Hi everyone, I am a rising junior who just recently finished my 2 years at community college. I will be attending Rutgers University (non-target) this upcoming fall and wanted to know what I should do to better my chances of landing an investment banking summer internship. I am dedicating my entire summer on studying and taking the CFA investment foundations certification to add onto my resume and am also taking financial modeling courses from Wall Street Prep.
I have no prior internship experience and have only held warehouse and retail jobs to help pay for school. What should I do to stand out during fall recruiting and other job fair events at my school? Any advice is deeply appreciated, thank you!
Start networking now. Find people who attend Rutgers and work in banking / at a bank. Even if they aren't in IB specifically, if you've established this connection, come recruiting time they can introduce you to someone who has sway / knows more about the IBD recruiting process at said firm. Community college to an accredited university is no small leap, and that kind of determination is valued in the workplace. Make sure you're keeping your GPA strong and you network like crazy
Great stuff by IBguy2020. I came from a non-target as well, so I'll add a couple specific routes that I had to consider during the process (in chronological order):
I'm not going to recommend which one of those is best for you, because there are obvious considerations such as your ability and willingness to pay for an extra year of tuition. However, I would recommend taking all the WSO posts about whether firm A is done recruiting for summer analysts with a grain of salt (unless you're late by over a month for example). Different product groups, coverage groups and offices might follow a general blueprint. But it's entirely possible that firm A is still interviewing somewhere even when John Smith received an offer with the Industrials team last week.
In general, put yourself out there as much as possible. Hop on all the OCR opportunities during the school year. Blast out those networking emails. Figure out whether you do better over phone or in person via coffee chats (I realize this probably isn't as possible amidst the pandemic). You've already made leaps and bounds transferring colleges. Good luck!
thank you for sharing, really appreciate it! I have been debating if I should minor in Econ to stay an extra semester but will def look into what you advised. thanks!
thanks so much for the valuable advice! deeply appreciate it!
Recruiting is literally happening right now for junior summer and if you don't get a junior summer it's ridiculously tough to get a full time offer in IB. Ignore the CFA and the modeling courses. They look great on a resume assuming people actually read your resume, which they won't if you don't network. Sorry to be so blunt, but that is the way it is. What's your GPA from CC?
This is what you need to do immediately. Make a list of every alumni at banks on Wall Street. Speak to analysts, have them refer you to other people. Try and find VP+ who are alumni and get them to vouch for you. These are the people that will get you into the process. I'm sorry to say you're coming from a huge disadvantage, not just because of transferring from a CC, but mostly because you're starting networking so late. That being said, people, especially in IB, appreciate the hustle. If you come from a humble background make sure you emphasize that. No internship experience isn't bad but make sure to play up how much hard work you went through balancing school and your warehouse/retail jobs.
If people don't respond, send follow ups a week later. But you should be spending all of your time now networking. It's 3pm now, send emails. Obviously don't send stuff at 1am, but during normal day hours you shouldn't quit.
All of the modeling and CFA stuff can help you stand out when you have the internship locked down and are competing for a FT offer and promotions down the line, but they're meaningless if you don't get a job in IB. You can find a copy of the BIWS 400 questions and study those in case someone randomly grills you on technicals (never happened to me in like 50 phone chats I had), but otherwise focus on studying once you secure a first round.
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