Worth recruiting FT with mid-tier BB offer?

Will be a 2021 SA at one of BofA/Citi/Barclays. Do you all think it would be worth going through FT recruiting at GS/MS/JPM as someone in my shoes? I'm very grateful and happy with my offer, but in the end, I still want the best thing for my career.

My main reason for even thinking about it is for the advantage when it comes to PE recruiting. I've done some research on a number of funds that I'm interested in and they are dominated by GS/MS/JPM. Also, I don't have a guarantee on receiving a return offer next summer, so I think it might be helpful to at least do some networking leading up to the summer. 

Has anyone on here made the jump from mid-tier BB SA (or other bank) to top-BB FT? Any insight into the process would be greatly appreciated. I assume it's not as structured as SA processes, so want to be as prepared as possible. 

3 Comments
 

1. If you don't get a return offer you're going to have little to no chance at FT recruiting for other competitive banks

2. GS/MS/JPM do better in PE recruiting is largely because their candidates are better/more focused on PE recruiting. The combination of school, interview ability, charisma, GPA, SAT, group, rank, deal exp. > bank.

I would recommend you focus your effort on getting into groups like M&A/Industrials at Citi, M&A/FSG/LevFin/HC/CR at BAML, or good coverage at Barclays (please don't reply to this message saying I missed a top group at x bank, I probably did). 

 

Thanks for the advice. The alumni from my semi-target that have gone to the top PE funds have almost always gone to GS/MS and some JPM. I guess if I had HYPW on my resume it wouldn't matter as much. I'm fairly confident that I will get into a strong group at my BB (already have a network with the top groups), so deal flow shouldn't be an issue. Just concerned that a lack of a top-tier brand name will put me at a disadvantage to my peers. 

I'm sure I will have exposure to MF/UMMs from a mid-tier BB, but just want to make things easier. For example, I was still able to land a BB SA offer from my semi-target. However, I feel like it would have been a bit easier to do so from a top-tier target school and open more doors. 

 

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