So your kid wants to be an IB?

superdomestique
Fri, 23 Apr 2021 13:31:30 +0000

This reminds me of a great story.

When I was in business school, the summer internship you had between your first and second year had a big impact on how successful recruiting for full time jobs went the next year.

All the major firms came to campus during a one-week period, there was often a follow up interview in NYC the next week. After those two weeks were over, you either had a summer internship at a major NY firm or you didn’t.

It was very stressful.

I remember my first rounds went well, and my last one was with the firm everyone (including me) wanted to work for. The afternoon of the last day of the first round, I got a call from another firm, the head of the local office whom I had met earlier in the week.

He offered me the summer internship at the NY HQ and I was thrilled as it was my 2nd choice. I thanked him and told him I would let him know at the end of the next week (after all the 2nd round interviews had been completed).

He laughed, and said, “son, each of the top firms makes one summer offer at each of the top MBA programs, I am offering your school’s spot to you. If you don’t take it, when I hang up, there are 50 students who will take it on the wire”.

When I told him this practice was against career services regulations, he laughed again (our first interview had been at his office). I was able to convince him to give me until EOB to give him my answer. I immediately called the firm where I most wanted to work (which I had my first interview with that morning), and told them I needed an answer early and that I would accept if they offered it.

He also laughed (lots of laughing at my expense) and said no one at his firm gets an offer without the 2nd round in NY. However, he did congratulate me and told me to accept the other offer because all major Wall Street firms host summer events where interns from the top schools are invited regardless of who they are interning for. He took my name off the 2nd interview list, but put it on the summer event invite list and these events lived up to their reputations.

In some ways, it matters less what internship you get, but that you are in NY for the summer working somewhere so you can attend these summer intern events. The networking at these events are great, and quite frankly, people on Wall Street move jobs so frequently, someone you meet during the summer, may be at a different firm when you are applying for full time work. As someone earlier in the thread said, while firms may have short memories, individuals have long memories. Reneging on accepted offers will eventually bite you.

It is worth noting that realistically there is very meaningful work summer interns can do. What many firms are looking for students who will be good representatives for their firms when they go back to school to tell their classmates how amazing everything is at the firm they worked at. This is an important mindset to have when going thru the interview process.