FT Recruiting after SA Advice

SA last summer at a top MM, wanted to go to a top EB/BB for FT but ended up back at my MM. here’s how it went down. Last summer was Covid times so not sure how much that changed things.

I started networking around June with contacts at a few banks, just floated around questions about the FT process there.

Once my SA started, I probably spent 95% of my time on that. If you fail to get a return your chances are probably fucked, so I made sure to guarantee this before worrying about “upgrading”.

I ended up getting a return around the beginning of august and went full time into recruiting. I had around a month to accept my offer (until early September).

I networked hard at 4-5 shops. Having a short list here is essential- how many banks would i actually take over my current? Networking anywhere else is a waste and will end up spreading you so thin that nothing works out. Also just want to note that I really liked my bank and team, so I wasn’t desperate to get out and felt like I could be selective. Basically only motivation for re-recruiting was that I’m a prestige whore.

Of the 5 shops I heavily networked in, I had a few people say they’d put me in the process (where I felt my networking was the most successful, unsurprisingly). At all of these banks, I was eventually referred to HR. In every case, HR just told me they were full. Not sure if these banks were actually full or if HR just sucks, but every time I was sent to HR, I hit a wall. Not sure what the solution was here, but basically the banker would send my name to hr and they would say there’s no seats. This may have been a Covid issue though- higher than usual return rates due to virtual internships.

The one bank I went deep in the process for was at a top BB in a top group that I actually randomly saw a posting for on LinkedIn. I’d networked at the bank but in a different group, submitted my resume online for the other group, got a first round and eventually a super day. Because the banking gods hate me, my super day was scheduled for a day after my offer expired, the bank wouldn’t accelerate me, and I didn’t want to risk burning a bridge at my SA bank by asking for an extension on the offer (I’d already had a month) so I withdrew from the process. About a month later, a contact from a different bank i networked at reached out that they now had a seat and asked if I wanted to interview, and then in December yet another bank did the same thing. Because I’d already accepted my return offer, I turned both down.

As a side note, I also landed two jobs- one at a solid GE firm and one at a MM PE shop- just because I was shotgunning out my resume on my handshake. Turned down both because I wanted banking experience. I almost was able to pull off bridging one of these offers so I still had one offer between turning down my return and the super day I wanted, but I didn’t want to risk ending up at a MM PE firm I wasn’t super excited about (and the timeline ended up not working out).

So what’s the lesson here? I guess it’s that if you’re a pussy like me and you are scared to renege and don’t have the balls to turn down an offer without another in hand, recruiting for FT is incredibly hard just because the timeline. I do believe if I’d turned down my return, something would’ve worked out, but I just couldn’t justify the stress and the risk/reward. Feel free to ask any questions about my process