I am tired
I did not get an internship. I'm honestly kind of relieved that it's over. I did the whole nine yards Hundreds of apps. Cold emails, netwoworking, referalls, and not one single interview.
I hit up every single shop I could think of. I applied to roles all over from PWM to IB, to S&T to Corp fin/corp dev. I applied to non major locations like Jacksonville where I figured I'd have a better shot.
If you asked me a couple months ago what I would feel like if I got rejected from every app, I think I would have told you that I would feel sad and angry, maybe a bit jealous of my friends who got internships. But truthfully, I am relieved.
Normally I think I would ask for advice but I think now I'm just going to log off and go to sleep. I'm not sure what I will do in the future but I guess I can't control it. Lord knows I couldn't control the past 8 months.
keep going trust me just get something that sets you up good for ft recruiting, It does not have to be brand name just get the skills and build your network trust me it will pay off, a marathon not a sprint.
I mean isn’t that what the internship is for? I’ll admit that my failure is my fault. I failed to realize how early IB recruitment started and that lack of awareness will cost me dearly for at least a year, probably more. There’s a decent chance that I will not get a job in HF unless I spend 190k on a masters. This is how the game is played.
Sleep
I did, and I actually ended up having a terrible night of sleep and a worse day today.
How are things now
OP here.
So I made this post almost a year ago, holy moly. I did end up transferring to a semi-target school in NYC) after spending one last fall semester at my old school. After sending about 370 applications(trust me I counted) and getting rejected from literally every single white-collar job you could think, I thought I was cooked.
Once I got to my semi-target in January/February, I applied for the clubs, and got rejected. Did pretty poorly in the interviews.Also found out I lost a year of credits, so I went from Class of 2027 to Class of 2028, which actually works out for me.
I've had some pretty dark weeks and months in this city. Transferring to a new school I think is tough for a lot of kids, and New York has a sort of edge to it that really can crush you even if you're a strong person but you're tired. So I was aone in a new city, no friends, no way to make a really consistent social circle, I spent a lot of nights alone with my thoughts.
During this time, I did a lot of soul searching and thought long and hard about what I was actually interested in, and what was the closest well-paying job to my interests.
Commodity trading always stuck out to me. Partly because the product itself(whether that's medium staple cotton, refined or raw sugar, Mesa 30 crude oil, Red Winter Wheat) it really became a very interesting thing for me to study, unlike when I tried to understand like credit or distressed debt or equity valuation. No shade to people who are interested in those products or things, I just couldn't get my head around them.
Commodity trading is also one of those areas that "rewards" less conventional paths to the seat ultimately. Ops, Scheduling, trade analysts at shipping companies, trade finance. Its a longer road, but it does provide at least legimate ways.
I ended up getting an internship in the commercial department for a major shipping company, and I enjoy my time here.
Also, I started going to therapy during this time, and that really helped me sort of calm down and reassess myself from a more objective point of view.
Obviously, I'm not where I want to be yet, and Commods houses open up soon, but really for the first time in a very long time, I felt like I can finally "compete" in this market, which for a lot of people on this site might take for granted, but for some it's everything.
Great pogress over a short period of time. Come back to us again in 5 years and you’ll see how far you’ve been able to go. Never give up. Onwards and upwards!
Your grit is inspiring. Good luck in all you do. Would love future updates.
definitely an intern
Felt the same way at some points. Realized that if I was truly working hard, and the work wasn’t translating into interviews and offers then that could only mean one thing.
That one thing is that you’re doing something wrong. I personally had to “be more chill”, I saw that it allowed me to be way more personable and sociable than before and it helped a lot. Talk to more people, learn as much as you can. The typical routes aren’t going to be your route at this point, so you’re going to need to think and act outside typical frameworks.
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