Academic/Graduate internship Netherlands

I'm a master student in the Netherlands. Currently I'm pursuing a master in Finance at the University of Amsterdam. I want to end up in IB.

I'm in the honours programme which combines two tracks (Corporate Finance & Banking). Currently, my GPA is 8.3 which, according to most sources, converts to 4.0+.

However, this program requires me to do an "academic" internship around October. This means I need to officially spend 70% of my time at solving a predetermined 'problem'. Obviously, this means doing this at an IB-firm will be almost impossible. I almost got EY TAS to make an exception for me but it didn't work out in the end.

What is the best alternative where I can do this intership which does provide me with experience/knowledge that is valuable to a IB-firm later on? A lot of other students that pursue the hounours track end up doing this internship at the risk-department of one of the big banks in the Netherlands (ABN, ING & Rabobank). However, according to WSO, risk is not very well-regarded and I'm afraid it will not provide any value to my resume.

This internship is going to be my first internship. Is it more important to get a relatively big bank name on my resume or better to pursue a Corporate Finance internship at a smaller shop? After this academic internship I will try to intern at a IB-shop & PE before applying for London.

Another option is to give up on the honours track, graduate in the Corporate Finance track and apply for IB internships for around september (interviewing in the Netherlands happens a lot later than in the US). Do 1-2 other internships during the year and then try to go to London (will apply to the London Banking Tour). Do you think there is any added value to the honours programme on my resume as opposed to this idea?

Thanks in advance

2 Comments
 
Most Helpful

Since you're in the Netherlands, definitely get into contact with RD recruitment. They are a recruitment agency based in Amsterdam with a focus on law/CF/PE and it is free for students. They might be able to help you with this problem.

Maybe take a look into the AM side? Robeco has a good quantitative research internship, I believe. I do think that maybe ditching the honours and going purely for an IB internship would be better. Again, contact RD recruitment, they will be interested in your profile.

 

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