MBA Summer Associate 2021 Recruiting
Hey folks,
I am an admit to a T15 MBA program at sticker price. My goal is to pivot into investment banking and as I understand it, it is only possible via summer associate roles for an MBA. There's a number of points that I have researched over the last few weeks that I'd appreciate your perspectives on.
- Pre COVID, overall MBA Associate recruiting seems to trend lower with banks preferring Analyst -> Associate promotions, this being counterbalanced with tech and consulting becoming more flavor of the month for top MBA graduates.
- This year, some banks have extended full-time offers to all incoming summer associates and some are doing reduced duration internships with an unknown impact on full time offers.
- Summer Analyst 2021 recruiting seems to be continuing virtually.
With these things in mind, where do you see summer associate recruiting this fall to be like?
I have a stable job in an industry that will do fine over the next two years. Should I try and defer or risk getting into the 2021 MBA application pool?
Thanks for your time and advice.
The banks still need the bodies and while the banks may prefer An -> As promotions, the truth is most of these candidates leave for PE/HF. MBAs preferences towards consulting and banking are always flip flopping. Right now consulting is the flavor but in a couples years the potential first year 100k extra total comp will start to change the minds of top candidates again.
Right now Tech looks like a 40 hour per week gold mine given the great comp, benefits, and culture. I think this is going to change over time drastically. Each of the FAANG companies invented a unique money printing machine and only need so many PMs/marketers/FLPDs to run that one machine. Outside of Amazon I think the rest of the FAANG companies are struggling with innovation and will become bloated with 200k MBAs that can't add value. Google could fire 95% of MBA hires and still make billions off their search engine/youtube. These firms have tripled their MBA hiring over the last 3-4 years and I think the positions will eventually become much more competitive. Investment banks and consulting firms keep coming back to business schools for more graduates because the industries have very high turnover. High pay, great hours, and great culture will likely not have high turnover. Either there will be less positions, less comp/career stagnation, or worse culture. Obviously I could be totally wrong but this is just my take after listening to a bunch of way smarter people ramble on the topic.
The recruiting will be normal in person recruiting just like it was last year. This virus is not lethal enough for people (governments included) to continue to respect quarantine/social distancing necessities/requirements. By September you will be wondering if COVID-19 impacts individuals behavior (under the age of 60) at all aside from extensive hand washing.
I think trying to time the economy is generally a bad idea. If its what you want to do eventually I say just go now. The economy will be in a totally different place when you graduate.