Where to go besides BB or elite boutique for junior summer?

Coming into junior year OCR at a target school with a 3.6 GPA, no relevant finance experience (just ops at a financial services company), and mediocre-decent leadership activities. The pond is so damn big that this little fish might not make it into the traditional "track" of BB SA or elite boutique SA, grab a return offer, and be done...

What is the next best option? I've had friends tell me I would definitely get interviews with smaller lesser known banks, which can result in getting to work at smaller private equity shops? I'm not a business major--would these small banks provide good learning and training opportunities? How is the pay? Exit opps?

Would it be a better idea to try to do a corporate finance role at a major company or does this ruin chances for BB FT? Is BB FT recruiting now such a thing of the past that I should just not even think about it if I don't get a BB SA offer?

I'm still trying to discover my interests, but ideally in a few years I'll be in PE, HF, or having a nice cushy business development job at a well-known company on the west coast or something, and hopefully attending a Top 7 MBA school after that.

Thanks in advance everybody.

4 Comments
 
Best Response

What makes both of you say its getting late in the game? All of my school's resume drop deadlines were today or yesterday. Citi isn't even until 5 days from now. I go to an Ivy....is the timeline somehow different here?

What's a list of quality MM IB shops? I know Jefferies probably counts...but most of the quality non-BB banks I know of are elite boutiques such as Lazard, Evercore, Moelis, etc..

Thanks a lot everyone

 

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