Didn't Land a Junior Year Summer Internship, Need Advice

Whats going on guys,

As the title says I haven't had any luck securing a job thus far for the summer and as you can imagine I'm quite concerned. I'm currently a junior finance major at decent non-target school that is upcoming with a 3.8 GPA. Through networking these few years I landed a few interviews with some BB banks for summer analyst positions but nothing came from them. Also interviewed with some reputable investment management shops in Boston, which is where I'm from, but nothing came from them. Obviously my interviewing skills are not up to notch and I have to work on that.

As of now I have no leads/interviews lined up and I am frantically cold emailing very small local banks and basically whatever else I see on LinkedIn that is investment/finance related. I've sent over a 100 emails in the past week and will continue to do so, hopefully something works out. If not, I wanted to get your guys advice on what I should do this summer. I was thinking about using the time to study and kill the GMAT or maybe start the coursework for the first level of the CFA.

Any advice would be extremely welcomed.

Thanks,
crash17

 
Best Response

My first advice is to figure out why your interviews did not go well. You don't have to say anything here, but be honest with yourself. Did you come across as arrogant in your interviews? Were you awkward at pre-superday dinners? Did you sound extremely nervous on the phone? Things like that. Honestly, you should have done this after your first failed superday. Consider doing some mock interviews. I used the WSO service several years ago and liked it.

I would continue cold emailing boutiques. FT recruiting is to the point of almost nonexistence, so you need an IB SA if you want any shot at FT. The CFA is useless for IB, so I wouldn't waste any time on that. I don't see why taking the GMAT would help either. Even if you get into a top MSF, you'd still get dinged for no IB experience, and like I said, FT recruiting is almost nonexistent these days.

I hope that helps. Good luck.

 

Ignore the summer internship at this point. Don't worry about it at all. Focus on landing a full-time offer. I know bunch of kids who didn't do anything junior summer and ended up with pretty solid FT offers.

"I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature."
 

Focus on getting ANY job, ideally finance related, before you graduate. I would target back office and middle office too. A job is better than no job. Start building your network now by requesting coffees / calls. This is a good time to do it because you aren't looking for anything from them so it should be a positive no strings attached networking experience. Keep building your network, until you graduate a year from now with (hopefully) a large active network.

When you graduate next year with a network and a job, if you can't get front office -- at least you're employed.

In the interim, study for and score in the 97th percentile on GMAT (740+). Grind it out at your job for a few years and with your high GPA and GMAT, I think you would have a shot at top 15 business schools. If your goal is banking no matter what, I think a well-regarded business school would be your most statistically likely shot. This also gives you time to mature and hopefully clear up your interviewing issues with real life experience.

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