If you are out of luck with the summer internship recruiting...

no name boutique, definitely.

no name boutique. look on the west coast because there are some strong boutiques out there that nobody applies to

Sorry for going a bit off-topic, but what about an activist asset manager? Would that help during full time recruitment?

If by activist asset manager you mean you're a day trader, then good luck in S&T.

hey monkeynumber,

Can you list a few strong boutiques out on the west coast?

do you have these offers in hand?

Clearly not a comprehensive list, but here are a few that come to mind (there are a lot more listed on this site, so just do boutique search). Also, keep in mind that these banks are obviously not as good as getting bb or getting a boutique like Lazard (if you still consider it one) or perella. However, given that you are still looking for a summer, you probably have not gotten a position at those above mentioned places. These boutiques are strong in the sense that they will pull weight when it comes to leveraging to bb next year (both in terms of semi-prestige as well as the connections that people within the firm have in the industry). I would argue that working at any one of these places would be better than a shit bb on the west coast.

CIBC Cowen & Company Piper Jaffray Morgan Joseph Thomas Weisel Partners BNP Paribas William Blair Peter J. Solomon Company Putnam Lovell SG Cowen USBX

If you go to a no name boutique (the list above are not "no name"), you need to make absolutely sure that you can a) talk intelligently about deals you worked on; and, b) really learn finance while you are there.

Looking at this the other way makes more sense; if you go there, you really have to learn about the industry and concepts for full time interviews because they will grill you like crazy.

wonderwall:

which one is a better bet for full time recruiting (banking):

big 4 transaction services no name boutique hedge fund ops investment management like schroders in london

thanks

1. No-name Boutique (even if its a chop shop its still better than other options)
2. Big 4 Trx Services
3. Investment Mgmt
4. HF Ops

Sorry for the confusion. I did not mean to imply that the above are no name boutiques, simply that they are boutiques that do not actively recruit on campus, especially if you are not on the west coast, and therefore most college students have never heard of. For people on the street, clearly a different story.

As for aspiringmonkey's comment, I agree that you definitely have to make sure that you will learn finance while you are there. I know people who have gone through the programs at the above mentioned list, and though they do not have formal training for the most part, they have been able to gather a lot (and I'm sure you can too if you are motivated enough). Also, get to know the people, especially on the west coast, where every banker knows every other banker. You will have some connection wherever you plan to go the next year.

Btw, there aren't too many absolutely no name boutiques. Unless you are really that bad, I am sure you can find a place that at least some people know.

even tho the boutique doesnt give return offers at all? I am pretty sure those interviewers are going to ask "do you have a return offer". how would you tackle this question?

Wonderwall: Boutiques do give return offers - those that don't usually don't do so because they know you won't return (READ they know you are going to leverage the experience for bb). However, many do. Also, during interviews, the interviewer will seldom ask whether you have a return offer and are much more likely to ask where else you are interviewing with / where else do you have an offer? The point of this question for most interviewers is not to guage your competence but rather whether you will take their offer - they are not as worried about you going back to your original firm as they are that a competing bb will poach you (granted you are good). The return offer question is usually asked if you worked at a bulge and are lateraling to another bulge, not from boutique to bulge because the rationale for going boutique to bulge is much more obvious.

About the activist fund internship, I know that this is where many people wanna end up later on, however, I don't know how respected it is to work for this particular firm and what my exit options would be compared to i-banking. Also, what kind of compensation could one expect to start out with? It's a west coast based shop (not PE or HF though) with a very good performance over the last 10 years.

Shouldn't have forgot about those. All great shops that are rarely talked about but place very well. In fact, many new summers at top shops this year came from them.

CapitalIQ Search:

Geographic: California Industry: Investment Banking & Brokerage Revenue>1 (Weed out extremely small banks)

Results: BDO Seidman, LLP Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc. Thomas Weisel Partners Group, Inc. (NasdaqNM:TWPG) RBC Capital Markets Corporation Evercore Partners Inc. (NYSE:EVR) Babson Capital Management LLC Wedbush Morgan Securities Inc. Lazard Freres & Co. LLC GunnAllen Financial, Inc. Needham & Company, LLC Friedman Billings Ramsey Group Inc. (NYSE:FBR) Jefferies & Company, Inc. William Blair & Company, L.L.C. C.E. Unterberg, Towbin RBS Greenwich Capital Trinity Capital LLC Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin Capital, Inc. MCF Corp. (AMEX:MEM) Harris Nesbitt Corp. Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. Inc. Goldsmith Agio Helms Roth Capital Partners, LLC Commerce Capital Group LLC Financial West Group Babcock & Brown LP Laidlaw & Company (UK) Ltd. Calyon Securities (USA) Inc. ESOP LLC Valuation Research Corporation Canaccord Adams Barclays Capital M.L. Stern & Co., LLC Stone & Youngberg LLC Putnam Lovell NBF Securities Inc. Giuliani Capital Advisors LLC ThinkEquity Partners LLC Hildebrandt International Inc. Marshall & Stevens Incorporated JMP Securities LLC Scotia Capital (USA) Inc. Pacific Growth Equities, LLC Hilco Trading Co. Inc. Loop Capital Markets, LLC Cain Brothers & Company, LLC S3 Investment Company Inc. (OTCPK:SEIH) Sagient Research Systems Inc. (OTCPK:SRYS) Startbank Carlton Advisory Services, Inc.