Grad soon with no offers in hand, out of time? - Canada
Hey all, I’m a final year student at a semi target uni within the Canadian finance field. I started in ‘22, and have done a pair of internships at big4 audit and one of the big5 Canadian banks in their global mkts dept. I also did a part time stint for a Summer at a micro search fund and will be doing a term in the investment services team at a US hedge fund this summer (if/when the visa finally clears).
I don’t have a very quantitative background and lots of my experiences in uni aren’t super relevant to the field, but I was a part of the student fund on campus earlier on.
Being only around 8 months away from grad, I’m now recognizing I am super late to the train on thinking about what FT looks like. My goals are very vague, I just want to get a spot ideally in Toronto that offers me a good shot at strong b-school recruiting down the road.
My next few weeks before the summer gig are very light and I’m willing to put in the time and effort needed across the next couple months and at least first few years of my FT journey.
In short, I’ve got a kinda relevant but very scattered set of internships in Canadian financial services, and can make as much time as needed across the next few months to get my shit in order for grad, but I really don’t want to extend my 4y4m delayed grad even further if I can help it, and I’d also prefer to not do a seventh internship.
Please give me any advice or thoughts as you read through the above. Happy to get any form of guidance.
Do you have any idea about what you want to do? Publics, privates, IB, etc.
I liked the trade floor, and some teams e.g. FX sales and hedging advisory seemed interesting. Equity derivative sales was also a great team. Pretty much anything with a salesy or educational aspect (to clients) appealed to me within the floor, especially if it had some relation to macro/geopolitics. I think equity research isn’t it for me.
I do not have as much visibility or understanding in private mkts so it’s a bit harder for me to say in that region, except that I’m happy to cast a wide net lol.
Given my current vantage point, I can only assume the more traditional prestige routes e.g. IB are not within reach anymore. Tried in my sophomore year with a big networking push but didn’t get any interviews.
We are on the same boat haha. Also from a non-target major and taking 4 year and a half to graduate this dec, doing my 4th internship in San Fran rn. I also don't know what I want to do bc my internships are scattered across consulting, am ops, and pe. Honestly down to connect bc I think we might be aiming for similar things.
But how are you late though? I also go to a Canadian uni, but from my understanding the official "entry level grad full-time positions" that start in June~September of 2027 are not even open yet or (are going to be opening over this summer; McKinsey just opened their full-time application so it's gonna be a while for other finance or consulting firms to follow with their apps).
If you are also aiming for ft that begin in January of 2027 (like I am), most of that would be ad hoc hiring that happens a few months before the start date. From what I see from my friends that are doing ft recruiting for fall 2026 (they are graduating this summer), it seems like ad hoc hiring is a lot easier to get into than "official hiring". My friends without any internship or with 1 internship (bc they couldn't get any interviews for 2 years straight) are getting interviews for ft positions. Dude honestly with your internships (you sound stacked); I would not worry about getting hired in itself (you'd get a job for sure) but just worry about how good of a full-time role you can get, because it looks like you and I have the same problem. We shouldn't be worrying about if we can get a job, but about how we can leverage our experiences to get the top job that is out there like pe/vc, ib, am, or consulting (hf too in your case), because believe it or not, people with 4 or more legitimate internships are not common (whatever the internet seems to portray).
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