Do Freshman Summer Internship Weekly Hours Matter? 10 Hours Not Enough?
Hey everyone! I’m an incoming sophomore at a top 50 non-target trying to get that BB IB junior summer internship.
For my freshman summer, I’m currently working as an unpaid intern at a search fund to get some sort of finance experience under my belt. My question is: do the hours you work in these search fund/PWM/boutique IB firms matter? I work 50 hours a week in the summer at a normal college kid-type job that’s paid and so I’ve been working only 10 hours a week at this search fund internship. Is 10 hours a week something that would be looked down upon or seen as almost irrelevant come junior summer interviews? Will they even ask about the hours? Or is it not that deep and any experience is experience? Wondering if I should raise my hours to 20 or something or maybe it doesn't matter.
2 part question: Does the duration of these internships matter either? I’ve been an intern at this search fund for 3 months now and agreed to work till the end of August, but I was told I can check in with them midsummer if I wanted to cut the internship short. This is my first finance-related internship so I’m wondering if it's more beneficial to work more at this internship or move on to another internship this summer like PWM?
1. Hours matter to the extent that you can talk about your work. At 10 hours a week I imagine you aren't doing too much - which is fine if you are very minimalist about it on your resume, but if people see a search fund they will ask you a lot of detailed questions and it's kind of a ding if you aren't able to answer them because you just weren't there enough to learn. Could you cut back to 30-40 hours at the other job and up the search fund to 20-30? The hours really don't matter but I question how much you're learning.
2. 3 months is a solid duration - and don't forget your resume will say until August regardless of whether you leave August 1 or August 30th. Leave August 1st (or earlier) and enjoy the rest of your summer IMO. PWM could help add something to your experience, but only if it's also 8-10 weeks and runs into the fall... 4-6 weeks isn't enough time to do anything but shadow.
Great to get ahead but don't burn yourself out - freshman internship is a good start, 2 internships + full-time job is teetering towards overkill.
Thanks so much for the response. Two questions: My two bosses are great, they basically told me "if there's work you specifically want to do for the experience just let us know". I'm sure half of that was just them being nice but what should I ask them to have me to do to really have some talking points in BB interviews? 90% of my work now is sourcing which is expected, but I really want to give myself any edge i can get obviously.
Question 2: You mentioned a PWM internship and that it would have be 8-10 weeks meaning it would run into the fall. I know you said not to get burnt out but I may take that route, thank you. Also, maybe you haven't worked at a boutique IB firm but you may know the answer intuviety regardless. I've also heard that boutique IB firms obviously don't have as formal of a intern recruitment process compared to BB's. I know a freshman summer boutique internship that would run into my sophomore semester is near impossible but is that something that is even technically possible? I would imagine these boutique firms typically have interns work for an entire summer, with their start dates in late May to early June, not late July. I guess boutique firms have interns during school semesters all the time so I suppose nothing is technically impossible.
Thank you for all your help!
If there's any work with Excel (probably basic stuff, any intro to modeling is great) that's helpful. Also research is good both for your resume and as a skill. If they have any data providers like Cap IQ, Factset, Bloomberg those are all something you could talk about knowing how to use.
Yeah lots of PWM internships are off cycle, shouldn't be a problem. Just let them know what days you have class. It doesn't really matter if you do it like August - October for example, or for a school semester. Most of these internships are very informal, more of someone willing to help you get some experience and come in when you can rather than having a formal internship program when you start and end on X date.
Hours do not matter at all if its unpaid. Once you have enough work experience for your resume just get out of there. I did 10 hours per week freshman summer and nobody brought it up in BB/EB interviews. Even if they did you can just lie and say you did 30-40 hours if you really want. I worked at a local boutique IB and once I got to be involved in 1 sell side M&A process, I left around early August.
Stuff people said already covers it pretty well, but to add a data point I had a 10 hour per week unpaid summer internship my freshman year and I landed a BB summer internship. What you did and type of work is what interviewers ask questions about, and they won't have high expectations for freshman internships especially because younger interviewers know search fund places are literally just sourcing.
Thanks so much for the response. My two bosses are great, they basically told me "if there's work you specifically want to do for the experience just let us know". I'm sure half of that was just them being nice but what should I ask them to have me to do to really have some talking points in BB interviews? 90% of my work now is sourcing which is expected, but I really want to give myself any edge i can get obviously.
Yea nah hours don't mean shit, the first 3 internships I did were all unpaid and you can bet that as soon as I was done with my work I was dipping out of there (2-3pm at my first job, then 1pm at my second job at a much smaller/flexible boutique). If you are not getting paid you should figure out how to work as little as possible lol.
Nobody cares how many hours you work, it's more about just being able to talk about what you did/learned in the internship. Also both of these internships were 2 months (e.g. June-July on my resume) and that didn't hurt me either.
Also, if you’re just a freshman and they offered to let you cut the internship short, I would probably do that and just enjoy the rest of the summer (not get another internship). You probably won’t need any of these people at your current firm as connections, and you already have the experience on your internship/something to talk about.
Working another 2 months without getting paid and doing pointless grunt work enjoying the remainder of one of your last free summers
Thanks so much for responding. They more said "we'll have you on till August 30th, but will check in mid-summer to see if you want to work that long."
When you say "you probably won't need any of these people at your current firm as connections", one of my bosses was a IB summer associate for Evercore which to my understanding helped an intern a year above me get a IB summer analyst role at Evercore in the same NYC office for his junior summer. I believe that intern told me my boss helped push his resume, but I may be completely wrong here and she may have no say in the recruiting process. I don't know maybe this one boss and this one intern are connections I should continue to develop? Both my bosses and all interns all have gone/go to target schools.
The point I'm trying to make is I feel the need to kind of go above and beyond for these people. Even if they say "we'll check in to see if you want to stop working mid summer", I feel inclined to stay the full summer because maybe this one boss I have who worked in IB can be the person who makes the difference in receiving an offer vs not receiving one. Is my thinking off here?
That’s interesting context and could make the difference if true, but I would clarify further. Perhaps set up a call with the old intern and ask them about EVR/casually chat about if your current boss actually pushed their resume forward?
It seems odd to me that an ex-summer associate would have enough pull to push someone for an interview, but if that happened with the past intern then it may be possible. You might also have a conversation with your current boss and express interest in EVR and ask them what you can do to position yourself well there?
It just feels off/doesn’t sound legit. My boss in one of my first unpaid internships told me how some of the previous interns had gone to GS or other BBs, but you can sure as hell bet it wasn’t because of him lol.
You can still leave early and leave on good terms
I cut off interviews if a kid tells me he didn't work at least 62.5 hours/wk during his freshman internship.
If you can describe what the firm does and lie about how you assisted in that, you're probably fine. I don't expect college sophomores to know anything or have accomplished anything. If you come off as smart and can provide an accurate job description for your internship w/ a couple of BS examples of how you added value, you're fine.
Aut et doloremque error nesciunt. Perferendis impedit est omnis et debitis. Optio asperiores earum temporibus molestias. Autem eos magni eum minima repellat eum. Repellat quae debitis qui expedita vero mollitia. Recusandae necessitatibus dolorum eos esse.
Neque ut eius distinctio fugit est eaque. Voluptas necessitatibus enim autem minus eveniet earum aut. Pariatur dicta et est adipisci quasi.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...