Any other targets get screwed by this year's Summer Analyst recruiting cycle? What are your plans now?

So I went into the summer recruitment process pretty confident coming from a target with a 3.8+ gpa and a relevant IB internship at a boutique under my belt, and so far no opportunities have materialized. Had multiple phone screens and landed a couple of superdays, but unfortunately nothing panned out. Anyone else in the same boat? What are your plans in moving forward?

 

I struck out in investment banking recruitment too from a target, and literally switched industries that I'm trying to get into. I'm doing consulting this summer, and I'm going to aim for MBB when I'm a senior.

What I did is not very common.. I assume because of the different skill sets and interests from banking to consulting, but I assume that there is a sub-set of kids who are gung-ho on a name-brand career that probably did exactly what I did.

 

You also posted in another thread that you lied your way into that BB internship. I'm sure you "deserved" the spot and worked just as hard as the next guy to land the gig, but please don't overgeneralize and say we have no accountability these days. I think often times, the recruiting process is just inefficient and inevitably leaves those who are well-qualified/ worked hard out to dry. At the end of the day, the analyst role can probably be filled by the barista working at your BB's cafe. Whether we like it or not, the primary reason you were hired was to do the gruntwork. Of course it doesn't hurt if a monkey has a brain on his shoulders, so long as he's not too clever.

 

Given the gist of your post, not sure why it’s relevant that you attend a target school or why you only want to hear from other similarly situated students.

In fact the non-target students may have more experience in the domain of rejection than the targets...

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It means that the OP feels as though they were entitled to a slot since they are coming from a target.

Every single person who got in from a non-target over you had to work harder thank you did, and had to prove they deserved to be there. Figure out what you're doing wrong (poorly written resume? bad interview skills? weak technicals? do you just come off as a pompous ass?) and fix it.

 
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BreakingOutOfPWM:
It means that the OP feels as though they were entitled to a slot since they are coming from a target.

Every single person who got in from a non-target over you had to work harder thank you did, and had to prove they deserved to be there. Figure out what you're doing wrong (poorly written resume? bad interview skills? weak technicals? do you just come off as a pompous ass?) and fix it.

Having recruited both at a non-target (for undergrad) and at a target (MBA), I really don't understand the hate/confusion on your end. There's a lot of randomness in the process. You'll often have 50 equally qualified people going for the same slots, sometimes it just doesn't work out despite doing everything right. Everyone at the target goes through the same process, studies together, goes to the same networking sessions, etc. I haven't been in that position, but I can imagine it'd be frustrating to come up short and see your friends who did the exact same thing come out with great offers.

It's also not necessarily harder as a non-target. There are fewer opportunities, yes, but frankly there are significantly fewer qualified candidates. You're not as limited to your school team for recruiting as a non-target (you really just need 1 person to get you into the process, and they can be from any school - if you're at a target, you're screwed if you don't vibe with the alumni from your school at that particular bank). Also, because there are fewer opportunities in front of you, you'll have more time to devote to what's available.

 

You do understand that the recruiters don't even show up to non-target schools, right? It doesn't matter how many qualified people are there or not.

As a non-target, you have to fight for the opportunity for someone to even look at your resume. Then, you have to fight again for the job. It's a huge difference.

Also, how exactly are you screwed "if you don't vibe with alumni" at a target??? Too bad the alumni can't help.....guess you have to apply just like a non-target....

 

And every single person who goes to a target had to work harder to get into a better school. A simple concept that seems to be lost on people like you who feverishly defend non-target kids as if they started life at a disadvantage.

 

Confused why you would ask if any other targets were screwed by the recruiting cycle, whereas this has clearly had a disproportionately bad impact on non-targets, i.e. less time to compensate for lack of pedigree with experience. Anyways, instead of feeling jaded by the process and whining, take initiative in networking and preparing yourself. Maybe less convenient / comforting to address, but maybe it was a lack of this that's to blame more than the process itself.

 

You didn't get screwed over. That implies you should have gotten an offer. Everyone has to earn their spot. Recruiting is a competition and you lost. Learn from what you did wrong and grow from it.

 

I received an offer from a MM shop earlier in the summer, but factors such as location, group culture, being in the late stages with other shops, etc. made me politely decline their offer. Of course, being in the mentality that I was gunning for a BB and not settling for anything less may have also played a role. I am really kicking myself now as by this point, I believe all BBs have closed recruiting so MM is probably the next best thing out there.

As to other posters' comments about me feeling entitled and not working as hard as non-targets, I assure you this is false. I may have come in entitled freshman year thinking I was a hotshot, but after my first IB stint and the amount of networking I had to do to land that offer as a non-diversity candidate, I know just how much work is required and how competitive the process is. Also, I think being at a target has much less of an impact than it did before the age of hirevues which has really equalized the playing field. For my school at least, only three banks - two BB and one EB came this year to do on campus interviews. All other banks simply held info sessions and had us do hirevues or did first rounds remotely via phone.

Of course, whatever happens to me I am to blame to some extent, but I am just extremely frustrated with the early recruitment cycle for summer analysts this year. Based on my experience going through the process and talking to friends working on the street, the target school kid who is earning a BA in Economics is much more a relationship based hire than the Wharton or NYU kid who knows finance cold. As another poster has pointed out, half the fight for us is really having an alumni pull for us from within a firm, but with the expedited cycle, even some of the alumni were caught off-guard that recruiting had started so early. This year especially, the majority of kids who were landing internships at my school for BB were the gung-ho finance kids who knew what they wanted to do freshman year as opposed to past years where many just wandered into finance thinking it would be an interesting gig.

At least GS and JPM have announced that for the 2019 summer interns, they will be pushing recruiting back to a normal timetable so glad the current sophomores don't have to go through this crazy year at least to some extent.

 

Doing a gap semester for Spring 2019 and setting yourself for another SA recruiting for Summer 2020 and full time recruiting Fall 2020 works too.

  • Spring 2019 - Full-time Internship at a boutique (Unpaid if you can't find any decent ones)
  • Summer 2019 - Full-time Internship at a boutique (Unpaid if you can't find any decent ones)
  • Fall 2019 - Fall recruiting for SA 2020
  • Spring 2020 - Extended recruiting if you were not able to secure an offer
  • Summer 2020 - Summer Analyst Program
  • Fall 2020 - Full-time recruiting / Relax if you get the offer then graduate
  • Spring/Summer 2021 your full-time career kicks off
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Basically this. Honestly, this extends to any type of recruitment.

Don’t assume you have everything under your control. You can have a strong profile, strong interview, and strong network. Control what you can but luck plays a bigger role than you would expect

 

This thread is infuriating.

Over the last 10 years, I've reviewed thousands of resumes, all of which came from candidates that attend accredited institutions (target and non-target), have networked, have high GPAs and have relevant extracurriculars.

No one is entitled to an internship, a full-time offer or anything quite frankly. Welcome to the real world, where there's nearly an infinite number of variables, the majority of which are out of your control.

Rather than expend energy feeling sorry for yourself, you should redeploy it towards continuing on the journey to achieve your goals. Procure a MM or boutique internship, learn over those 10 weeks, convert the internship into a FT offer and then consider participating in top-up recruiting. "Crisis" averted.

 

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