How do UK students compete with international students?

Going to Uni this year and have been looking at CV’s that people have posted here on WSO and other finance forums for IB spring weeks (UK). There seems to be lots of International or dual citizenship students studying in the UK who have got like 2-3 finance or sort of business/corporate work experiences pre-uni that seem to apply each year. I know that you don't really need prior knowledge/experience when applying for spring weeks but how is anyone in the UK without links to the industry competing with these people who were breastfed the 3-statements?

I've seen comments of people saying they got 3 SW offers without anything on their CV related to finance but have been unable to find an example of what this would even look like. Anyway im going to a non-target and probably fucked anyway so going to have to take the long way around to IB do a stint in big 4 or an MBA someday. Wish my lazy ass tried harder in secondary school need to turn this ship around someday.

3 Comments
 

I have an offer from a non target but I've decided to do a gap year and just resit my A levels. 

From what I know spring internships dont require previous work experience I'm sure recruiters are aware it's practically impossible for native students to even gain finance related work experience. I tried in year 12 and year 10 closest I could get was a small accounting firm. So I do think recruiters take that into account. 

 

Not everyone would have the same experience as the CVs you have seen on WSO or online. Those are probably a highly selective group who are more competitive or with more experience. Some countries may also have different ways of educating young professionals, maybe it's more common to have experience before entering a degree program or a job.

I can guarantee you that I had zero experience (not even an internship) when I started my degrees.

Also, don't forget that we all had a few rough years in the past. Some now-students may have had an internship (or more) as a result of redundancy or they never had a job to begin with. I know a lot of people /w degrees who never had a job at all.

 

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