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Withdraw Acceptance from BB for buy side?

xianbest

Joined
12/12/16
Messages
3
Points
11
In August, I completed a summer internship at a BB and accepted a return offer after my graduation in May 2017. However, I was just recently approached about an amazing opportunity at a hedge fund, and am seriously considering withdrawing my acceptance at the bank. I am concerned this will blacklist me from future BB employment. I should mention the bank offer is a "general offer" in that the group I'll join has not been decided, and won't be until February or so. Hence, I'm not even sure who my manager would be, and feel a little better about withdrawing because of that.

Does anyone have some insights into my situation? Will withdrawing my acceptance effectively ban me from future employment opportunities at banks? Thanks.
 
When did you accept the contract? If it wasn't too long ago that you accepted it, I'd imagine they had a back up. It certainly won't look good, but I'm sure they have candidates in a queue in case candidates reject an offer initially or even after agreeing to it. They must have a fair few applicants who have to withdraw for one reason or another (continuing with an MSc for eg).

check out this post here: Blacklisted at BB Bank

This candidate did something quite weak in comparison (an oral acceptance). However, you need to ask yourself the question: "Is it worth it in the long run?". How much will your learn at the fund as opposed to the BB. How much more will you be challenged intellectually at the hedge fund? How much higher will the average IQ be? & also, if you're at a fund and enjoy the work, then its unlikely that you will need to come back to a BB (if market conditions stay fairly stable), because another fund will probably take you on once your experienced.

For me personally, I'd discuss it with HR before submitting my formal rejection, and then accept the funds offer. I think the average IQ is much higher, the tasks are much more interesting for juniors (learning advanced stuff very quickly) and the environment would be much nicer.

Lets us know how you get on in either case.
 
I accepted in late August, so it's been about 3.5 months. Thanks for the thoughts.
 
xianbest said:
I accepted in late August, so it's been about 3.5 months. Thanks for the thoughts.
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It wasn't to long ago. And if this is for a role starting in Sept next year, then they're probably still recruiting for this scheme. Is this in London? They probably wrapped up offers for returning interns first, and are filling the remaining positions now. I wouldn't worry about it too much, but try to speak to HR ASAP.
 
xianbest said:
This was NYC, to start in May next year.
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A few thoughts...

Is the offer from the hedge fund in writing? If not, don't do anything yet.

Is the offer from the hedge fund materially better in experience you will gain? If this is your first job, pay probably isn't meaningfully different. Maybe short term meaningful for a fresh graduate, but try to keep medium to long term perspective.

You may certainly get blacklisted from the bank in question for a few years, but not likely forever and certainly not from other banks. While it's not good form to back out of a deal, the bank will survive and will get over it. If in five years time you have the experience and skill set a hiring manager at that bank wants, backing out of a first year analyst program years before won't kill your candidacy.

I disagree that you should speak with the bank's HR about it. Once you bring it up, you'll look bad, and the bank's HR won't have any insight to offer you as they have no idea what is best for you. That will just make it so that if you do choose to honor the agreement, HR will dislike you. No point.
 
You are not the first person nor will you be last person to have this problem. It really just depends on how much better you like the hedge fund job, your expectation of future employment opportunity, and how you approach the situation. I will just add that if you are going to renege on your offer, do it sooner rather than later so the bank can have more time to hire a replacement (so they'll be less ticked off at you).
 
Even if you get blacklisted - it's just one bank. There are plenty of other banks out there, and plenty of non-bank firms. Spending time to blacklist (and track) a candidate is such a high-effort-low-return endeavor, that I don't think most HR professionals will focus on that. Be polite, be firm, be quick to inform them, and be professional about it. At the end of the day, if you are going to a hedge fund, you are going to be a future client of the bank. No one wants to piss off a client :)
 
ADT said:
...Spending time to blacklist (and track) a candidate is such a high-effort-low-return endeavor, that I don't think most HR professionals will focus on that. ...
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It is not. It's an entry in the HR system and then you get filter out automatically. They won't even know that you applied.
 
pingu said:
It is not. It's an entry in the HR system and then you get filter out automatically. They won't even know that you applied.
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Interesting. Have you done that personally? And how do you even tag that? By name? By social security? By name+school? What if there are people with the same name same school?
 
ADT said:
Interesting. Have you done that personally? And how do you even tag that? By name? By social security? By name+school? What if there are people with the same name same school?
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No but I can see how it could be done. It's not that hard and I expect people who write these systems to do it. They can use name and email or name and phone number or whatever. It won't be hard to implement and if they get a lot of applicants, they won't even notice they are filtering a bunch of people. I'm sure there are not that many people that get black listed anyway.
 
ADT said:
What if there are people with the same name same school?
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They don't care. They rather missed on a good than hire a bad one, very simple choice. This is a typical example of machines behaving badly. This is what the "Weapons of Math Destruction" talks about.
 
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