What Is a Return Offer?
A return offer is the offer of a full-time analyst position made to a summer analyst at the end of their ten-week internship. Banks fill the majority of each incoming analyst class this way, so the internship is less a trial period than the final round of recruiting. The offer is typically extended in the last week of the summer and comes with a deadline of a few weeks.
Return-Offer Rates
Banks aim to convert most of their summer class. In a normal year a bulge bracket might extend return offers to 70 to 90 percent of summer analysts; in a weak deal year the rate drops, and in a strong one it climbs. The rate varies by group as well as by bank, and it is one of the most useful questions to ask in a coffee chat, because interns talk.
What Decides It
Interns are reviewed by the bankers they worked for, in the same format as full-time analysts. The review is about reliability more than brilliance: work delivered on time and checked, and a demonstrated interest in staying. Interns who spend the summer visibly interviewing elsewhere rarely get the offer.
If You Do Not Get One
The full-time recruiting round in the fall exists partly for this. It is smaller and more competitive than the summer process, but seats open every year at banks whose summer conversion fell short. Interns without a return offer should start networking the day the summer ends, not after graduation.
