The paradox of getting an internship
As a sophomore at a target school, I am having a lot of trouble getting an internship over summer break.
My GPA is decent but I think the main thing that is killing me is work experience. I need an internship to get more work experience, but I feel like I am getting rejected from a lot of these jobs because I lack solid work experience. I am involved on campus, but in terms of work experience, I have very little relevant work experience. I've been applying to a lot of finance related jobs, not just ibanking, and I am not hearing back from anyone.
What advice do you guys have for me?
What type of internships are you targeting
Why don't you post a sample of your resume for review
anything finance related honestly, but i would like to work at an investment/Asset Management firm this summer.
I would love to have my resume reviewed, but would rather not have my resume floating around the internet
use the search section on the site to see examples
This has been done thousands of times before by removing identifying info
You want anonymous privacy, yet you have your full name as your username...
For my first finance related internship, I offered to work for free when they told me they were not hiring. That got me in the door and helped me with get subsequent ones. Yes...working 20 hours a week for free sucks, but you have to look at the end goal. If this can help you get the IB/AM job you want in the future, it may be worth it.
Really?
I thought about doing that but felt like it would come off as really desperate. In some emails, i do mention the word unpaid but they don't seem to care
You are desperate, you don't have any cards to hold in the game.
Getting your first job is always the most difficult.. Don't worry, you'll persevere and land something if you keep hustling and go out to meet as many new people as possible!
thanks for the positive note
try and find something local over the spring semester, those are often far less competitive and helps to get something under your belt. Also there is no paradox to internships; the kind of experience they want is for the student to have some experience in applicable software and related industry concepts that could easily be attained at your university if you know what to look for.
In my instance, commercial real estate, Argus (standard software in CRE for DCF and asset mgmt) experience is highly valued when looking at interns. it shows that they are interested in the industry and are working towards it. that and a great personality. We aren't looking for interns with years of experience unless they are an MBA
I had a roommate that worked for free (I believe) part time at a local hedge fund during the school year.
It was rough and he was never home between school and work but he received a full-time offer as an ER analyst.
cold emailing is going to be your best friend.....that's how i got my IB internship as a sophomore (from a non target by the way)
Same. huge generalization here, but I think a lot of target kids don't know the meaning of the hustle
Completely agree. If you want the job, you have to be hungry and willing to put in the effort 150% more than the next ten students
This is so true. Coming from someone who went to a target school - when I did SA recruiting, I thought it was enough to try to float by just because I went to a good school. Turns out all the other candidates who applied to the same internship via our career website also went to a good (read: the same) school as well. It's so obvious in retrospect but didn't even cross my mind then. I didn't stand out at all, only got 2 ib interviews, lucked my face off and got an offer in a new city (for which I am still very grateful). I spent like 30-60 minutes each day that summer and it was a world of difference how many interviews I got during FT recruiting.
I've cold emailed a lot of people, most just respond by saying their firms are too small to hire an intern. Do you have specific advice for cold emailing people?
what do you mean by a lot of people? I'm talking sending out 50 cold emails a day to a variety of middle market banks, PE firms and hedge funds
Post a copy of your email that you're sending so we can look at it. You never send to info/careers @hedgefund.com ever. You either backtrace their most probably email or you use Linkedin (which will be better).
When they come back with "we're too small" that's when you sell them on email #2 about your desire and passion to learn more that you're willing to work as an unpaid intern either full time or part time.
I did a CTL+F and didn't find the word "networking", so I'm going to put that out there. There are numerous threads and guides on how to do this on WSO, so good luck and happy networking
related question: if i get an internship at a real estate firm this summer, would that look weird if i try to do ibanking the next year?
So when I was a sophomore, I was always unsure exactly what people did in the summers between their sophomore and junior years. I had the same question: how was I supposed to get work experience without already having work experience?
In retrospect, I've realized that there's no standard answer. People literally do completely random things for their sophomore internships. Here's a list of things that people at my school (a semi-target) did in the year before their junior SA stints in banking: worked at a 3-person, no-name boutique investment bank (myself), interned for a Congressman, interned at a Fintech company in Seattle, interned at the New York City budget office, interned at a lower middle-market PE firm in Charlotte, interned at a no-name hedge fund that doesn't even have a website... the list goes on. Most (if not all) of these internships were unpaid.
The main thing you can do at this stage is cast a wide net. To get my internship at the boutique, I cold-emailed nearly 100 firms. I offered to work for free (although you might not want to say this upfront). Out of those 100 firms, I got 3-4 positive responses, and I took the first job that I was offered.
how did you get their emails? did you just go on their website, and then click contact us? Or did you find MDs, and then try to find their email?
They all have the same email format within a firm. Google around until you find it. E.g. JPM is firstname.lastname@JPMorgan.com. Unless they have a weird name/email, most of them will have the standard email format.
Good lord, if you can't do some googling and LinkedIn stalking (research). How the H are you going to conduct due diligence on a live deal? A high gpa can reflect several things: grade inflation, Red Bull and addy the night before the test, padding your transcripts with easy courses, you're good at following directions from others (can't think for yourself), access to the answers ahead of time. Gpa doesn't equate to instant success, you got to hustle and be hungry or you'll get your lunch eaten in the real world.
Why would you be anonymous about your school and GPA then use your real name........ I would try to take a step back and look at the big picture
this is not my real name
14m students are going to school and receiving grades (they'll graduate with you) you better have something other than a gpa to set yourself apart. 3 parts to the resume, 2 parts to an interview. GPA/ revelant courses, involvement, work and internship experience. You need a blend of each. 2 parts to the interview: what you've done in the past that is applicable to the position and fit for the firm.
solid framework. non-targets don't teach this logic
[You need some ET the hip hop preacher in your life son](
)
This is probably not helpful, but I completely agree with the paradox of the internship. I saw an IB internship that required prior IB experience. I always thought that internships were meant to teach you. Granted, I get that in this day an age with all of the free videos you should have a solid foundation, but asking for prior experience, especially as an undergrad is kinda dumb.
it is not. when you have literally hundreds of applicants to fill 1 internship place, prior IB experience vastly differentiates you. and when you have a dozen of kids who understand it and bring that experience, recruiters put it as a requirement to filter the applicants and get the top guys only. voila.
I worked at a start-up sophomore summer as a "finance intern" but it was mainly random projects — no exposure to equities or financial analysis. Some exposure to business development but that is less finance oriented given the industry. Landed 3 offers at BB's from a semi-target Ivy.
If you can sell yourself then you will do fine.
Hey Small Wang man, you're a sophomore, don't expect anything handed to you and just have the mentality of running the streets and not have a silver spoon in your bowl.... people will notice.
It seems that here everybody really does not remember how it was to be a kid in school approaching a finance job for the first time. But you are all ready to tell this guy to hustle... Chill guys I think he got it. No need to look at him from above saying that you sent 3k mails per day and 2k per night, well if you did congrats! But 1 interview out of 3k mails sent per day seems pretty bad ratio, I would suggest next time to check for typos before sending them (F7) ;) !
Anyway, I agree that networking and reaching out alumni is the best solution for you.
If you need to "fill" your cv a bit you can include personal investing. Look around here on wso on how to talk about it in a professional way. It shows interest for finance and for internships it's perfect. I opened an account online and I started with 300$. If you have no savings, well xmas is coming you can ask grandma some $$$ to start and finally open an account. Focus on some industry that you like, go on companies' website and have a look at their financial reports, read news everyday and try not to loose all your money after 1 week! I know, it takes time everyday and you will have to give up watching The Walking Dead when you come back home after HR class, but it's worth it!
Good luck ;)
This is sad, but I'll bite... you are what you sell yourself as. I broke into BB S&T from a non-target by spinning my experience backpacking through Europe and being a waiter. It is not the "lack of experience" holding you back, it is the lack of initiative/creativity/insert other reason besides lack of experience. Good luck
Could not agree more. While finance related jobs will be useful in terms of making an easier "this is relevant experience" connection, there are plenty of people I know (myself included) who landed BB/EB i-banking internships for their junior summers without any prior finance internships.
I think this type of candidate often plays their lack of formal experience in the industry to their advantage by making claims about their ability to approach problems from different perspectives, be creative, be an easily malleable intern who's not a "know it all" already, etc. This is not to say that people with finance experience don't have any of these qualities, just a suggestion to highlight your strengths if you are coming from that background.
The key for networking/interviews is to show: a) you understand the skills needed for the ib internship (quick search on WSO will help you with this) b) you developed said skills at whatever prior experiences you've had (be they finance-related or not) c) you can explain how they will seamlessly transfer into your ib summer role
I think the issue with this is that I am currently asking for unstructured internships. As in, going to random boutique shops and asking if they will take me on. As a result, there is no formal training for the interns, so if you don't have prior experience, you are not useful to them at all.
The thread should be called the paradox of being priviledged.
You don't know shit about me so how about you shut the hell up?
I can say whatever the hell I want.
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