Hey guys, I'm a sophomore who's studying at a semi-target who's on a student visa although I've been living in the US for the past 10 years. I have a good GPA, been networking and involved in a lot of student organizations. At this point, I've applied to over 100 internships and haven't heard back positively from a single one. I'm can't help but think it's due to my international status on top of the usual difficulty of finding a sophomore internship. I was wondering if anyone has been in this situation or has any advice as it would be really appreciated.
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Just curious, do you mind working for an unpaid internship?
Honestly, I'm lucky to not have financial burdens as my parents cover my education so I'm open to any opportunities that provide a good learning opportunity, but obviously would prefer working and being compensated through traditional channels
Ask your parents, relatives, family friends, whatever. Most fool proof solution, but obviously not available for everyone.
Ask the current juniors for a recommendation to wherever they worked their sophomore year. Especially helpful if he / she interned at a small place with an unstructured recruitment process.
OCR for corporate finance and wealth management jobs. If you have a GPA above 3.7, this should be a pretty high probability for you.
Unpaid start up work, if you can afford it. There should always be opportunities here in some way shape or form, even if it's not directly tied to finance.
Google "investment banking / private equity / whatever summer analyst", apply, and then cold email. Sounds like you've already done this though.
While networking for your junior internship, ask the people at investment banks whether they have any recommendations. This is most effective when there is a senior person who likes you, as they will tend to know senior people at small practices that can directly hire you.
Thanks for the detailed response, I appreciate it a lot! I've been mostly trying to do the things you mentioned other than your last point about asking people I've been networking with for recommendations, partially because I already feel a little uneasy about talking about needing sponsorship since I know it's quite competitive for internationals so I just want to seem competent. Seems like for now I just need to keep grinding and hope a little luck comes my way as well and that it works out. cheers for the advice
You don't need sponsorship for your internship, you just need CPT which is handled by your school. Your employer shouldn't care about your status unless they plan on bringing you back FT.
Can you write in a second language? If you're fluent in Chinese for example, there will be certain BB PWM offices where being able to translate stuff is extremely useful (it can land you a sophomore gig). Even if that's all you end up doing for the summer, you still have a great brand name and "wealth management SA" on your resume.
i think a lot of ppl are missing that he will need sponsorship from his employer so some shops may be out of question
Yeah, I would be able to get OPT/CPT for the summer though which I understand doesn't require anythign extra from the employer (could be wrong though unsure)
I recommend going back to your home country for the summer if there's any brand name companies there(BB, Big 4, Large AM, perhaps finance at big tech/unicorns)
Thanks for sharing man, definitely motivated me to keep looking. Sounds good, I'll look into it, and congrats on securing BAML!
Currently a sopho from a non-target, decent GPA but F1 Visa.
I networked with many people during Freshman year and was able to get a Merill Lynch Wealth Management internship for the Freshman summer. However, while they gave me the offer on spot, the HR couldn't proceed because they didn't know I did not have SSN as an international student. So, the opportunity was gone.
There's this website called Axial where I used to compile a list of IB and PE firms in NYC. Then, just cold emailed them one by one.
Took about 500 emails to finally get one positive response that led to an interview at a boutique PE firm. Had a one-week long modeling test/case study and got an offer. And it was paid.
Being a freshman AND an international students shut many doors, but if you really want something and have the skill set, you will get it. It's just a question of how hard you want it.
Sounds good, will definitely to reach out to more boutique firms in my area, and great hustle
is your pe internship for sophomore summer?
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