Chose wrong internship?

For some background I’m at a semi target in the UK. I received two offers for SA, one from an UMM PE fund in IR (CVC/Ardian) and a low tier IB (Standard Charted/Soc Gen). I took the IR role because I don’t want to go into PE or anything and want a relatively chill role that pays well. But now I’m having doubts that I took the wrong internship and have closed off any doors early into my career. Should I have taken the IB internship even though it wasn’t at a great firm?

3 Comments
 

Well not necessarily, it depends on what you want. If you want IB (you posted this in the IB forum), then absolutely my view is that you should've done an internship in...IB. But you didn't say that explicitly anywhere in your question. You need to help with a bit more context on what you want out of life.

But if you want a chill role that pays well (and if so, good for you), then I think you probably chose rightly - IR can pay well, and it's at least more chill than banking.

 

Thanks for the advice. I’m not quite sure exactly what I would want to do but I don’t see myself doing a very stressful job for the long term ie IB, PE etc. so my thinking was that I might end up doing IB and moving into IR anyway. I also picked the IR role for the prestigious company and higher base but I’m guessing once bonus is accounting for it’ll be lower. My only worry is that I’ve capped what roles I can go into by picking IR.

 
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