Just curious what you all are hoping to do this summer? Banking? Consulting? Non-profit.

I imagine it is going to be a very hectic January for you all. Best of luck!

I'm going for investment banking. The two most popular career choices are banking and consulting (shocker). You pretty much have to choose whether you'd rather be on the road a lot, or if you'd prefer to be in your office a lot. I guess I'd rather work hard and sleep in my own bed most nights (on the nights I'm allowed to go home ) than hang out in airports and hotel bars.

I've also got several interviews with hedge funds coming up, but their recruiting has been disjointed so it's hard to gauge whether they are truly interested.

For the top schools, I believe the common belief is that consulting firms hire a lot more for full-time than for internship. On the other hand, the common belief for bank hiring is that it's extremely difficult to secure a full-time job if you didn't do an internship. Most of the 2Ys that are able to land bank jobs actually just move between firms.

As to whether it is hard, I'll have a good answer in about 3-4 weeks. From what I can tell, about 2/3 of the people interested in banking here will land top-tier jobs. I kind of feel like the 1/3 that aren't able to land top jobs have only themselves to blame; whether it be poor networking skills, bad manners, lack of effort or just plain rudeness. For consulting firms, I think far fewer end up with internship offers, but many are laying the groundwork for full-time jobs next year.

To me, laying the groundwork means getting to know the recruiters, learning about the firm and showing interest. When they come back next year and hire for full-time positions, these people should be in the best position.

Some people take banking internships and then switch to consulting the next year, but the reality is that you really can't effectively recruit for both types of jobs during the first year; there's just not enough time. People interested in consulting that do not land the jobs they want as 1st years tend to go for product management or marketing internships I guess. Banking and consulting interviews take place very early; so it's possible to go after something else if you don't succeed.

Well, I didn't really consider what type of person they generally try to look for, but I can tell you with 100% certainty that age never came up throughout the recruiting process. We haven't had interviews yet, but I've had a really successful fall and I expect to be on a lot of closed lists. I'll post my results as things develop over the next few weeks.

The results have started to come back in as firms started releasing their closed interview lists earlier this week (varies by school of course). I can definitively confirm that age was not a factor at all. Like most people, I dropped a bunch of resumes, and so far 14 of the firms I submitted for have released their lists. I'm 13/14 including those rumored to be the most competitive (GS & MS), a pedigreed hedge fund and a surprise call from Google (I think 90% of our class submitted resumes to them). The only one I didn't get, so far, is a firm where I was forced to miss their last two big events due to schedule conflicts; I chose to attend events with other firms so I think they gathered that they weren't my top choice.

Anyhow, age never came up, but I think it's important to demonstrate experience commensurate with your age - kind of like how it works for b-schools admissions. If you're just plain older and don't have impact experiences in your background, that would be difficult to overcome. I do think as an older candidate you need to demonstrate that you can get along with 20-somethings because you'll probably be spending some late nights out grinding away with them. But really, this isn't any different than most other candidates because few are 'naturals' and most people must overcome certain things.

So, the battle is only half-won at this point because there is still work to do in order to land an offer but up to this point things couldn't be better. As someone suggested elsewhere, I will try to start a thread on recruiting and schmoozing. I definitely observed some missteps that caused people a lot of grief so it might be helpful to try to learn from them.

My first choice for summer is consulting; if I don't get it, I'll probably try tech or CPG.

Generally IB and consulting. Although when I was at Yale I met someone who interned with the National Episcopal Church and made as much as her classmates in IB!

hihih at least I made it to one of 'the most' lists

I liked Darden a lot last year but I don't like it how everything has changed over there this year... so I ended up applying to Ross and Tuck
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GO BLUE !!!

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