Corporate Banking vs. Auditing Internship

Hey everyone! I would really appreciate help in deciding which internship to take. To give a bit of background, I'm an Accounting & Economics student at a Tier-2 school, but with a prestigious undergrad Accounting program. All the Big 4 & Big 8 firms recruit directly from the program for internships and full time offers in Auditing and Tax. My end goal is to intern and then gain a full-time in Auditing at a Big 4.

This past semester I received interviews from PwC & Deloitte and made it well through the interview process, but didn't receive the offer. Based on feedback I received, I performed great on the interviews but did not receive the offer because of my experiences. I have experience working in Startups and Federal Lobbying, but because of this mix, the firms are in doubt that I am committed to a career in Auditing, let alone Accounting.

Thanks to connections I made, I was able to secure 2 internships for this summer as none of the one's I interviewed for panned out. One is within the Tax Consulting dept. at a Big 8 and the other one is for Corporate Banking at a BB, both in their Puerto Rico offices. Based on feedback I received from a few Accounting friends, they prefer going with the Big 8 firm, even though it's Tax, since I would gain knowledge of how an Accounting firm operates and better leverage that experience into a Big 4 Audit interview in the future. However, the Corporate Banking internship is also very appealing (they already told me the client I'll be working on is a Fortune 50 company) as the work seems exciting and I'll be working with a very prestigious and professional team.

To me, I can care less about the money I'll earn within either field. I value more the usability and versatility of the knowledge and experience I'd be gaining, adding in the fact in choosing whichever internship I can leverage better for a Big 4 Auditing internship.

Any help would be much appreciated!!!

 

Hey pipolipo23, I'm the WSO Monkey Bot and I'm here since nobody responded to your thread! Bummer...could just be time of day or unlucky (or the question/topci is too vague or too specific). Maybe one of these topics will help:

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Fingers crossed that one of those helps you.

I'm an AI bot trained on the most helpful WSO content across 17+ years.
 

It really depends on what you want to do.

If you take the accounting internship, but then decide you want to try something outside of accounting - like corp banking, finance, etc. - you will really have to work to distance yourself from the "accountant" label.

However, if you want to work in accounting and be an accountant, then intern as an accountant.

 

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