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I had a boutique PE and I think it kind of makes for a tough story to sell. Most bankers want to end up in private equity, and trying to explain why you would leave PE to go do banking is a tough sell, especially when the people interviewing you often want to go the other direction. I think anything finance related works for a sophomore summer, but I think boutique IB is definitely far and away the best, followed by corp finance or accounting just because those will really help you with technicals and it's an easier story to spin.
Thanks for the response and opinion, +1 And since you have managed to spin the story into a banking internship, do you mind me asking how you did it in a general manner? And would the PE being a tough story apply for AM too?
Full disclosure, I think I didn't always do a great job of this and it honestly might've hurt my application at a few places. Also, I was a private equity firm that focused on an a specific industry, and I'm in that industry group at the banking firm I got an offer at, which definitely helped and improved the story.
At that firm (where I got an offer), I basically just said I learned a lot about this industry and remain very interested in it for x y z reasons, but I'm more interested in the deal side of things rather than the sourcing because I'd rather dig deep into a few things in a deal rather than sourcing (which is all you do as an entry level person in PE) . I got lucky here too because one of the MDs who interviewed me had done a year of PE before moving to banking and seemed to connect with this narrative.
At a different firm though, I had an analyst be really weird about this. My guess is he was going through PE recruiting at the time and basically had the mindset of 'PE great, IB sucks' and just did not seem to believe I actually wanted to leave the buy side for banking.
The same thing will definitely apply to AM too. I think PE > AM because at least PE you can say you get exposure to deals, although on the other hand it's easier to be like 'I tried AM and didn't like it for x, y reasons, and I decided I want to banking because y, z reasons'. For whatever reason, bankers, especially young ones, have such a PE fetish that makes them think all PE is awesome and they don't believe when you say you don't want to do it, which I doubt is the case as much with AM.
Thanks for the detailed reply. Good luck for the last few weeks of the internship!
also I forgot to add this but definitely think about industries. most boutiques will have a focus (especially in PE) and recruiting into a bigger bank that has a focus on that industry will be a lot easier if you can talk about with familiarity and have an internship demonstrating interest. IE if you are interested in doing oil and gas banking at Goldman/Evercore in Houston for your junior summer, working in an energy PE firm will make your application stand out from the pile way more than working at a slightly better PE shop that does consumer brands.
I've seen students land BB's sophomore year so I would imagine that would be the best, but it'd also be the hardest... I don't think there's a bad option as long as it's relevant. I'm doing PE at a tiny shop this year, but I'm able to learn a lot
Not URM so sophomore BB is impossible lol
I can't speak from experience, but I know target schools and some west coast BB's take sophomores through standard, non-diversity.
I agree with when talking specifically about securing a junior year internship, obviously if you're at a BB your sophomore year, it gives you a much better shot at getting it the next year. However one guy at a BB told me he think you'd actually learn more at a boutique because the sophomores at BBs tend to get easier and more menial tasks and aren't really challenged like the juniors are.
Multiple BBs told me sophomores and juniors are staffed on the same projects
Magnam iure illo et. Commodi excepturi ipsa eveniet vel. Quia distinctio est quo quae ut impedit. Et ipsum laudantium sed dignissimos.
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