BB Ops Vs Big4 Consulting Vs Credit Research
Hi guys, I have always appreciated the WSO community for the advice it gives to students. If I had not followed certain tips I would never have received any offers.
Today more than ever I need the advice of people who have been in the industry for years. I am a MSc Finance final year student from a European semi-target school (10th to 20th place in the FT ranking), I received some offers: full time in Wealth Management Operations in a BB (GS-JPM-MS), a full time in risk advisory for funds in a Big4 and an internship in Credit Research in a European regional bank ( very low conversion rate). My long-term goal is to be in the buy-side as PM or product specialist in wealth or asset management, which of these offers can help me achieve this goal? I am already preparing the CFA level 1, I'm from Europe and I have just turned 26 years old, no experience in finance and I am afraid that due to my age it will be very difficult to find other opportunities after my internship in Credit Research.
I would like to thank in advance all those who will help me to clarify my ideas.
Bump
I'm not super experienced so take what I say with a grain of salt. My initial feeling is that I would rule out the BB operations offer as I've heard it can be difficult to move to a FO role from there. Others can correct me if I'm wrong here. The credit research role would probably be best in terms of experience but it it's an internship, so there's a risk you'll be in the same place x months from now if you don't manage to convert a FT offer. I've been in that position and it's tough applying for FT jobs from an internship when you've already graduated--it's not always perceived well. On the other hand, it could give you more looks for FO AM roles given you'd already have experience. How long is the internship? Would need to know more about what the big4 role would entail to comment further, but in Europe the big4 are pretty solid and they'll usually support you in the CFA which is nice...
I did some research on Linkedin and noticed that very few people have moved from a Big4 in AM. The role in credit research will last 6 months while in the Big4 I would hold a compliance position ensuring that the various funds meet the risk criteria issued by the regulators.
I would take the BB position. the internship is risky in times like this.
The Big 4 position is, I believe is just IT Audit, some call it Risk Assurance, some call it Risk Advisory. If you check out the accounting subreddit on reddit there are quite a few discussions about that. It would be even harder to move to a FO role from this than the position at the BB.
Overall, take the BB position and try to move internally to a department you are more interested in.
You're right about moving from big4 to AM being largely unheard of. Given the extra colour you've provided about the big4 job, I would be concerned that it doesn't provide a great stepping stone in terms of experience. It depends how much risk you are willing to take and how badly you want to get a PM/FO job in the future. If I were in your shoes, I would take the internship and continue applying for jobs in the background while still giving your best effort for the internship to maximise your possibilities of getting a conversion (unless they explicitly indicate that it's not possible). But that's just me, because I know I would feel unfulfilled in the other jobs you mentioned and that might not be the case for you. I took the above approach myself; I rejected a FT offer to take an internship, and as a result I got called for more interviews related to what I was interested and ultimately got a FO job at a smaller AM. Hope this helps.
At the beginning I thought exactly the same, but as mentioned above, unfortunately these are not times when you can take risks. Besides I'm 26 years old, I don't know how much a single internship will help me to find other positions later on.
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