Renege Back Office at BB for Economic Consulting at Boutique?
I am a junior at a semi-target university majoring in Economics, and in December I reluctantly accepted my only offer to intern in a back office position at a BB with hopes that I may be able to pivot into a front office position. Since then, I have discovered my interest in economic consulting (it perfectly combines quantitative and qualitative work with a focus on client service) and have received an offer from a small (one office of ~40-50 people) firm. Do I renege on an offer from a BB to take up a much less prestigious internship, but one that I am exponentially more interested in?
Back office at BB: Pros
Good company name recognition
Potential to work my way into front office (Sales and Trading is a career I would be interested in)
Good experience working with a team in a professional setting
Would live at home
Back office at BB: Cons
Not in NYC office, making networking harder
Not interested in the work I will be doing (mostly accounting and operations related, think earnings reports and financial statements)
I would most definitely NOT accept a full-time offer
The commute from home is long (~1.5hours)
I don't have a say in which desk/business area I am assigned to (some involve more accounting than others, which I am not a fan of)
Economic Consulting: Pros
Very interested in the work, will be pursuing this as a full-time job my senior year (more relevant experience)
In a lively metropolitan city (my college town and favorite city)
Short commute from my college house
Economic Consulting: Cons
Would have to renege on other offer
Small, unknown firm
The pay/money is not a factor.
I think you answered your own question...take the econ consulting firm. At the end of the day the work experience matters and if you enjoy it more then you are more likely to kill it. Also there is a chance that you get client exposure at the econ firm that you can spin it during ft recruiting.
This.
The BB thing would be fine if you had nothing. But you have something. Also Sales and Trading is dying. And if it's not then its shrinking radically. And fast. Mood is bad. Money not there. Politics. Clients not performing. Margins shrinking. You name it. OP - you have seen the headlines. And if you have not, then google it. It's all about upside vs downside.
And I don't see much downside in the consulting gig. Remember no matter what anyone tells you, you gotta do what's best for you. If you enjoy the work and the colleagues, that's literally over 80% of the battle. Seriously.
Good Luck
I think you're right. Not only is econ consulting more along the lines of what I want to do but I think it is a better experience for future IB/S&T recruiting.
Speaking as someone who has clawed slowly out of BO... stay far away from it. You essentially wear that label every time you apply to new jobs. Recruiters and internal HR will not take you seriously when you apply for new FO jobs because they view you as BO material... Trust me. It takes a lot of luck, perseverance, and time to eventually move from BO to FO.
At least with consulting you are viewed as someone that can handle more complex work and it completely changes your story.
And the fact that S&T is no where a secured job. I’m four months at a bank on their rates desk and I came from a hedge fund after the fund shut down now, they’re thinking of laying off people already. My mom told me she is always worried about me because she knows the job security in finance is very volatile and wish I could do something like engineering. If I could back, I think I would have rather done engineering for job security. The amount finance jobs available relative to the amount of people looking for finance jobs is rather sad. This is particular one of the reason to learn coding so I can hedge my future and go else where if I must.
what is economic consulting? serious question.
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