should do?
Can you go through internship recruiting before deciding? If you could, and can land a strong internship, I'd take the internship and delay graduation. Starting at a better bank will make your career that much easier, and assuming you get the FT offer you'd be fortunate enough to have a semester off, during which you can travel etc. if that interests you. I'm in a similar situation (have a semester off before starting FT because I'm graduating a semester early) and am really looking forward to what I can do with my time off.
I'm a conservative guy who says that a boutique bird in the hand is better than a BB bird in the bush.
1.) Nobody knows how many SA slots the banks will be hiring for IBD this spring. Not even the banks know. 2.) Nobody knows how many SAs will get offers. 3.) Very rough estimate, about 70% of SA's get hired in the average year 4.) Very rough estimate, your odds of getting hired for BB IBD if you network well are 20-70%.
So my rough and only mildly educated guess is that your odds of getting an FT BB IBD offer for an extra semester are probably on the order of 50% or less but are probably also 10% or more. And a lot of assumptions are going into this. I am not asking you about your school and your background, and I am probably not an alumn of your school, so I have no idea about your exact situation. But if you have a good GPA from a non-target school and a good alumni network, you probably have a shot.
Fortunately, you don't have a lot of pick risk to deal with. An SA offer from a top five bank is probably better than the potential for an FT offer from a boutique.
An FT offer from a boutique is probably better than taking your chances at an SA offer.
If you can get a boutique IB offer now, I say take it and don't look back. If it's February and you have a top five IBD SA offer, take that.
Whichever good offer comes along first, may very well be the best offer for you.
Can you try networking for both? Or do you really want to focus on one opportunity? I know it's very disconcerting to have your situation next fall be a singularity, but I can assure you that if you network hard for both opportunities and take the first good one to come along, you've gotten yourself into the best situation you reasonably could given the uncertainty you currently face.
If you read the above paragraph and your stomach turns over at the prospect of doing both, the prospect of recruiting for a FT job is probably also going to be a burden. So I am going to steer you towards going for an SA at a firm that can commit to full-time offers. I could be steering you wrong, but I think this route minimizes your expected regret.
One big uncertainty here is the economy. I'm not really sure fall 2014 will be as good as recruiting now- it could be better, it could be worse. However, I entered the industry in 2007 and lived through 2008. I think financial institutions are just a touch on the optimistic side, but I don't see the drunken complacency of 2007 when it comes to hiring. So I don't think 2014 will be a bad year.
I've given a lot of advice for not being a banker. Obviously if there are any people out there who know more about the IBD hiring situation than me, or are more familiar with the pros/cons of working in IBD at a boutique vs a BB than a quant, I defer to that. All I can offer is the model- which suggests you've kinda got two options and can pursue both simultaneously if you're willing to hustle. Recruit FT with the boutiques, recruit for SA with the BBs, and you don't risk sending a mixed message to recruiters or hiring managers.
Keep grinding on the Southern firms - they arent done recruiting for FT yet. You can run a dual track process for a few weeks - apply the BB SA positions while still trying to land a full-time gig.
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