1st Year Summer internships

Incoming 1st year at LSE/OXBRIDGE. Finance course. 

Are there are on cycle recruiting summer internships that accept first year applicants, or are they only achieved through cold-calling / connections? I do have previous finance experience in the form of market operations at a bulge bracket in my gap year. 

Thanks in advance 

PS: I applied to a couple spring weeks already and the numerical reasoning was hilariously easy - is that the case for all? I was preparing for so much worse. 

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The trend for summer internships in London is to recruit interns who already have about a year of experience in IB through off-cycles, two six months internships for example. GS, JPM and many other banks have had more than 70% of their return offers after summer internships go towards these profiles this year (at least that’s what I heard). You’re better off farming spring weeks. You can also try to land an off-cycle in continental Europe, but that’s only if you have a gap year available. Apply to as many summer internships as you obviously can, prepare seriously, but I wouldn’t expect much if you don’t already have experience. One thing you can also do and that worked for me is to email small boutiques to ask them for an internship next summer, even if there is no official job offer, as small boutiques are more flexible than big banks. Apply to spring weeks, apply to summers, and aim for small cap boutiques to ask them directly for an internship !

 

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