Left IBD - Juggling offers?
Bit of background: I'm not really a finance monkey. I applied for the freshmen/sophomore summer internship program at JPMorgan three years ago most for the summer dough Did well enough that I was asked to return each summer afterwards. Last summer, I signed my full-time offer to be a first year in JPM IBD. Interned continuously during the schoolyear at Citi in their Credit Risk department, just for the dough.
All this time, I've been kind of miserable on the job. I was told I was the top-ranked summer analyst last summer in my industry group. But I kept thinking about how much I hate the culture of IBD.
I decided to renege on my JPM IBD offer in December.
Kind of confused about my options right now. I haven't conducted a serious job search, but I've been going with the flow. Recruiters on Linkedin have reached out to me with more senior-level positions because my resume looks like I have a lot of experience for a kid still in college. Some of these opportunities are to start out as an associate in Market Risk or Credit Risk (think State Street, SocGen).
On the other hand, some recruiters have been offering me FinTech consulting gigs, think Capco, First Derivatives, Iridium). While the FinTech gigs are definitely more on the back office/middle office side, the pay is pretty attractive.
Won't get my degree until May, but I'm looking at a $110K base + $20K bonus at a no-name FinTech consulting firm in NYC as a senior consultant. Their clients are BB and MM firms but the projects are mostly BO/MO.
Although I realize that this doesn't compare to the prestige or exit opps of doing IBD at a BB, I reneged on the BB IBD offer because I hated my coworkers, hated the terrible hours, and the overall lifestyle. To put this into context, I'm a girl who would much rather be working at a publishing company, if the pay in publishing were better. The FinTech consulting gig would pay me a really decent salary for someone in their first real job, even though the exit opps are basically shit.
I've never planned on staying in this industry for long. Most just wanted to save up money and then leave. In that regard, I feel like the FinTech gig (with good hours and a higher base) may be a good option. I don't think the culture or lifestyle as a Risk associate at Fitch or SocGen would be any better than what I've experienced in Credit Risk at Citi or IBD at JPM.
Thoughts?
Just out of curiosity, why were you unhappy with your co-workers and hated the culture at JPM?
I felt like there was a lot of analyst-hazing and posturing going on. Oftentimes, I felt as if loud, dumb personalities were favored over quiet hardworking people. Culture certainly differs group by group, but across the board I felt that white males with a fratty personalities had better growth potential than any others.
Furthermore, I felt like everyone I knew had some sort of inferiority complex, which resulted in a severely toxic environment of people trying to overcompensate for everything. Everyone outside of IBD was trying to make themselves feel more "front office." Everyone actually in IBD was miserable and would take out their anger on other people. It was just a cycle of insecure people overcompensating and breeding toxicity.
Hope that answers your question.
If you hated IBD, I don't see why you needed to continue
Go for it! I don't see anything wrong with the options you've outlined above.
Try for MBB
Your personality and goals sound more suited for consulting. Hours are project dependent and likely won't be great but probably better than IBD.
Your other options aren't bad from a monetary standpoint, but personally, I'd feel as if my life was stagnant working in any of those roles. Boring work, not adding much value, etc. Been there before, and I'd take longer hours and interesting work over mindnumbing bullshit work. To each his own, though. Some people are perfectly happy doing mindless work from 8-5.
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