Did I mess up by getting an offer?
Due to some unique circumstances, I came into college with enough credits that my school considered me a sophomore, so I decided to recruit for banking my first year and landed an internship offer at a MM bank. I was careful not to recruit at or network with any of the top groups to save them for the next year. My plan was to get an IB internship on my resume to boost my chances of getting that sweet, sweet GS SA offer.
However, now I'm not so sure. I'm not too worried about rejecting a potential full-time offer from the MM bank because 1. I should have another SA offer at that point (ideally at a top group) and 2. I made sure the MM bank was separated geographically from where I want to end up and had no alumni from my school. I'm just worried that somehow me backdooring my way into an internship would be looked on unfavorably when recruiting for SA next year.
Am I screwed? Should I renege and get a different internship? Or is this my key to landing a top offer?
Edit to clarify the timeline:
Sep 2020: Started Freshman year
June 2021: Accepted 2022 SA offer from MM bank
--- Theoretical ---
May 2022: Accept SA offer from top group (2023 SA)
June 2022: MM internship starts
Aug 2022 MM internship ends, receive FT offer but turn it down gracefully
June 2023: Top group internship starts
Aug 2023: Top group internship ends, accept FT return offer
2024: graduate, start full-time at top group
Did the same thing, different geography and all. You’re fine.
Don’t give any indication that you’re looking around, but do your recruiting for your next SA. If you get the offer you want, reneg on MM. If not, then you can still accept MM and lateral after 9mo. or something.
If you reneg on MM, you’ll burn that bridge, but it will be well worth it. You did well to ensure no school alumni will be fucked over OR that it isn’t in a similar geography to your target bank.
TLDR; recruit for a good SA offer. Reneg on MM if you get it.
Can I still do the MM internship and just reject return offer if I get one? (So basically that would be two years of SA in a row)
Yup did same thing. Get your SA offer for next summer. Don’t say a word to MM. don’t accept MM FT offer and that’s that. Take the experience as a low stress way to learn without worrying about getting a return.
Do you think interviewers will ask about it? I’m just worried that bankers at the groups I interview for next year will think I’m trying to game the system and ding me.
Lol in my experience, interviewing at BB & EB they a f*ck about the MM you’re at. They think it’s a good experience for you and are happy to take somebody with an entire IB SA experience already.
I didn’t get asked at all about my MM SA other than in the ‘tell me about yourself?’ Question where I mentioned where I’ll be and what deals the group typically does.
OP - out of curiosity.. are you planning on jumping from a no-name MM to BB/EB or is this a scenario of top MM -> BB/EB? If the latter, I would not worry too much about "landing a top offer" as you already have one, albeit not EB/BB. If it's no-name -> BB/EB, then that is understandable and you should be fine as mutual connections between firms shouldn't overlap at all.
It’s somewhere between the two. It’s not somewhere I would like to be full-time since I’m aiming to leave for HF after a couple of years in IB.
really?
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