No luck this recruiting season; need advice on limited options
Hi WSO,
I'm currently a junior at a top target school (3.7 GPA double major econ/cs), and I've really struggled this season to get anything good for my summer internship. I've had few finance interviews (maybe like 3-4 all through connections), and the rest have been BO tech. I attribute this to my lack of networking and general misunderstanding of the industry coming into this season (especially with no finance experience and a lot of tech experience). I really want to try to position myself for coming FT interviews as best as I can and salvage what I have. Currently I have prospects at:
Finance:
A corporate finance Position at a F500 (top 250) clothing retail company
Tech:
Nomura Fixed Income
BAML Global Markets
BlackRock Aladdin + Technology
...a few more small places
If I'm lucky I can MAYBE make it off the waitlist for a BAML GWIM Analyst position.
All in all, my prospects for a person wanting to go into AM or IBD seem pretty terrible as a junior. I had a few questions:
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I currently have final rounds at tech firms like Microsoft and other giant west coast firms. not saying that I can definitely get any offers, but I have confidence in my CS skills that I could get one. Given that I don't get anymore offers, should I take SDE role at microsoft over a corporate finance role (this is given that I do not want to do tech and want to position for finance)?
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The corporate finance position is definitely better than any BO tech position right?
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If I get the BAML position should I take that or the corp fin role?
I really appreciate any advice anyone can give, and I really hope to make an effort come the next season to get an actual finance offer.
Thank you
It comes down to passion. What are you passionate about doing.
Personally, I would say Microsoft if it is front office role.
But if you really like finance that much, maybe you can take the back office IT job and move to front office once there is an opportunity. Difficult and competitive, but possible.
That sucks to hear especially given your profile. Correct me if I'm wrong but don't buy-side firms recruit at targets after banking/consulting recruiting is over? If so, and if you really want to break into finance, you could apply wait for these to come around. Just be pro-active. Figure out why it didn't work for you (resume, interviewing), find out what funds are coming to recruit in the next few weeks and reach out to them.
Which group within GWIM are you waiting on? I have a summer offer from US Trust and I'm 99% sure I'm turning it down if it makes you feel any better. Otherwise, if I were you and really wanted to do finance, I would take the corporate finance role. However, if you have any interest in doing tech full-time, take an offer with Blackrock, Microsoft, etc.
Thanks for all the responses.
Yeah I agree with this I just don't exactly know how hard the BO - > FO switch is and which firm I should go for tech or if it really makes a difference at all or if Corp Fin is better than BO Tech.
Not that I know of. I'm sure small firms are still recruiting just not OCR at least not at my school right now. Problem with small firms is they don't pay and I have a hard time supporting myself financially if I don't get at least enough for housing. I will keep looking though.
In all honesty they never told me. They never even told me which role I was interviewing for they just said GWIM in general, and have been emailing me back saying I'm still on hold or w/e. I have no idea how to find out which role I'm in the running for, and its kind of weird.
If your focus is on next year's recruiting, think about positioning. If you applied to AM / IBD this year and got 1st rounds then that's good. Hopefully next year you'll get 1st rounds too and you'll be able to tell your story and convince them why finance. In this case, it doesn't matter as much what you choose. When I look at your background the first thing that strikes me is that you're really good at tech ... why finance at all? So that's what you need to convince me. Doing a finance internship helps exponentially. Let's say instead you didn't get past the resume screens in the cases where you didn't have connections. Then the thought process is how is you working at MSFT for example this summer going to make me want to interview you next year if I didn't want to interview you this year? You can always spin your skills at tech into interest in tech banking, but you need to get through the resume screens first of course.
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