advice needed difficult choice

I've signed an offer ending right before the FT start date - spring off-cycle.

You could always consider reneging on Jefferies if you get JPM. You run a huge risk of getting caught during the 3-4 months at the JPM internship, but not many could fault you for upgrading.

Consider this though - JPM seems to have filled their quota for 2010 FT analysts. Unless you know some inside info or get lucky where an extra spot open up, it seems unlikely to me that you could start there full-time this year. To give you an offer in 2011 seems weird and then leaves you with a gap to fill, where the Jefferies offer might be worthwhile to entertain.

From a legal perspective... take a look at your Jefferies contract.

In my FT offer letter, albeit a different bank, it specifically states you are not to be employed by any financial services firm as soon as you sign. You could be under breach of contract if you sign Jefferies and intern at JPM. (I'm not sure if this only implies retracting of offer if found out... or potentially worse implications?)

My advice... choose one or the other:

JPM Internship -> Potential JPM FT

or

Sign Jefferies FT -> Drop JPM Internship (Or call Jefferies HR and get it cleared if your intent is to still try and intern @ JPM)

don't fuck around with these two companies or you'll find yourself blacklisted from both.

also, take the full time offer dude- you have no idea whether or not JPM is going to give you a full time offer after your internship

Basically once you sign the FT offer, or at least in my contract, you are technically employed by the company via "intent". I'm not an HR guru so don't quote me, but this is my understanding. Hence you would be interning at JPM as a Jefferies employee, even though you hadn't even started your first day.

The reason they do this is because of corporate intellectual property. If you were to intern at JPM you gain insider knowledge of a competitor (strategy, deals they are pitching on, valuation, etc). You'd be surprised at how much trouble you could potentially get into, and not just from a one party perspective.

Most firms respect their competitors and even Jefferies could end up taking a stance against you even though you would be gaining experience if you were to go from JPM to Jefferies.

Hope that helps.

why would Jefferies care if youre interning at JPM before your full time offer starts? will you have you graduated already? and when and how will you be interning with JPM? doesnt Jefferies want you earlier if you have all this "free time"? this post is a little confusing. can you be clearer with the details?

if youre just saying you dont want to accept the Jefferies offer because you think youll get a full time offer at JPM after your internship, then my answer is dont be foolish. take the full time offer. this is no time to be playing around with jobs. worry about making a lateral move from Jefferies once youre getting paychecks and experience.

AFAIK JPM offers off-cycle internships in London for students from continental Europe - they could do spring internship because their Bachelor/Masters degrees are structured in a different way. So they could theoretically do spring internship at JPM, and then switch to the other bank for FT position.

such an easy choice. just go JPM internship > FT. Sure there is a slim chance if you suck that you won't get the offer but do you really want to be at Jefferies? no offense but if you can't handle risk like this you're setting yourself up for mediocrity.

you underestimate the wall street/city job market piper. i know MDs now that are sitting at home struggling to find a FT job or really talented ones that are working at shops we would have absolutely shat on in previous years. competition is especially fierce these days and the already limited spots have become even more so. youre a fool if youre turning down FT offers for the chance at "prestige". caveat empor.

Appreciate all your comments. But I've heard they have a strong healthcare team. Is it decent compared to BBs if I try to push for healthcare or maybe energy ?

JPM in London doesnt do FT recruiting. Instead, they do autumn, winter and spring internships and fill FT spots this way. That being said - odds for an FT in 2010 are not favourable. Its weird that they said 2011 class is an option, never heard that before and would be cautious about it. After all - they will have a whole summer class to choose from.

Still, if it was me I wouldn't sign with Jefferies, do the JPM internship, and if it didn't go through do FT recruiting once again. I guess it depends on how much youre willing to gamble with your life:)

It's not like you're choosing among BB's - the gap between Jefferies and JPM is substantial. That being said, you will be giving up a year if you intern at JPM, and there's no guarantee that you'll get a FT offer. If you really want to end up at a BB, you can always lateral from Jeff - you'll still lose a year, but you'll have a full year of banking experience which is helpful for exit opps. I would take Jefferies now. And btw, their healthcare group's really good - they recently poached UBS' healthcare team which included Lorello, who's perhaps the top healthcare banker.

Very clear to me. Unsign officially at Jeffreries, then go for JPM and work harder than ever to get the Full Time position.