I Think I Made It?

After a tumultuous and unlucky year of recruiting for SA 2023, I finally received and accepted an offer. I will be working at a regional boutique investment banking working mainly in M&A.

However, all of my mentors who’ve helped me along the way have said weird things about my choice. For example, “You kind of have an IB internship.”

I feel as if they’re saying that a regional boutique isn’t up to snuff in terms of career development. But from what I’ve heard, it’s the opposite. Maybe I’m overreacting, nonetheless I’m excited.

In your experiences, where have you seen regional boutique SA’s go? How well do they do in the long run (professionally and socially)?

Also, what does it take to do well in this situation?

 
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The only person to know if you've made it is yourself. You don't have to get hung up on "more prestigious banks." If you have a role that you enjoy doing, like the people around you, and get paid a great salary and bonus coming out of college, then you've made it. 

To give you some perspective, I did my undergrad at a non-target and worked extremely hard to get into an EB. I did my first year there and feel like I made it, especially when some of my other friends in finance didn't get into an IB role. After some soul searching, I transferred back to my home state and joined a regional boutique (perhaps similar to yours, but is specialized in the marketplace). After working here for a year and a half, I feel like I've made it even more than I did at my EB role. I'm doing much more meaningful work, really enjoy my coworkers, get paid slightly below street but still competitive, and cut my hours down to 60 a week. I could care less if my bank is the biggest or smallest in the US, if you work at a place that is well respected by clients, challenges you, provides you good pay, and provides a good culture, in my perspective, you've made it. 

For the question on what you get from a regional boutique in a professional sense, it's too bank-specific to tell on here, but like I said, my current bank is very specialized and provides fantastic modeling experience, especially experience buy-side professionals work on. I believe I have a strong resume if I ever want to explore buy-side opportunities. If you're unhappy with your bank, you can still recruit full-time at EBs or BBs. You can always lateral upstream to a MM or EB after your first year at your regional bank as well.  

 

First of all congrats

Second, it sounds like your mentors may be coming from a different background than you if that’s their reaction. A good mentor would tell you to get experience on the job and keep reaching out to people in the industry so that you can lateral upstream if that what you desire.

If you’re goals are to remain in banking as a career you’re absolutely in the right spot. You’ll be able to make yourself invaluable to the team and create leverage at a small shop you wouldn’t have elsewhere.

I work at a regional boutique and have seen other analyst go into LMM PE and lateral into bigger firms. While not a a traditional path, certainly a feasible one.

Either way grind your ass off this year and be the best analyst in your group this summer to keep your options open.

 

Don't listen to anyone trying to rain on your parade.  You're doing IB at a regional boutique. Hopefully you like the experience/group there, and if you don't, lateral market is so strong (and looks like it'll remain that way) that -- with experience -- you'll be able to lateral to a bigger platform, it's happening all the time right now.

Congrats, you're in the club, enjoy the offer!   

 

A Regional Bank is kind of like a blank canvas.  If your bank allows for it, you could move pretty quickly into a sourcing role,  and make more money. I have also seen regional banks keep people as associates for like 5 years.  Comp can also be all over the place.  So can hours.  If you are happy then there is no need look at other people.  

 

Can offer a data point on my summer experience at a regional boutique. Found the work to be intellectually stimulating, and yes you can do IB outside of NYC despite what Thadford IV says on here that the only succession plan in life is HYP -> GS -> HBS. I liked the people I worked with and they were very much in tune with helping me get the best out of my summer so I could recruit for full-time roles as they knew I wanted to move to a larger shop. One of the partners was a former MS exec and was CEO of 2 public firms, so getting to interact with him on a somewhat regular basis was incredibly interesting to me. Additionally, I enjoyed working with smaller companies and seeing a guy who built this business with his barehands get handed a $100MM check. Work was only 50 hours a week but I still got a ton of add from my summer and ended up signing an offer at a very good MM. Don't let people say you're banking internship isn't banking, it's regional but you're still doing better than 99% of the population as a junior in college, while most kids your age are doing bullshit FP&A or working at NWM. 

 

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