help needed: questions from student counselor for students w/ ibanking offers

So my roommate is a student counselor at the career center and he has these questions addressed from students w/ ibanking offers. Each question is a different student's question.

  1. What if a student accepts an offer from a ibank, and the next week he is given a better offer. What's the best way to approach this? Would you have no choice but to burn bridges?

  2. Is it normal for a student to not hear back from a MM he/she accepted an offer in November? The student says the offer was different compared to BB offer letters, one page offer letter, no 2 year contract, and no signing bonus and low base. I just told my rommate to say yes, but what do you guys think?

  3. a student is graduating during the winter quarter(basically in 3 weeks). how does the student make sure he/she will pass the company's background check, cause the student will be screwed if he/she doesn't get the job and has already graduated. He/she says slight chance might not pass because accidentally got the dates wrong for one job a month earlier and wrote something he didn't do at the job but has done in personal time. (ex: didn't do DCF, valuation models at work but knows them) What are the chances he/she will not pass background check? Should he/she call the company up? I thought the company should have communicated better, like the firm I will work w/ sent me my bonus and called to tell me the background check was finalized. The student's firm didn't communicate anything after he/she accepted the offer back in November.

Thank you on behalf of the students that asked these questions.

 
Best Response

I don't think I am really qualified to answer these questions, but I'll give it a try.

1.) I personally would stick with the original firm, you made a commitment so keep it. You cannot jump at every opportunity, if it means possibly getting you blacklisted at a company for unaccepting..

2.) I cannot answer this question, no idea

3.) Personally, I would call up even if it means that it would ruin my chances, but then again I wouldnt have placed any ambiguities on my resume. A resume isn't something to be taken lightly, it should be perfect. It isn't like homework, more like a test, I think. So in this case.. no offesne to the student I think either way (not telling or telling) will be bad. Not getting into IB is not the end of the world, you have other opportunities. Graduating Winter Quater still gives some, obviously not alot, of opportunties. If you look hard enough you can find a job. If not try interning again in the summer, and then work hard and get offered a full time. It may not be IB but its a job. (Work hard, get your MBA, try again for IB, worst case scenario).

Just my thoughts, hope it helps.

 

1) I think this really depends on the exact situation and frankly, how moral the person is. If the first offer is from a larger bank that hires tons of analysts every year, then one student canceling won't matter to them in the long run. They won't be happy, cause it'll mean more work, but is many cases it's not the end of the world (though there is a chance of being blacklisted at the company you back out of).

On the other hand, if the first company is a MM or boutique, pulling out would really hurt them. Companies like this usually only do one "superday" and losing 1 out of 10 hires is a lot worse than 1 out of 100. Additionally, at a smaller firm, you've likely gotten to know the people doing the hiring a lot better because of the small size of the recruiting events. That being said, are there consequences for doing this? Probably not. However, if you're a decent person, you'll hopefully stick with your word.

Also it's worth considering that people in banking move around a lot. People do move between MM and BB and PE. So, if your situation was a big enough deal to the small company, there's always a small chance you will run into someone down the road who remembers you.

A better approach is to not accept an offer until you're 100% certain that it's the one you're taking. Talk to the recruiters about where you are in interviewing with other places and ask for extensions on the response date.

2) The people I know who went with MM firms found them to be a bit more laid back than the BB. Afterall, most small firms do not have full blown recruiting departments who spend all of their time getting offers together. In many cases, one of the senior bankers runs the recruiting and he, along with his admins, have more pressing things to do.

As for signing bonuses, some companies pay them when you sign and others wait until your first paycheck. I've heard of companies doing both, so it just depends.

I'm not sure I know what to say about the offer letter length other than that I've seen that too. Maybe the smaller firms aren't as concerned about the legalese as the bigger firms? Unfortunately, I don't know why that is.

3)If there's any problem with the background check, you definitely need to get in touch with the company and let them know. It sounds like it's pretty minor and they probably won't care.

Also, I'd only worry about the date issue. To my knowledge, there is no way to check the listing of things done at a company. This is because typically the background check company will usually speak to HR, since there are some legal issues related to background checks. HR usually is only allowed to disclose dates of employment, pay, and reason for leaving (this is different in the securities industry though).

I'd also like to echo the comments above that the resume is supposed to be perfect in every way. You certainly should not be getting things like dates wrong. It's definitely possible that a bank will see this as a lack of attention to detail. However, withdrawing an offer over something so trivial seems unlikely.

 

Are the employment applications significant? You have to get dates right and everything? I mean how am I supposed to remember what date I started working at the car wash my sophomore year in high school? Do they really care about that kind of stuff?

 

Things you did in high school, unless you talk about them during an interview or put them on your resume, are pretty much irrelevant. Obviously, don't lie about you GPA, SAT score, or if you got an honors diploma. However, I wouldn't even bother putting down where you worked in high school on the application. If they have a problem with the omission (I have no idea how they'd find out anyway), then you can just tell them you thought things from high school were too old and insignificant to matter and provide the info then.

Also, many people advise just putting years or seasons for things. So, "Summer 2006" works better than 5/2006-8/2006 on a resume. Most applications make you be more specific though, so just omit high school things.

 

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