<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>I've been having second thoughts about my internship for this summer, and I'm pretty sure you guys would be able to give me some interesting feedback.</p>
<p>Basically, I've signed a contract for Equity Trading Technology Division of a major BB, for their London office. This place was secured almost a year ago after their spring internship program. Back then, I wasn't sure how an investment bank worked on the inside, so I naively thought that it would be possible to switch into a trading role easily, so I applied for technology(I have a CS/Maths background, studying at Cambridge). </p>
<p>Do you guys think that it would be a bad move to ask my recruiter if it's possible to switch into their Sales&Trading division, i.e. have more interviews or w/e, or do you think that doing this internship wouldn't be too bad for me? </p>
<p>I mean, I'd like to get into an MBA program after my analyst years, and as far as I get it, coming from Technology you don't really have much of a shot for the top MBAs?</p>
<p>Thanks for your feedback!</p>
<p>If you’re a sophomore, don’t worry about it.
If you’re a junior, you’re in a pretty bad position at this point.
You do not want to let your division know right off the bat that you think you’re too good for them.
This in essence what you’ll be doing if you tell hr you’d like to switch to S&T. Your group will most certainly be told and your experience will be miserable. </p>
<p>You basically have two options at this point. </p>
<p>You can go for an S&T position at another bank.
Likely potential downsides are losing access to ocr at your school and being blacklisted at the bank you originally signed the contract for.
It is theoretically possible in the most extreme of situations that the old bank calls the new one and you lose both offers. I’ve never heard of this happening though.</p>
<p>The other is to stick with what you have and try to switch divisions for full time. Whether this is possible depends on how motivated you are in terms of networking, what your school’s recruiting is like and how well the banks are doing. If they have another year like last year, the odds of getting a full time offer in a different division is basically 0. In a great year, if you go to a decent school, it will definitely be possible.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that if you spend show too much interest in another division at your bank, you will ensure you do not get a return offer in your division. It is possible to network internally and this is generally the easiest way to switch divisions, but if you try and fail, you will not get a return offer in technology.</p>
<p>Thanks for your reply!</p>
<p>Well, basically, I’ve got an optional masters year (this is Cambridge system, 3 years bachelors), so I could have another summer for another internship. </p>
<p>However, I was keener on trying now - they’re still to interview most people for this summer, so I was hoping that this wouldn’t come across as front/back office prestige hunt. I mean, I personally wouldn’t mind working in Algo trading for a couple years, but I’m not sure whether that time in that division would be enough to get me into top US MBAs…</p>
<p>My bad, sorry dude.
Completely missed the London office part, must have looked it over too quickly.
Disregard my last post.
Some of it may still apply, but I can’t say for sure. </p>
<p>This is a question that needs to be asked to Alumni in S&T. They will be able to give you a better answer.
Also, this may not apply to your specific division, but generally, technology is more of tech support. You may want to double check what you’re actually doing.
Algo-trading is front office and a completely separate division from technology, at least in the U.S. At the bank where I worked, algo-trading was in the S&T division.
If what you are doing is indeed algo-trading, you have absolutely nothing to worry about.</p>