Which position should I accept and why?

(All are for Summer Analyst Positions) ( And I don't know which group I will be working in)

Barclays Capital - Operations

Wells Fargo - Commercial and Corporate Banking

BlackRock- corporate finance (Internal Audit and Compliance)

Morgan Stanley - Internal Audit

 
Best Response

Wells. BarCap and MS aren't great long term employment prospects from a front office perspective, they'll both likely undergo several more rounds of painful layoffs (BCS sooner than MS, as MS just completed one) and are having trouble figuring out how to trade above book value, let alone offer compelling value to shareholders. Add that to the fact that those are back office jobs and it's a no-brainer. Blackstone is a bit better off, but it's still a back office job.

Wells, for one actually makes money and generates decent return on assets, which is always a positive, but most importantly commercial & corporate is a front office core banking role that will allow you to build a skill set that will continue to be valuable no matter how the financial industry changes in the next few years. There will always be a need and a market for people who can do commercial banking credit work, Can't exactly say the same for say, those big fancy whole loan traders that were getting rich 7-8 years ago for example.

While Wells might not have the same cache among college kids as MS or Blackstone, they are highly respected in the actual financial world, and kick ass in several major asset classes, including Lev Fin and CMBS. The more time I spend in the workforce rather than around college kids, the more I realize that to people that matter (read: future employers), the micro-climate of your group is much more important than the logo on your business card. What I mean by that is, different institutions specialize in different things, and there's a world of difference between what Joe Douchebag on the street considers "prestigious" and what actual market participants consider prestigious. Market participants focus much more on the transactions you and your immediate team actually do and the people running your immediate group. If you're a DCM guy at MS, nobody in that space cares about how many mandates their tech team has won when they look at your resume. Wells commercial banking is one of the best at what they do, and that's important.

For example just the banks on this list - the WSO consensus would be that MS > BCS, but it's way more complicated than that. MS is better in M&A, but BCS is better in FICC - ergo, if you're going to be doing M&A, MS will look better on your resume, if you're a bond trader, BCS will look better. Wells is a top commercial bank, and that brand will look great for any lending/credit role you ever apply for, up to and including BB Lev Fin jobs.

Anyways, it's simpler than my rant makes it sound. The Wells job is the only one that is front office, and is the only one where you'll learn about finance. It's a no-brainer, go to Wells.

 
jaydee:
BR's the strongest name/brand in the bunch....I would go for that.
CPAinthemaking:
(All are for Summer Analyst Positions) ( And I don't know which group I will be working in)

Barclays Capital - Operations

Wells Fargo - Commercial and Corporate Banking

BlackRock- Corporate Finance (Internal Audit and Compliance)

Morgan Stanley - Internal Audit

This is not the correct decision if you don't want to do compliance for the rest of your life. This isn't meant to be a dig against you personally, as you're likely young and haven't actually worked in high finance yet, and yes Blackrock does have some serious cache, but this is just shitty advice. You're telling someone to take a back office role that they don't want to make a career out of, where they won't learn anything about finance just because it's Blackrock over an offer to work in a world class group in a world class institution that will teach them very impressive credit analysis, which by the way is the single most important skill set a banker - whether retail, commercial, or investment can have. Do you know what killed the banks in 2008? Shitty credit work. Pure and simple. Do you know who survives when markets blow out? Bankers with good minds for credit. They happen to be very useful in difficult times.

Anyways, high finance tends to be a very small, stratified world, where most people know who the winners and who the losers are in their little corner of the world, and don't really give a shit about "brand name" in a broader sense. By your logic, his resume would look better if he scrubbed toilets at Blackrock than if he were the CFO of BB&T because Blackrock has the better name. You're telling this kid to turn down an internship that will be interesting, will result in him developing a valuable skill set, and could result in a career at one of the few big banks that doesn't appear to have a broken model, and if he wants to move on, will mean something to a lot of people. Because why? Because some fucking clown told you Blackrock is impressive?

Also, just FYI, you know that Blackrock is more of an asset manager type service provider, has some small groups which are pretty great traders but they're not exactly a name that makes interviewers come in their pants. You're almost certainly confusing them with Blackstone. I mean, nothing against people that work at Blackrock, I've worked with many impressive Blackrock folk, but it doesn't seem like the type of shop WSO would fawn over.

 

Don't listen to these morons. Take the Ops role with BarCap, Ops people are killing it now a days, raking in all the cash and doing a ton of really fun and interesting processes. Ops or bust br0.

-KOOz

 
King of Opz:
Don't listen to these morons. Take the Ops role with BarCap, Ops people are killing it now a days, raking in all the cash and doing a ton of really fun and interesting processes. Ops or bust br0.

-KOOz

This isn't funny, there's nothing wrong with ops. Frankly, if I had to accept an outright incompetent person as a coworker, I'd rather have them be an IBD analyst than an ops guy. If an analyst makes a formatting mistake in a pitchbook or something, worst case scenario you lose a mandate, 999 times out of 1000 nobody gives a shit. If an ops guy gives you the wrong CUSIP or wires funds to the wrong account, you can bet your ass that's the end of your relationship with that client. Without competent ops people you can't do deals.

Have you ever actually pulled the trigger on a transaction? I would guess not or else you wouldn't joke about ops. If those guys didn't help us keep all our ducks in a row on the execution side, you'd see a lot of fumbled transactions.

 
NYCbandar:
King of Opz:
Don't listen to these morons. Take the Ops role with BarCap, Ops people are killing it now a days, raking in all the cash and doing a ton of really fun and interesting processes. Ops or bust br0.

-KOOz

This isn't funny, there's nothing wrong with ops. Frankly, if I had to accept an outright incompetent person as a coworker, I'd rather have them be an IBD analyst than an ops guy. If an analyst makes a formatting mistake in a pitchbook or something, worst case scenario you lose a mandate, 999 times out of 1000 nobody gives a shit. If an ops guy gives you the wrong CUSIP or wires funds to the wrong account, you can bet your ass that's the end of your relationship with that client. Without competent ops people you can't do deals.

Have you ever actually pulled the trigger on a transaction? I would guess not or else you wouldn't joke about ops. If those guys didn't help us keep all our ducks in a row on the execution side, you'd see a lot of fumbled transactions.

Relax man it was just a bit of trolling haha..I personally am a dweller of the BO and understand what you are saying very clearly. That being said, surely the OP would be a fool to consider the Ops role over his variety of other options....no? Yes.

 

S&T and IMD support in Ops is very process-driven, and is fundamentally menial work.

IBD Ops is much more interesting - did a summer stint at a top BB last summer and worked ~65 hrs/wk doing a lot of work with supporting transactions (execution of financings primarily) and had the opportunity to work extensively with the capital markets group as well as CFOs on the advisory side.

Unfortunately, there were 2 kids in my group out of the dozens of Ops SAs, so don't bet everything on getting placed in a good group.

 

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