I-banking recruiting at Booth

A current Booth student responded to my inquiry regarding ibanking recruiting at Booth this year and I wanted to share it w/ you all because it's actually very informative.
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these are solely my opinions and observations. i'm painting a bleek picture cuz it was a brutal year for recruiting in finance, but depsite all the bad news you hear about wall st., several of us still got internships, even some with multiple offers. even the most battered industry like S&T were still hiring!

Can you discuss if i-banking interest has waned compared to previous years (when 30% of the class went into i-banking) at Chicago?

I-banking interest waned a bit..... meaning that several classmates who would have been interested in I-banking when they applied to B-school, perhaps switched to consulting or IM due to the Wall St crisis. That being said, IBG membership was still strong this year at 150 students. now that's including S&T, research and IB. there were about 30-40 people interested in S&T, only a handful for research, and the rest IB. but i know alot of classmates that TRIED to recruit for IB and IM or IB and consulting. but that's really really tough. come january, i would say there were approc 75 people were really gung-ho on IB. several people decided to concentrate on consulting or IM instead. unfortunately, not all 75 got interviews. i don't know the exact number of people getting internships, but there were still quite a few, at least half of the 75. so if you can network and have a half decent resume, and you can interview well, i wouldn't worry too much for the Class of 2011.

Or is it more competition than before -- i.e. less jobs, equal number of applicants. Is IBG membership still huge as in previous years?

it is definitely more competitive than before. there were ALOT less spots than 2006 and even 2007. those were the boom years and almost anyone interested in IB coming from Chicago had a really good chance of landing an internship. this year, even some people who networked their butts off didn't get offers. the "bulge bracket" banks would interview 20-25 people, approx 10 would make it to the final round, and than only 1-2 people would get picked. that's how tough it was this year for some of the banks. in previous years, there'd be sometimes up to 8 spots at a bank (eg credit suisse or merrill) for chicago grads. with Bear (JPMorgan hired less, not more with the Bear acquisition), Lehman (Barclays hired less than Lehman typically did), Merrill (we still don't know how many people BofA are going to take), and UBS, Morgan, Goldman, Deutsche all hiring less, competition was really tough this year!! the boutiques were equally tough and really just looking at people with previous IB experience and some of them were just interviewing for the sake of making a presence on campus and as far as i know some of them didn't even offer internships. a big focus on bankrupcy and distressed M&A, especially Lazard, Perrella Weinberg, Miller Buckfire, Greenhill, etc

How about IM recruiting?

IM recruiting being HF/PE/VC or IM meaning asset management like Fidelity, Vanguard, etc, etc. HF/PE/VC is tough coming from Chicago. there are a few classmates who are successful, but they had connections coming in. IM recruiting is the latest and doesn't really get started until March or so. finance as a whole is taking a beating this year and i imagine it was tough as well. i didn't recruit for IM so i don't want to speculate. i hope you attend admit weekend where all the different student clubs will be represented and will be an excellent time for you to speak with IBG and IM clubs.

for IB, How difficult is it to get placed in NYC if applying from Chicago?

ALL the NYC banks recruit at chicago. most of the larger regional offices recruit at chicago as well like LA, palo alto, and obviously chicago. NYC still has the most number of spots and most of the banks centralized their recruiting efforts with the NYC office this year. there are sooooo many networking events in chicago where NYC bankers would fly in, and we also have NY bank week in december where you have ample amount of opportunity to meet NYC bankers. i think i met too many NYC bankers at Merrill and Credit Suisse!! but chicago students landed internships with all the big banks in NYC including goldman, morgan stanley, JPMorgan, etc, etc. for some reason, Blackstone IB really likes chicago students. but as mentioned earlier, i can't say definitively if all the boutique banks extended offers.

we're planning admit weekend right now. it should be very informative for students who have already committed and hopefully sway the ones who are undecided. chicago is a great school and not just a finance and economics school. people are getting offers from M/B/B consulting as well. it's such a great mix of students with amazing backgrounds. come to admit weekend and check it out for yourself.....