2024 FT Recruiting for Students with SA offers in hand

I recruited FT in the Covid market (so the context here is the recruiting market was similarly challenging during the time but then in the following year, there was a hiring spree). My advice is to focus on doing well in your summer internship. Try and put in the work cause yes, its probably going to be brutal, and you really can not escape how small the industry / how much bankers like to talk. If you are able to get your team to say positive things about you, it honestly really helps. 

Don't reach out too early. I really dont see the point. Now that I'm on the other side, I would want my future analyst to be taking the time in the first few weeks of their internship to be actually focused on learning. I'd be asking questions if you are two weeks in your SA and chatting to another firm about FT. we also dont know our headcount until we decide if we like our summers - usually, the headcount we are coffeeing to fill is cause we know the current SA class would have openings, and that would only happen if we had a good enough gage of our analysts. I would say start reaching out early / mid July, August is totally fair game.

Don't give up!! it is so so challenging because off cycle / FT is a lot less structured than summer internships but please approach this process with the mentality that this is only a job, and you only need one. The more interviews you have, the more reps you have, the closer you are to securing that single job you need. Banking is very cyclical and reactionary, i remember having zero motivation to prep cause I thought there would be no more chances, just to be caught unprepared when the next interview came.... and in my experience, the entire market changed, so keep at it, this is the endurance portion! Recruiting doesn't define you and best of luck!!