Is 2 sophomore S&T internships (Big 5 Canada) worth it for penultimate BB recruitment considering it delays grad?
Will 2 sophomore S&T internships help for penultimate S&T BB recruitment?For some context: I know I am in a really lucky spot to even be considering this, I am grateful for this opportunity.Little bit of background, I attend a semi-target in Canada (think Sauder/Schulich/Rotman) and recently accepted an offer for a 2023 SA S&T position at one of the Big 5 in Canada. I am in a unique position where I might be able to receive a Fall 2022 S&T offer with one of the bigger 5 (think BMO/RBC).My question is, is it worth it to take on two sophomore internships to appear more attractive when I plan on recruiting for SA 2024 in US BB's? Especially since I'll have actual points on my resume at the time of recruitment (Feb-May 2023) for the Fall term internship compared to just "incoming 2023 internship" for the summer one. I also feel like I'd learn a lot on the job which would help in recruitment for the more intensive BB recruitment process.However, this would mean potentially delaying my graduation by 1 or even 2 terms. Would the potential easier BB recruitment be worth it or am I overthinking it and one sophomore SA is already good? Another factor is that the additional Fall experience might overshadow my average (for finance) grades ~3.7 cGPA.Edit: Delaying grad would also mean a delayed earning potential if I just end up being at a Big 5 Canadian bank after all, and extra $20K in tuition :P
Prospect in S&T - Other, sorry about the lack of response. Maybe one of these topics will help:
More suggestions...
Fingers crossed that one of those helps you.
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This is an interesting question. Would 2 S&T internships provide that much incremental value when recruiting for a BB? Probably not. You've already got "incoming summer analyst" on your resume and summer analysts aren't expected to have much concrete knowledge (especially for US banks - almost entirely behavioral processes) so the firsthand experience probably won't help a ton. A 3.7 cGPA also wouldn't be something that would raise any red flags, either.
That said, the fall internship probably *would* provide a little bit of benefit in helping you stand out. Gives you a bit of optionality too - if you end up hating S&T in the fall, you can re-recruit for a different field for the 2024 internship. Given that you've landed one (maybe 2) Canadian internships I would think that you would have no problems recruiting in the US, but recruiting is always a toss-up, so who knows. Either way, you would still have the chance to lateral to a different shop for full-time work after your 2024 internship.
Ordinarily I would also say that if you do this fall internship and your 2024 recruiting goes poorly, extending your graduation date by a year could give you the option to re-recruit for a summer 2025 internship, though with 3 internships on your resume already that would be getting a bit excessive and probably not something I'd recommend.
Conversely, if you take the fall internship and have to do one or two extra semesters, this could cause some headaches when signing a full-time offer from the US bank - typically analysts start in the summer after their internship, so having an odd graduation timeline could complicate things. I don't know enough about this to say whether it would be a real problem.
On balance, I think you'll still be in a good spot regardless of what you decide to do - whatever decision you make probably won't really make much of a difference to your recruitment chances. Go with whichever one you feel is best.
Awesome, thanks for such a detailed response. I'm now trying to see if I can potentially be a part-time student on top of the internship in the fall in order to graduate on time. I would be on a originations/securitization/structuring desk for the fall coop and probably a FICC trading desk for the sophomore summer analyst role. I can see myself on a sales desk for my junior year summer, or potentially going back to trading/other desks depending on what I like now. I really just want to see what I like and try things out. Also apparently the team culture is great on the fall coop desk which is luring me. However with school + fall coop I'd be averaging shitty IB week type hours for 4 months, especially considering the fall coop desk is less market based than traditional S&T so I might get off at like 7-9PM. What do you think/is it worth it?
Have others done the combined student + internship before? If there's precedent then I'd say maybe you should give it a shot, cognizant that - like you say - it would probably be a pretty brutal 4 months. Dependent on how you can distribute the workload it might not have to be IB-like - can you tackle everything on weekends when you likely won't have any work? If nobody's done it before I'd be more hesitant, since that could be an indication that you might be biting off more than you can chew. I would also avoid anything that makes it seem like you're not giving 100% of your focus to the internship, since that will likely leave a bad taste in your team's mouth. And I honestly don't know how the extra semester might inconvenience you vs. graduating "on time" - good chance it might not even inconvenience you at all, especially since it seems like firms are more understanding after COVID having caused a lot of similar delays.
Probably leaning more towards encouraging you not to do this, unless there's precedent and others have done it (successfully) before.
Congrats on landing these opportunities; seems like you have a good approach to things and I'm sure you'll do well. Good luck.
No, 2 internships won't help. 1 is enough. Summer analyst at a BB and I'd guess <25% even had an S&T internship prior. Think about opportunity cost of graduating a full yr late...
Thanks for the reply. Follow up, what would you say was the majority of internships other S&T SA's had previously?
EDIT: To add on to this, I'm at a semi-target for big 5 canada and non-target for BB so I'm not sure if I need something really huge like 2 soph internships to really impress/convince the guys at NYC BBs.
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