Interning in PE in the US as a French student
I'm a French student at a target French business school, and will begin my gap year next July. I'll start with a 6 months internship in M&A at Rothschild/Lazard, and want to start looking for my second internship (starting in January 2024) preferably in PE. However, I have a few doubts in mind:Do PE firms only look for American interns? would they bother sponsoring a visa? Also, I essentially see summer opportunities online, maybe the rest hasn't opened yet but are off-cycle internships frequent at that time?
Looking to make a move to France but working in US, would be happy to chat if that would interest you and I would have some questions myself about going the opposite direction
Sure! feel free to send me a message on here
You can work via the J1 visa through a sponsoring entity/agency. I would encourage you to engage in early discussions to figure out which private entities are on board with this.
Any entity can sign up for this as a sponsor which provides a cultural/educational exchange program. There are many resources which explain the process and the companies can do this themselves if they want to.
Alternatively, also look at companies in Quebec, if the US don't work out for you. Only mentioning Quebec/Montreal because of your language skills, of course you can also aim at Bay St./Toronto.
Bump
Surprised no one has broken this truth to you yet — PE firms will almost universally not sponsor a visa for an intern in New York. International students in American universities have a much easier time with internships because they can work during the summer on their student visa, but even then, a lot of IB/PE firms don't sponsor for full time roles. In addition, off-cycles are very uncommon in the US, i.e., the firms that take ad hoc off cycles are probably too small to sponsor visas commonly (there are no consistent off-cycle programs at large firms like there are in Europe).
That said, if you are extremely keen on working in the US, your best bet might be the New York office of a French / European firm that already sponsors lots of visas and is more familiar with the off cycle process (Ardian, Apax, PAI, etc, etc...)
I have read in many threads that companies don't tend to accept students who study abroad in the US. While that might be the case (I am working full-time, so I don't know how student life is atm), there is no minimum company size or complicated visa procedure for J1 candidates. It is true that there is a cost and filing fee (and yes, insurances, HR programs, overhead, ..), but in theory any company of any size should be able to provide that option. Maybe the companies simply don't know that this option exists or they are shying away from any additional work.
The J1 is for cultural/educational exchange and we all should encourage more of these exchanges to happen so we can all learn from each other. It is also valid for up to 18 months and the interns can also get paid for this experience.
I have met countless people through WSO (also in person) and the users were from all over the world.
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