How hard will it be to find an internship/job without internship experience?

Thanks HuntNKill! It's been difficult to go to networking events because of my foot injury. I also stick out like a sore thumb so I totally understand why recruiters would ding me. Why would you choose an injured person over an equally/more qualified candidate who's not?

I feel stung by my first rejection. I know these jobs are hard to get because they're highly coveted. It feels like other people are just smarter than me..

To be fair, not going to a target school doesn't preclude someone from getting a job in IB.

However, to answer your question, you're right - banks hire post-MBA associates without IB experience, and your finance experience (even if largely unrelated) will help you with your story for 'why IB'

if you do go to a target MBA, you will have specific resume drops for your school. The job postings you are seeing are for lateral hires, not for MBA associates.

If anything, having IBD analyst experience hurts you if you're recruiting for IBD associate positions from a target MBA. The assumption is that any analyst that wanted to continue in banking should have been good enough to be promoted straight through or lateral to another bank.

The vast majority of post-MBA IBD associates had no pre-MBA experience - I've seen people from fields as diverse as lobbyists to biglaw paralegals. Having BB experience will help you craft your story as to why you want a front office position.

Why someone would consider IB post-MBA is beyond me....

Some people are genuinely interested in IB and have zero interest in things like PE....shock horror...

To add to that, I know of a number of people who didn't do IB pre-MBA who do it post-MBA and genuinely enjoy it and turn it into a long-term career. Again, to think everybody thinks just like you do is pretty retarded.....

Non Target -- so what is that? Walmart or something? If you want a real chance at making it to Wall Street you'll have to make the move to Minneapolis.

more curious of your school choice than will be able to say if you can make it on wall street. want to become a quant as well. did you apply anywhere else besides notre dame? consider minnesotta? You can probably place pretty well from Notre Dame in Chicago if you work on your modeling techniques and showcase you can apply what youve learned

Have you tried cold calling firms?

What did you do in college?

It's only January. Start cold-calling every smaller firm that is remotely related to what you're interested in doing. Get the list of companies you want to start contacting this weekend and start hitting them on Tuesday. I say the smaller firms because they may need to hire people as needed, instead of on a recruiting calendar. Sending resumes online isn't working, so you need to try to personally connect with people. I suggest contacting a bunch of firms, not just the ones that have job postings...you might be able to get something there anyway.

Definitely not. Plenty of people from the industry go into ER; O&G consultants at MBB, tech specialists etc.

One thing's for sure: it's a lot easier to get an entry-level job in equity research through an internship. I was recently hired for full-time at a top sell-side shop without interning beforehand, but it wasn't easy. Throughout the whole recruiting process, I only managed to get one ER interview-- it just so happened that I got the job at that one firm. My impression is that they were just hiring to fill spots that they weren't able to fill with interns from the prior summer.

So my recommendation is to intern at an ER shop first. Industry people move into ER for sure (e.g. Sanford Bernstein hires 100% of its analysts from industry or McKinsey), but that's more common for senior roles than for entry-level associates roles.

For sure you could definitely be considered as an "experienced hire" depending on how many years of technology experience they want for the particular position. I would say pinpoint a position that looks like something you would want/be qualified for, and then tailor your resume and cover letter in such a way that appeals to what they are looking for. Also, if you can try to make a contact at GS or whatever other BB you find an open opportunity, I think that could be helpful! Good luck!

Where your hours will be halved? What is this GS where your hours will be halved? I am confused.

Tech as in the Tech IBD coverage group? Or Tech as in mid/backoffice support?

You can get jobs at both without summer internship experience (probably less so in today's hiring climate) but your hours will be awful unless it's the latter

ya i was referring to the latter -- mid/BO support. how easy would it be to get in if ive already graduated from a target for a year? do they hire any experienced hires or is everyone straight out of college?

which country are you from if I may ask?

which country are you from if I may ask?

are there opportunities in your home country?

If you had a lot of interviews and did not get anything, you need to take a look at what went wrong.

I honestly do not mean to come off as rude, but one thing you can do is improve your command of English.

Hey , I am also an international student with an ok GPA, but really good major GPA, I go to a non target and I am interviewing with trading and investment banks. A friend of mine got a job in san francisco with a small investment bank, he is international also. If you have decent grades, good experience, you should be able to interview. A lot of small boutiques are hiring.

something obviously went wrong in your interviews (and from looking at your post, it was probably your weak communication skills in English). Work on what you think held you back from getting an offer for this summer.

thanks for the comments.

I definitely have to improve my writing skills. But in most of my final round interviews, I always could not perform so well whenever I talked with the MDs. Sometimes I just failed to convince them how bad I wanted to be in ibanking.

Anyway what do you guys think I should do for this summer?

P.S. small boutiques are still hiring? I called up a lot of them. most of them said the recruiting process ended...

why don't you try opportunities back home, leverage your english there rather than trying to compete in an environment that may be too fluent for u.

by the way you write, i can tell your asian. you should leverage your command of chinese.japanese.thai whatever you speak and get a great job over there.

don't be greedy and stay for the depreciating dollar, although i know that's probably your intention.

Some suggestions:

1. Can you look at oppotunities outside the US? If you are a member of EEU/EEA, you may want to look at links such as efinancialnews.com and the career or employment sections. There are numerous job listings for summer employment (temps) based out of London hq offices, as well as other locations. Granted this will most likely not be FO and not have a formal training program, but will be finance related.

2. If you have any language-cultural skills in the emerging markets area, use them to sell yourself--even if you intern for little or no pay.

3. I knew of an analyst here that went to a program his junior summer at Dartmouth-Tucks. I don't know much about it, but it helped him secure an IB position FT without previous internship. He is also an international who studied in the states.

4. Is there any opportunity to work on campus perhaps in research or any finance related work for the summer??

   This advice is basically worth what you pay for it. Good luck to you.

Thought I might add the oil-gas-energy sector out of Houston area is very hot now. If you have fluent language skills related to any oil producing nation, you may want to focus your intern hunting in that part of the country.

What are the chances of getting FT offers from banks that you have already interviewed with? I interviewed with a good amount and was final rounded with a few but did not get any offers. Will they reconsider you for FT or just look over your resume for the next guy?

I am confused. You state "I managed to get into summer internships at Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan in Investment Mgt" but then ask the question "or can I still get an offer?"

I think he means FT offer. If you are quick on the uptake and work hard, you will have no problems getting a return offer.

hey that's awesome! Congrats for the offers.

You might have to be very professional in case you have never worked before. GS or JPM is not like doing an important work at college. It's much more than that. Make sure you are keen on the job and work as hard as ever

Very unlikely. Moving across groups usual happens through networking or during the last two weeks of the internship where some of the interns are invited by other desks for interviews.

Even an intern in ops who was trying to network with a salestrader was told that he should apply for FT Sales but that he needed to get an offer from his division.

A lot of people overstate their internship experience so do not worry about that, you'll be fine. I once saw this guy on LinkedIn with 20 2-month internships and he did trivial jobs like being a receptionist and whatnot and wrote on his resume "front office representative" or whatever the fancy term is for receptionist lol. A lot of people also work as coordinators at some kind of event (literally directing people where to go) but they write on their resumes as if they organized the damn thing. But on the other hand, I met people with just one internship or none at all that got SA spots. So don't worry about it, best of luck to you