Is it possible to pivot to IB senior year of college?

Apologies if this has been asked a million times. I know the typical path is to be an SA junior year and then receive a return offer. I will be doing a finance internship this summer, but have never tried recruiting for IB. Is it possible to still apply for full time positions, or is it rare for banks to hire outside of former interns?

5 Comments
 
Five Star Man

It's certainly possible, but extremely difficult. You need to get networking, focus on alumni at boutiques, with as many touch points as possible. You also have to know your technicals and your story as to why you didn't have an internship down cold. 

Basically, be perfect and get super lucky.

Thanks so much for your response! Are there maybe any similar careers that would pay more than consulting but would be slightly more accessible than IB in terms of recruiting?

 

This is going to sound ridiculous, because I absolutely get why you're looking for high comp roles - if you're not going to get to IB, you need to focus on roles that will position you well for IB, not so much on comp.

I'm not of a ton of use here, I ass backwards'ed my way into my role - private accounting, bank lending, Exec MBA, role today.

Your key is going to be networking and getting scrappy. 

I'd take consulting and use it as a springboard, if it's available. 

When you say "finance" role, what do you mean? Like at a bank, or elsewhere? If it's at a bank, you can try internal networking and getting lucky - it's not without risk though.

 

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