Weekly Reader Q&A: Law School Student To Finance, How Summer Analysts Are Judged And Turning Down Summer Offers
Posted on May 9th, 2008With summer internships approaching, there are 2 topics on everyone’s mind: 1) how to get the full-time offer and 2) how to get an even better internship, even at this late stage. Meanwhile, the questions on breaking into investment banking from other fields continue to roll in.
Law School Student To Finance
“I just read your article on breaking into finance from law and had a question on my own situation. I am a 2L at regional law school and am in the top third of my class. I’ve written published law review articles on M&A and corporate finance, and have become more interested in finance over my 2 years here.
I know you suggested doing Corporate Law as a transition into finance, but since I am attending a smaller school, this is not really an option. I do have some extracurricular activities related to finance, but no formal jobs or internships.
What can I do to solidify my resume to target not only banks but any type of finance job? Would a CFA or other certifications help me at all?”
Inquisitor:
Certifications such as the CFA would indeed help your case, but they’re huge time commitments and your efforts might be better spent elsewhere. So think through it carefully first.
Ultimately, work experience is the most relevant item on your resume and the key predictor of whether we’ll pick someone for an interview. A CFA would never make me say, “Ok, this person should definitely get an interview.”
Anything extracurricular related to finance/business is also good, but again it suffers from the same problem: work experience is what really counts.
I realize this is a circular answer: to get finance experience, you need finance experience first. So what do you do?
- Start small. Even a relevant part-time job or internship during the school year is a better use of time than CFA study, in my view.
- Go local. Regional and local firms often struggle to find the right people - even if your qualifications don’t exactly match, enthusiasm can go a long way.
- Offer to work for free. This may sound crazy, but any amount of money you get from an internship is not going to be significant in the long run. Focus on future benefits rather than immediate gains.
In your case, I would also strongly recommend networking with fellow authors and law review publishers and seeing if any of them have leads for Corporate/Securities Law jobs or internships.
How Summer Analysts Are Judged
“I have a summer internship coming up at a bulge bracket bank. I understand that most summer analysts receive offers, but with the tough market and hiring slowing down everywhere, I’m concerned about actually getting one this year.
In your experience, are summer analysts awarded offers more based on individual performance or on how they compare to their peers? I’m not sure how worried I should be about the competition.”
Inquisitor:
The short answer is that personal performance is most important. People tend to greatly overestimate just how much competition there is among summer analysts looking for offers, just like they incorrectly assume that full-time Analysts are also all killing each other to get top bonuses.
For Summer Analysts the logic is very simple: most interns perform quite poorly and have no chance of coming back anyway.
Some summer interns just don’t know what they’re getting into; others realize they don’t like it a few weeks in and just give up.
Your #1 priority during your internship should be performing well, getting people to like you and getting an offer (more on how to dominate your investment banking summer internship).
One caveat: At some groups/firms, it is indeed harder to get full-time offers and there is more competition among interns. Goldman, for example, is famous for giving out fewer full-time offers to summer interns compared to other banks.
But overall you should be most concerned about how well you do, not how well you do vs. others.
Turning Down Summer Offers: Trading Up
“I got a summer offer at a boutique bank and liked everyone I met there. The offer is a verbal one so I’m a bit nervous about accepting.
Recently I’ve been getting calls from larger firms that I had applied to before, so I’ve been thinking more seriously about trying to go to one of those. They would pay better and give me better opportunities for full-time recruiting in the fall.
Although it would look bad “reneging” on my boutique offer, the bank never even gave me a formal, written offer in the first place - so I’m wondering if telling them “no” and moving to one of the larger firms would be a good idea, or if it would burn too many bridges.”
Inquisitor:
I don’t think there’s much harm in reneging a verbal offer and going somewhere else if you think it’s more compelling and like the people more. “Burning bridges” should not be a major concern, especially since this is for an internship without a formal offer letter.
However, moves like boutique to middle-market don’t help much, whether it’s for lateral hiring or summer internships. So I would only do this if the other options include bulge brackets.
If you do decide to make the move, make sure you have a signed, written offer in hand from the other places - do not rely on verbal offers.
And if you turn down your verbal offer from the boutique, don’t tell them it was due to greater pay or prestige - I would instead make up an excuse around location or another non-sensitive issue so they don’t take it the wrong way.
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