Salary questions for 2 summer internship offers

Hi,

I'm a rising 3rd year in undergrad at a semi-target school. I'm a STEM major and have had very limited exposure to the finance world. I recently became interested in IB and I've been trying to self-teach myself IB methodologies beginning this summer, but it might be too little too late.

I was able to land an Equity research internship at a MM for summer 2018, however, and I also got a return offer from my previous summer internship as a financial analyst intern at a stock exchange. I think taking the return offer would be safe, since I feel it would be easy to get a full time offer, and I'm not particularly passionate about either position.

Some salary questions I have that would help my decision:

1) Which would have higher salary potential if I stayed long term? From the google searches I've done, it seems ER caps around 90k until you could become an Analyst. For those in Equity Research, how hard is it to become an analyst? Do most stay at the associate level? I saw from an info site that it seems many can stay at the associate level and there is lower turn over than IB, can anyone confirm?

Did anyone start as an Equity research summer intern then transition to full time? What was your starting salary when you became full time?

2) If anyone out there has experience working at a major stock exchange by chance (NYSE or NASDAQ), what was your title? How was moving up and the pay like?

3 Comments
 

I would take the equity research position. The salary does not cap at 90K. You will have better exit opportunities from ER. Go on Glassdoor, you will get a better idea of the Equity research salaries. You can easily earn 100k+ as an associate. Its tough to become an analyst I think but you can always move to the buy side. I dont know too much about the other position.

 

Thanks for your input, but I looked at equity research salaries for the company I got an offer from and they did seem to be on the lower side. How many years would you say on average it takes to eventually get into the 6 figures?

 

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