Dilemma from delaying graduation for summer recruiting
Hi all,
I am delaying graduation by one year to recruit for investment banking summer analyst positions again. My decision to go for recruiting again is motivated by the fact that I never had the chance to prove myself. Had I had interview chances and failed, it would be a different matter. As an international and non target candidate, ironically I had to aim for the top banks that don't come to recruit on campus.
Moving to the point, I want to ask your thoughts on me pretending to be a regular third year junior when going through 2019 summer analyst recruiting. Most of my peers and even mentors are telling me to choose this course of action as mentioning I am a fourth year student who is staying at school for 5 years will only lead them to see me as inferior and expect higher standards. I even spoke to some people who pulled this off, but I am really anxious about going with this strategy. Would it be such a pitfall if I say I decided to stay in school for another year and go for recruiting again because I didn't have a chance to prove myself?
I would greatly appreciate any of your insights.
Just put Class of 2019 (or 2020) on your resume and don’t make any mention of whether you’re a junior or a 4th year unless they ask.
Thanks for the input!
age-wise? don't worry you are fine as there are people that lateral in ib from another career and are in their mid-late twenties. some associates i have seen (post-MBA) are in their early thirites
the only thing you should be aware of is that you need a good story as to why you are doing this again and how you have improved. "i didn't really prove myself" is not a good reason
Thanks for the input! I thought that would be a good enough reason. My rationale is I want to convey to the interviewers I believe I am good enough to get into IB, but didn't have the chance to land interviews so I am not classified in the same bracket as those who tried out, got interviews and couldn't convert. I have a 3.9gpa, relevant internship experience, and very involved on campus.
But I definitely agree with you. This isn't the best story at all. I would greatly appreciate any advice you have for me in how to spin delaying graduation?
As somebody that's delaying graduation, I haven't seen the need to make up a story. In my case, I recognised that the industry I'm interested in is very unlikely to hire me with only 1 internship. So I decided to delay to 1) gain a lot more practical experience of the industry, 2) finalise and confirm whether this is really what I want to do, and 3) terminate a personal endeavour/project - trying to organise the equivalent of "Stanford Talks" for my uni.
Thanks for the input and sharing your story! Hope everything goes well for you!
Don't mention that you are delaying graduation or being a 4th / 5th year senior - regardless of you saying you want to try and prove yourself, people will judge as to why you weren't able to get one in the first place. That being said, do have a reason in case it comes up, and just say something along the lines of you switching up your credits / course loads. But yea, never bring it up right unless they specifically ask some reason.
Thanks for the input! I definitely agree and this is what everyone is telling me. I feel like it isn't fair that people would judge me, but I think that would be inevitable in an industry like IB where they want overachievers.
Any updates? I'm thinking about the same plan, but not sure if it will work
It will pop up on the application though. Most banks have a start and end date of college when filling out the education part of your application.
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