Ranking Fall Sophomore Internship Offers

I'm an incoming Sophomore looking to break into investment banking. I attend a non-target in a small city and had a solid ER internship during my Freshman year. For this fall semester, I have four potential internship opportunities. I have interviews or offers with each of them. I'm hoping to get some help ranking them in terms of best to worst for recruiting later on:

-Analyst for a small VC firm where I would be doing legitimate research and calls with executives (10-15 hours per week, unpaid) -Deal Sourcing internship for a small PE advisory firm in a bigger city (working remotely, 10-15 hours per week, unpaid) -Financial analyst for a hip Fintech startup (10-15 hours per week, paid) -Accounting internship for a small firm packaging loans to sell to institutional investors (20 hours per week, paid)

They hire several interns at the unpaid options, whereas the paid ones are more selective. None of them stand out in name recognition. I'm pretty torn. Any advice would be great.

4 Comments
 
Most Helpful

If I were you, I would go with analyst at small vc firm. Looks like you'll get some legit research work, which might give you a better experience than the others. One of my friends did both a analyst internship at a small vc firm and a deal sourcing internship at a small pe advisory firm before recruiting for summer bb. According to him small vc provided a better experience than deal sourcing

 

Good options, congrats - I agree with the VC suggestion as the best option in terms of most legitimate experience. If you really want to get paid the Fintech startup sounds cool as well.

Just a side note - you might see having a few interns as less selective, but it also could mean analysts are more trained to delegate work. Wouldn't be surprised if some of the selective ones are either very little work/experience, or a LOT of work. I have been the only intern at a semester internship before... always recommend somewhere that does interns regularly.

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Thank you for your feedback. Eloquence, is that still your opinion if the VC firm hires 15ish interns a semester (from about 100 applicants)? Because they're unpaid they take a big team, and after a semester promote 25% percent of them to a position with more in-depth coverage. The accounting gig traditionally takes 1 intern a semester, and I have no idea what the scoop is on the Fintech firm, other than they've taken a couple in the past and the company is growing quickly.

 

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