Bad Junior Internship

After 200+ applications, 20+ interviews, 2 superdays, alumni networking, and having recruited for both sophomore and junior summer (Started applying in April 2022), I've ended up with next to nothing in the way of internships and am currently working in business development at a commercial community bank (300m AUM size) for my junior internship :(

I've gone to my school career counselor multiple times for resume reviews, asked everyone I know for mock interviews, attended multiple business conferences, went to every networking session I could find at my school, and scheduled more coffee chats than I can remember.

For context, I'm a rising senior at a mid-tier ivy and double major in mathematical finance and a humanity with a 3.7 GPA. A large issue with my resume was that I wasn't exactly able to find any mentorship or real extracurriculars until junior year due to covid and a generally unfortunate series of events. Honestly, I can't help but feel extremely disappointed in myself for messing up my interviews and ending up with no offers.

At this point, I figured that most people are light years ahead of me in terms of internship experience and don't really know how I can hope to be competitive and succeed in consulting or business development with eventual lateral to PE. At this point most people I network with kind of just assume I'm lazy or unqualified...

I really want to find a way to catch up (off-cycle, defer graduation, masters, etc) but don't really want to put my life on hold for another two years and an MD recently told me that most people have been preparing for MC and Wall Street for years longer than I have, which I don't doubt. I'm also planning to study abroad at a Target UK school for my entire senior year which I'm starting to think of reneging to get an off-cycle instead. I haven't exactly had many mentors due to my school's nonfinance focus and haven't been able to get into any pre-professional clubs due to being too old. Honestly, I would really appreciate advice on how I can move forward and get into management consulting/bizdev despite my junior internship, or at least how to score an off-cycle since I can't really find many so far. 

1 Comments
 

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