Best Summer Opportunity for Sophomore/Rising Junior

Hi! I'm a HYPS sophomore/rising junior with a 3.5+ GPA who wants to go into investment banking through junior recruiting next fall. This previous summer I interned at a hedge fund, and this summer I am fortunate to have some different opportunities for summer employment. Which would be best to pursue from an investment banking recruiting perspective?

Asset Management internship at a financial institution (think Chase, PNC, Capital One) -- NE
Strategy internship at an investment fund at an investment bank (think Jefferies, Guggenheim, Macquarie) --> NE
Internal Audit internship at a tech company (think Adobe, Salesforce, Oracle, Hubspot) --> California
VC internship at a fund of a top 10 insurance company --> worst location wise

Any insight would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

 

Really depends where you see yourself trying to do banking. If you want to go to the west coast and do TMT, VC or audit are probably your top choices. If you're set on new york though, I would recommend the strategy internship first, Asset Management second, vc third, audit fourth.

To be honest though, anything in this bucket is more than enough. As long as you had a position sophomore year where you were doing real work that you could actually speak to, and speak to what you learned in soft and hard skills, you're fine on the internship front. Kids still make it with no-name funds or corpfin jobs all the time. At this point you're just cherry picking, so good on you and don't worry. Focus on getting that GPA to 3.7+

 

Your comment regarding location on your last choice makes me think that you are considering the internal audit position strictly because it is in California. Although that opportunity may have a fun atmosphere, it will last only a couple of months at most. Thus, I would keep in mind that internal audit will not really progress your career in the finance world, especially compared to the other opportunities. Additionally, the connections that you would get in that short time frame would mostly be from internal audit.

 

Updates to this: I need your help.

The strategy internship at the investment fund of the investment bank did not work otu.

I got an offer from the insurance company, but it was not the VC position as I thought. When asked what if there would be any skills on this job that would be transferable to IB, they said:

"We can and will provide XXX exposure to the VC activity (deal research and fund administration), but it won’t be his primary focus. He can also support our internal innovation “start-up” projects with market research and financial / business model design work (which is a highly valuable perspective for IB/PE). I also think we will have opportunities to support his IB/PE ambitions through corporate development strategy / M&A work with XX, XX, and XX.

I cannot guarantee that we will have a “live” deal for him to support, but we certainly could (depending on deal flow and confidentiality requirements). What I can promise is that we can provide financial modeling and valuation training using Wall Street Prep, Training the Street, or another comparable IB-analyst training program. Also, we can definitely provide project opportunities related to M&A / corporate development strategy and target pipeline research related to our various innovation projects."

I also got an internship offer for a very large investment management company back home that pays more than the aforementioned insurance company, but it's investment management, not M&A, and I would be working on alternatives and institutional investments. I have to get back to them by Monday with a response.

I had a first round with an insurance company in Connecticut where I would actually be doing internal M&A, but I don't know when that process continues. I'd optimally like to do that position because I can live in NYC and do M&A.

I also have a first round tomorrow for an M&A internship position at a very large tech company owned by Amazon.

What do I do? Please help. Thank you!

 

I would not recommend the insurance company. Investment bankers think of insurance companies as they do above-ground pool. No explanation needed.

I would go either with the brand name strategy internship and spend all your time networking, or just email boutiques until you find something unpaid that will offer you tangible work experience.

 
Best Response

I would take the insurance internship. It seems to me that they are bending over backwards to make this work for you, which is always a good sign. Judging from your post, I imagine the worst case scenario is that you get no hands-on M&A experience, but get to take a modeling class and work on some M&A projects. Even if those M&A projects are grunt work, you will still have completed more than most sophomores did at their internships.

One thing to note is how your scenario is different because you're at HYPS. Your sophomore internship is important, but given that you're at a target, have a 3.5+ GPA, and will have a sophomore internship on your resume, the quality of that internship becomes less of an importance than it would for some kid at a non-target trying to desperately prove that he/she has the background to compete with you during junior-year SA recruiting.

Take the insurance internship, keep on them about getting M&A experience (BTW, modeling is only a very, very small part of IB), network during the summer, and get that GPA up.

 

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