Why do some top interns not get return offers?

I was working in a boutique as an analyst prior to moving to an lmm shop around the end of summer. I just learned that one of the top sophomore interns in our group, who was described by our MD to be as technically strong as an experienced FT analyst, ended up not receiving an offer for the junior summer program. The top intern supposedly had great reviews from everyone in the group and was well liked, had only heard stellar opinions about her work ethic and attitude, went to a top school, and the team had spots open for the upcoming summer junior intern class. 
 

The only thing I’ve heard was someone guessing “maybe if intern wasn’t a sophomore, they would’ve gotten the return offer?” but then I realized the group is still looking for a few junior year interns.. 


Anyone here know why some interns don’t get a return offer, or know why someone like this one described here may not have?? 

 

Did the senior folk in your group have good opinions of the intern or was it mostly the analysts?

 

Did this person have good social skills and personality aside from being good at excel / ppt?

 

I would say so. The intern was originally from South America, but remember hearing she was very well adjusted and overall a very proactive person. Everyone said she was friendly, efficient / could get work done really quickly from what I remember

 

Sounds like this intern was solid both performance wise and socially. Maybe they got the return offer but chose not to go? 

 

"Moving from a boutique to an lmm" lol you really like scraping the bottom of the barrel don't you 

 

Firms do not make a habit out of chasing away top-bucket juniors.

There is very likely something else you are not seeing - the interns all may have liked her but she said something off-color to the seniors, voiced that she wanted to go somewhere different for next summer, etc... it is by far the exception and not the norm that top interns don't get offers.

 
Most Helpful

These threads kill me, you certainly would not have perfect information about this candidate. You also have to remember that there’s a ton of people who will just say everything is all great with a candidate but actually review very differently.

Even if that wasn’t the case, you have to remember that the goal is to fill up the class with the best talent, period. You can write off maybe 1-2 spots for pure play diversity or nepotism, but those candidates also can’t just outright suck. Anyway, chances are if she was super strong she either A) made it obvious that she was re-recruiting. Maybe she told another intern but that word would surely get to the actual team quick or B) She was technically strong but acted like she was God’s gift to Wall Street and probably assumed she had it in the bag. This could cause candidates to act higher than thou some actual bankers, in which some salty mfs would definitely use to not extend the offer - “attitude problems”.


She could have also not been as good as you’re letting on, some interns have the problem for doing extremely good work for 1 or 2 teams thinking that “oh, this is the rainmaker MD so I want to perform well for them so that I get the return”, then they do absolute shit quality on the more menial projects and teams because they think it’s beneath them. Big no no. Do you think the teams / people who didn’t think highly of her work product would also say that publicly? So there’s also bias on what you may have heard, as people will always spread good news.

All in all, you may think she was a rock star but there’s a shit ton under the surface you likely missed. Banks don’t just turn down strong candidates with good attitudes for absolutely no reason.

 

Good points, thanks for elaborating. This is helpful. I didn’t know the intern well or work with them, so I have no idea what they were really like as a person. Was going off what I’ve heard from a few of the more experienced folk on my team who did work with them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were recruiting at other places or had thought highly of themselves, as some people from top schools may be kind of like that, even a noticeable amount of people from my mid tier school were like that. 

Our group was small and tended to be more open about their opinions so it was surprising from my limited knowledge of this person. Figured there could’ve been reasons people didn’t like her but I wasn’t at the round tables obviously, but always curious to learn of other people’s experiences. Given the odd circumstances though, I thought it was worth asking and see if I could learn anything additional about reviews or intern sentiment that maybe her manager wasn’t saying

 

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