Stressed About No Junior Summer Offers
Hi everybody,
To begin, I know this might come pretty late into the recruiting season, but I'm lost on what to do at this point. I unfortunately did not acknowledge just how important it was to network and begin recruiting very early on into my sophomore year and only began taking it seriously during the end of my sophomore year summer, and I'm now paying for the consequences of that. I go to a non-target school, but I have experience at Big 4 Audit before college and recently over the summer an internship, which has now become an atypical part-time role at a MF PE (Blackstone/KKR/Carlyle) as a research assistant helping my MD with different portfolios and such, referred through my older sibling, who worked there before leaving to a different MM firm for an associate offer, and I obviously didn't recruit for the actual summer analyst role. I've sent out a hundred cold emails (obviously working on sending out a lot more), had about 30 or so coffee chats by now ranging from summer interns to VP's, and I've had only one interview at a MM where I was not advanced.
What are the next steps for me? Is it too late to get anything, and should I just say goodbye to high finance and begin considering something else since full-time recruiting is harder than anything without a junior summer experience? I would love to hear all opinions and sides of this. Thank you.
I'm in a similar situation.
I'm currently a junior at a target and started actively recruiting around this time last year. I started by sending out a lot of cold emails to school alumni, but since my school is very competitive and I started sending out cold emails pretty late relative to my peers, I didn't get a lot of chats. The chats I did get were usually not very good, which was due to my inexperience with networking at that point and my overall poor social skills, which I had underestimated the importance of before going all in on recruiting. To elaborate further, I have a stutter, which during interviews and most networking calls can become pretty severe, and is near impossible for me to control/improve. Despite my poor networking, I got interviews at several EBs, BBs, and MMs, but never got past the first round for any of them, which I am almost 100% sure is due to my speech impediment. I started recruiting again earlier this fall mostly for more boutique roles or non high-finance roles, but still no luck as of now for the same reasons. I keep getting interviews, but can't make it past the first round, and all the people I mock with tell me that the actual content of my answers is good, but it's just the delivery that gets me put out of consideration. On paper I'm a great candidate, it's just that interviewers don't want to give me the benefit of the doubt. I'm still trying as best as I can to get something, and I still have hope that someone will see past my issues and give me a chance, but I'm pretty close to just giving up on finance and gunning for a field that's more technical and has less emphasis on social skills and overall social image.
You seem like you have a lot of potential, though, and I think that you shouldn't give up on the high-finance aspirations. Maybe a good idea, if you're up to it, would be taking a gap semester either for Spring '25 or Fall '25, and trying to turn the part-time role you have into a full time off-cycle internship during that time. This will give you the opportunity to gain more experience, as well as delay your graduation so that you can re-recruit for this upcoming cycle and land the type of internship you really want for SA26. Otherwise, though, I think that cold emailing regional boutique firms is a good way to still get something in "high-finance" for this summer, and as long as it's relevant you should be able to leverage whatever experience you get through that for something better when full time recruiting starts.
Hey, thanks so much for the advice. I've actually just started reaching out to some boutiques, so it’s good to hear I’m heading in the right direction there.
Honestly, I really respect how far you’ve gotten despite the challenges with your speech. I can imagine how tough that must be, especially with finance being such a people and numbers game. I hope you find somewhere that sees the potential beyond that obstacle.
I’m still unsure about taking a gap semester—it feels like a big move, and I’m not sure if it’s the right fit for me. But I'll keep it in the back of my mind. Have you thought about other fields like consulting or accounting? I know they’re also not entirely people-focused and more technical, but maybe there’s a niche there that could work better.
Hopefully we both keep at it and can land something that makes both of us happy. Best of luck.
Thanks for the really positive reply, and wishing you the best of luck as well.
I looked into consulting a bit and unfortunately found that, in addition to the fact that I'm not really interested in the field overall, management/strategy consulting tend to emphasize verbal communication skills even more than high-finance roles. However Econ consulting is pretty interesting to me and is a lot more technical than standard consulting, so I'm looking into that as a potential option more long-term. Accounting I also don't find very interesting, but I'd be happy with it in the short-term, and yeah it seems that it's less heavy on verbal communication skills so I'll probably start looking more into opportunities there.
Good to hear that you're reaching out to boutiques. I'm sure you'll land something good enough soon to set you up well for FT recruiting.
Hey man, not sure how this site works haha, but could you send me a DM, I'd like to speak with you—I've got a stutter too.
It's hurt me in interviews, but I think I've found some good ways to work with it. I'm sure you're a strong candidate and would love to chat if you're free.
Hey, thanks for the reply to my comment. Would love to chat, and I've just sent you a DM earlier today.
Mentioning "BB PE (Blackstone/KKR/Carlyle)" might seem like a minor detail, but it would definitely throw me off if i was networking with someone and they actually say that. The firms you mentioned are MF (megafunds). Misconstruing terminology doesn't help your case when connecting, so make sure to become more familiar with what you're talking about.
There's plenty of smaller firms that recruit mid-late junior year, or as Prospect already said ^^ extend graduation if you want another shot at recruitment.
Best of luck,
Yeah, my bad. I did realize I said BB, not MF, only after I had posted it. Was talking with a friend of mine about BB's prior to posting, lol. Thanks anyways.
Edit: Only just now realized you can edit posts on WSO, thank you single :)
All good.
It's also not too late to declare the second major now to give reason for extended graduation. I put philosophy as a second major when recruiting as a sophomore and it's only helped me in networking, and you can always drop it later if it doesn't suit your timeline (which can always be a valid reason if ever brought up).
For anyone viewing this in the future, keep working hard and things will pay off. I was so close to giving up but just recently got an offer at a great MM bank to be a 2025 C&IB SA :)
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