Offer exploding tomorrow, need to make a decision ASAP

Barcap, BAML M&A and Lazard which explodes tomorrow, and I'm waiting to hear back from GS - they should have gotten back to me by now since they know about the offer but my super day was only Friday.
I keep hearing the horror stories about LAZ and am now freaking out.. also I'm a girl and haven't seen many of those at LAZ, not that I really care but I'm afraid it might be telling.

Any help would be much appreciated..

 
Best Response

Going against the grain here, but I'm going to give you young monkeys some advice: do not take exploding offers. It is a slimy practice and you will want nothing to do with a firm that pulls such crap. At the end of your SA stint they will pull even slimier crap because they think they own you and will obstruct, in ways you do not see, your FT recruiting.

Have confidence that if you can get an offer at A, you will get one at B. I know how tightly wound you are about getting any offer, but relax and don't underplay your hand.

Mark this post: you will regret not following this advice.

I've been there.

 
ivoteforthatguy:
Going against the grain here, but I'm going to give you young monkeys some advice: do not take exploding offers. It is a slimy practice and you will want nothing to do with a firm that pulls such crap. At the end of your SA stint they will pull even slimier crap because they think they own you and will obstruct, in ways you do not see, your FT recruiting.

Have confidence that if you can get an offer at A, you will get one at B. I know how tightly wound you are about getting any offer, but relax and don't underplay your hand.

Mark this post: you will regret not following this advice.

I've been there.

who extends offers that don't explode these days?? when i was a junior i had 5 offers and they all had exploding deadlines which on average was 2 weeks

 
Chris_Marlin:
ivoteforthatguy:
Going against the grain here, but I'm going to give you young monkeys some advice: do not take exploding offers. It is a slimy practice and you will want nothing to do with a firm that pulls such crap. At the end of your SA stint they will pull even slimier crap because they think they own you and will obstruct, in ways you do not see, your FT recruiting.

Have confidence that if you can get an offer at A, you will get one at B. I know how tightly wound you are about getting any offer, but relax and don't underplay your hand.

Mark this post: you will regret not following this advice.

I've been there.

who extends offers that don't explode these days?? when i was a junior i had 5 offers and they all had exploding deadlines which on average was 2 weeks

EOs were explicitly banned at several schools when I was recruiting -- firms would be banned from future access if they offered EOs. If this has changed since I was an undergrad, it's a loathsome development.

 

To be fair, offers aren't 'exploding' if they give you two weeks to decide. Let's say you're on the other side of the table. You have to fill an SA scheme or graduate program, and whilst you want the very best talent possible, you also don't want to wait around for weeks to hear if some 20-year-old is going to take your offer. It's an entry-level offer--you don't get months to decide on it, and it's kind of ludicrous to think you should.

How many other kids can do the exact same job you will? LOADS. If you don't take the job, they still need to make a certain number of offers. It's like the college admissions process, but worse. Matriculation rates vary widely from year-to-year even at the top banks. Making offers to summer and full-time analysts and associates is probably the hardest thing HR does (in case you were wondering, HR's next most difficult task involves taking 3 hour lunches every day. That's right--every day. Even on days when they want to take only 2 1/2 hours...nope, they've got to go for the full 3. It's draining, and I feel for them).

In any case, unless you're a VP or above, I would never expect more than 2 weeks to decide on an offer. I am a second year associate, and just got an offer from a major competitor to move to a different country, and have to decide within a couple of weeks. It's not like they gave me a deadline, but I'm not going to take 2 weeks to decide either.

Anyway, call GS tomorrow. Ask them to call you by 3pm. If they haven't called by then, you need to call one of the other banks to accept (definitely Lazard). Worst case scenario: you reneg. To be fair, though, I'm not sure I would take GS over Lazard. GS isn't the same firm it was 10 years ago. The additional scrutiny it now faces will make it difficult for GS to operate in the way that made it so profitable. They did all of the same spurious shit they do now 20 years ago, but they were too small to be noticed. Now, my grandma knows the name 'Goldman Sachs.' They have become almost synonomous with greed, and they cannot get away with the same things they used to.

At any rate, there's no need to fret. You have three great offers. It's like choosing between an offer from all of the Ivies. Yeah--no one really wants to go to Brown, but it's not like anyone really shits on Brown (I mean, it's not Rutgers).

 

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