Msc Finance, no finance related internships or work experience: summer internship or FT Graduate?

I am currently a student in a one year Msc Finance program in Europe. My goal is to break into Asset Management but I am not sure which path to follow. I have no prior finance related work experience and I haven't had any internships. Therefore I am not sure if I should first have an internship and then apply for a Graduate role or go straight to FT? If I first do an internship then I theoretically would have to skip a year since I graduate in August next year and would apply for FT role in 2015. Some firms actually say that Master students should apply directly to Graduate roles (Fidelity for example). I thinking that people who have had internship in same bank will have advantage in applying to FT. Any thoughts on that?

 

Internships aren't going to be the only factor your interviewers will consider in a graduate interview. Do you have prior experience that would be relevant and of interest to them? e.g. perhaps you've invested money / paper traded, been involved in an investment student society or something similar. Your interviewers may value these types of things.

An internship will give you a major advantage in terms of giving your interviewers some confidence that you have worked in a professional environment before. However, for asset management your aptitude and experience with investing can be just as important. So perhaps if you have read investment books or otherwise have a reasonable knowledge of picking stocks and a framework for doing so, then you may consider going for a graduate role.

There are other considerations as well - your lifestyle, for instance (do you want to start working full time sooner)? Is it possible to apply for internships ahead of graduate programs?

Hope this helps.

 
Best Response

if you want you can pm me. I am currently graduating from a uk uni and will start this summer in London (without internship at the same firm). I can give you some data points from my course and the other uk courses where I know people which should make clear that you will have no problem from LSE (or oxbridge, UCL, imperial, durham etc.) to start ft even without having been SA in the same firm.

My verdict goes like this: if you are from a good uni and you have relevant experience (even with a different firm) there is absolutely no problem to get an FT (IBD - I dont know about S&T) in London. SA can make sense for two reasons: (i) you have no internships yet (ii) you are risk averse and need a guarantee that youll have a placement. This was however not the case for me, nor should it be for you.

 

you will, I've definitely seen a lot of kids doing this here in London. Of course, sometimes it gets harder on the initial screening phase (HSBC and Citi seem to be quite strict with this but with some networking or a very good CV it's completely feasible) but once you're past that phase the playing field is even for all of you.

Additionally, I would add that the people in your situation doing a SA in their final year usually receive an offer to join as an early starter in January the following year (completing the training program during summer with the new class intake) but I've seen some banks converting SAs in that situation directly into Analyst (I know of several cases in MS, UBS and CS).

Hope this helps mate

 

Yes you can, also Citi allow final year/post grad to apply for summer

All banks has the potential to convert SA into Analyst in the following January, some are more restrict on the initial screening than others, some I'd apply for summer for eligible ones, and grad for non eligible ones

 

I know of 3 who did this, all in MS. 2 received an immediate start offer, the other returned the following summer. Depends on headcount in the group. I know of several more who secured Summer Analyst spots during their final years but they all claimed to be returning to complete masters which I think impacts on the banks judgement of it. You could also apply to off-cycle analysts which occasionally pop up and some banks such as JPM / Rothschild run structured Spring / Autumm / 6 month internship programmes, All of the above is in relation to London.

 

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