Community College Monkeys - How many applications/cold emais for the first internship?
(Re-posted on reddit as well)
Just joined the triple-digit club for job applications and I've sent out like 60 cold emails so far.
From what I've read this is about the average application amount for the average semi-target plus some change. This entire search has been immensely draining, I have an almost perfect GPA with club leadership, but I feel like a second-class citizen when it comes to internship recruitment. Almost half of the Internship posts state that they require to be pursuing a bachelor's at a 4-year university.
I go to job fairs that the college provides, and it boils down to technical trade job or legitimately open scams or insurance salesman jobs like CutCo, Equitable Advisors, or Northwest Mutal. Man, even the fucking Jenova's Witnesses have a panel in this "Job Fair."
I barely have any alumni network, and the alumni network I do have is relegated to being "Executive Assistants" (Read: Back-office) essentially as footstools for C-Suite execs and Front Office.
Obviously, I'm going to transfer in a year that's no question. However, I need this sophomore year internship to be competitive when it comes time for recruiting for IB or Consulting later down the line.
So back to the actual question at hand, how many applications did you have to send in as a CC student to actually get an internship?
If any CC monkeys could give some insight, it would be really appreciated 3
60 cold emails is not enough. Super non-target here but I cold emailed about 150-200 tiny IB shops before I got anything. If I was just trying to get something i'd literally send every search fund and LMM fund/IB shop I see an email, like 250+.
Thanks for the insight, I guess that means that I'm only a 1/4 of the way there. In an odd way that makes me feel better since it shows that its not (totally) hopeless.
If you are polished and send out enough, you will get one. Definitely at the search fund level at least which will help you land something else after. What is your plan btw, as in, when will you be transferring to a uni/finish CC? If so, where (ie. are you a California CC or somewhere else)? I say this because I had two guys in my search fund internship who were Cali CC's and got the internship before they even applied to where they ended up transferring, which was UCLA and UCSD. Deffo possible
California CC, I should (knock on wood) be a shoo-in for UCLA or UCB by the end of next year or closest by Spring of 2025.
Out of curiosity, what is the best place to find search fund internships? I've tried Search Funder but the posts on there seem pretty old and a lot of its tailored to MBA's, (and the rest of the website is locked behind a paywall) is it worth it to pay the monthly fee to get access to the whole thing?
Here's what I would do, prob need LinkedIn premium for this. Go to UCLA/UCB/NYU/USC/UT Austin etc and look up students with 'Private Equity Intern' or 'Private Equity Analyst' in the LinkedIn keyword search under Alumni. Once you find a student who's a freshman or sophmore with that as a title, 90% of the time its at a search fund. Once you click on that search fund, you'll see a bunch of recommended companies next to it in the tab on the right. You will see 3-4 etc more search funds with freshman/sophmore interns from the ususal suspects, and the cycle continues. Spend an hour or two and you can get a list of 50-100+ search funds that you know actively take on students from semi/target schools with no experience, and are active in doing so. Obv reach out to those. Then i'd go on Axial and look for funds through there, probably another 25-50+. This same stragey can be appleid for tiny 2-5 man IB boutiques, of which there are a lot in California. Typing in 'Investment Banking Fall Analyst' or Winter or Spring etc will yield the same results. After a day you can easily rack up 100-150 search funds, 50-100 tiny banks and 25-50 tiny vc funds/family offices that take kids from your future school. I'd lean into the fact that you have options to join UCLA/UCB and are in CC for just the year.
I started off in CC and had basically no internship experience when I transferred. I had to work twice as hard as the regular non-targets, but I was able to recover my junior year and get a top role. I had to do an unpaid internship that I got through networking first. If you can't find something paid that will lead to a better junior year internship or full time role, maybe this is what you need.
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