Anecdote time - how many people have actually gotten caught out claiming they received a return offer from their internship? I’m having a debate with a buddy on the chances of some VP actually calling up your intern group at XYZ bank and verifying.
My view is sure it’s a risk, but not a significant one, especially if it’s a different industry coverage group.
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Yeah you're gunna get caught. Don't do it. It's such a small world man we will find out and word will spread at some point that some wannabe-ballsy intern told everyone he/she got an offer when it wasn't really true. Just don't do it as we'll always find out. I'm being 10000000% serious it's really nuts how small this world is.
Lol no this is for actual experiences. I was a FIG banker for 6 years before going to the buyside and I've interviewed probably 40 or so candidates, 7-8 of them for FT post-college jobs, and not once did I call any one who got offers about their offer status at their junior yr internship bank.
The industry is small but 1) not that small in banking if your fibbing candidate's internship was not in your industry vertical and 2) who is putting the effort to call the folks.
Looks like you've been in banking for a while, how many folks have you called buddies to confirm a FT interviewees offer status at their internship bank?
Fair assessment. When I say it's small I mean that if any interviewee stokes any amount of doubt in someone, often times it is a simple text or call to a friend at they bank they worked at. I'm not trying to say people actively try and sus out folks who may have lied but rather that if we wanted to find out, it'd be pretty easy. And to your question, I've called my friends for this purpose exactly twice. Both times I got good reviews for the candidates so nothing bad to say there. It's always been when I'm trying to understand why a person from a reputable (ie. BB/MM/EB) shop hasn't got a full-time offer from his/her internship.
Bueller Banker, I feel, is right. It's simply not worth it. You can't recover from being outted as a liar, as it reveals your character, which is something you can't generally teach.
Well that's certainly true. Although lying is a fundamental part of both negotiating in finance and part of the professional aspects of the job, as we can agree. Lying in negotiating compensation, offers, bankers lying in the role - inflating projections, manipulating WACC, pretending there are more/higher bids than reality in a sale process. Traders lying in the role - about having certain inventory/axes, retrading price/positions from bid/asks, lying about whether they're long or short something in their book, whether they're bullish or bearish., about who owns what, what info they've heard Etc etc.
We have been told numerous times that a candidate had a return offer.
1) We don't check that, a potential return offer isn't a bad thing at all. But if they don't take that offer it is not relevant.
2) We wouldn't have any processes to check potential offers like that.
3) This is somehow comparable to a candidate or existing staff claiming they had a better employment offer elsewhere. Unless you know the exact line manager or someone in HR, another company isn't going to disclose who they are making offers to and who they are hiring in the future. You would need to know a lot of people in said company to verify that.
Well for the specific instances of return offers for internships, I feel like there definitely is a way to check by calling up friends in groups that they would have interned at. It is similar to claiming you have a better/competing offer but a little more nefarious in my view because it is post an internship not just for the purposes of negotiating comp per se
Well for the specific instances of return offers for internships, I feel like there definitely is a way to check by calling up friends in groups that they would have interned at. It is similar to claiming you have a better/competing offer but a little more nefarious in my view because it is post an internship not just for the purposes of negotiating comp per se
yeah, like I said. You would need those friends all over the city and in those departments. I doubt anyone would care though.
If someone is good enough to get an offer, they would get the offer. Nobody in our HR team would check on potential return offers for interns.
fwiw my firm checks so not worth lying
if you're firm is officially checking, can't this risk blowing up the candidate's original offer?
done during background check not during interview process.
Would this show up in the background check when they ask for whether you are "eligible for rehire"?
I work at a LO AM and we don't check in the interview process either. A lot of the candidates joining our entry level research programs come from IB or from IB internships and never has someone in the interview process gone to check a return offer, as far as I know.
Being someone who was in the position of not having a return offer in IB, I would advise against lying about this kind of idea however. Background process at my company required talking to a contact in HR at all previous places of employment still in operation, so very possible to get caught. Doing this early in your career could lead to a tough career ahead in finance and hurt your reputation.
Nonetheless, I am sure that there are instances where such a comment on a return offer will never be checked. This was the case for a few friends who lied and still got offers without any problem. I still do not believe this risk is worth it, especially if you are interviewing for a large or any notably heavily-regulated company.
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