Breaking into Markets FT
So, I'm in an interesting position. i am coming from a target school, 3.5/3.6 GPA. I was SA last year at a middle market shop for S&T and they were absolutely hammered on P&L by the end of the summer, to the point where very few people got hired back to the division I was in. I happened to be in a niche role/group that very few people around the street have intern experience in and I've been leveraging it to the best of my ability, but my processes have all stalled as hiring has largely become desk-by-desk everywhere and very few banks are hiring outside of their intern classes.
Most banks where I recruited (BB/MM/Boutique) for other roles weren't interested in hiring me for IBD/ER without the summer of modelling experience, and plenty of them interviewed me only to give the roles away to people with no finance internship experience (shockingly) or better yet, interview me and come back to me letting me know they didn't have a spot.
I've prepared for the worst and secured an out-of-industry offer in something I'd be comfortable working in, but this is probably my last chance to work on a trading floor given where the industry is going. I've got a pretty extensive network given where I am (including a few senior contacts I've been fortunate to make myself). My family has never worked in finance and I'm hoping to be the first.
I've managed to get interviews with what's on my resume pretty consistently and have been just networking as much as possible, but I'm afraid it's a road to nowhere and that I should just enjoy my last few weeks of college before starting in-industry. The job there would give me in-firm laterals into Investor Relations, CorpDev, or even treasury and a pretty nice route to grad school where I can figure out my life from there.
Does anyone have advice as to whether or not what I am doing is for naught? Are there any banks that are still doing recruiting for Markets/S&T or any types of middle office roles with potential movements into front office down the line? Is the trading floor a good place to be right now given how many of my contacts have been laid off/jumped ship over the last few months? Curious to see what everyone thinks.
