Sophomore Internships: Nothing Seems to Work

I am a sophomore at a target/semi-target, international (asian) student with a 3.7 GPA looking to probs enter IBD (sponsorship being the driving component here). Member in 4 finance clubs on campus (including my college's investment club).

I have been looking for summer internships all across the country in IBD, PE, VC, Mutuals, L/S Equity (literally anything where I get some transaction or investing experience). We aren't talking about big boys here either - I have been reaching out to plenty of PE shops in the lower middle market and mid/small-cap hedge funds etc. It's been a combination of applying on job portals (including my school's), reaching out to alums, cold-emailing employees at firms in my city and so on.

I have been doing this for basically 3 months now but nothing seems to be coming through, had a couple of phone chats/screeners and 1 final round interview at a PE firm but so far I don't have a single yes. Ngl I feel like things are looking bleak lads. The banking timeline has just begun for 2020 and I still haven't secured anything for 2019... should I be concerned? Would love any guidance, thanks :)

7 Comments
 

Why not just email some search funds? If you can't get a paid gig you can still get good research/excel skills by working for free for some of the places that let students work remote. I did this prior to getting my sophomore internship, and it's probably what got me my sophomore internship

 

This seems like sage advice. There is no magic bullet to make yourself a more viable candidate in the present necessarily, but you can always position yourself for the future. OP has plenty of time being in sophmore year.

 

I wouldn't worry too much if I were you, I go to a semi-target and managed to land internship offers at a growth equity shop and direct lender in early May with a 3.4 GPA.

Lots of boutiques start looking for interns later in the year as they have a better idea of their hiring needs, I would focus on maintaining your GPA and continuing your search.

 

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