Is it worth applying to PE internships if I have a MS/GS/JPM IBD Summer
For a student like myself who has a MS/GS/JPM internship lined up in Investment Banking (London Office) for 2025, I was wondering whether I should bother applying to MM / MF PE firms for their summer internships.
In the long-term I would probably like to enter the buy-side, but I was wondering if it worth applying to PE internships. I heard that they have low offer rates, and sometimes even non-convertible.
If possible I would like to skip the 2 year IB phase before I hop onto the buyside, but I understand that is very unlikely and IB provides a good training ground.
Since I have a top IB internship already, is it worth applying to buyout PE internships (mainly MM funds). What about credit/secondaries/infra/tac ops etc. at a MF like Blackstone or Ares?
Don't understand the point of this post. Go through your summer and apply FT to pe firms if you're interested.
trying to discern whether a summer at GS IBD or a summer at Ares Credit for example will be better for my career in the long run
those are two very different things and lead to two very different things. what on earth do you want, kid?
Well if you were dead set on Credit then you would take Ares since its one of the best credit shops. If you weren't sure then you would take top BB
Do the IB summer and try to slot a PE off cycle internship. You will then be a strong candidate when it comes to exits. People often overestimate the brand of the bank. A guy from Barclays with 1 MF PE internship and 2 IB internships and speaks German/french will have the same amount of inbounds if not more than the brits who only speaks English and has converted his spring/summer to analyst
Yeah but I mean the MF PE internship is harder to land than barclays
Surely they will have more inbounds because of the fact that they speak French or German? (which I don't).
The advantages I have is that I go to a target university and I have a summer at a top BB, can only play with the cards I been dealt.
Thanks for the tip about off-cycles, I was considering it, but I would have to defer a year's graduation or do a masters (which is common in mainland Europe). If I were to defer it may mess up any FT offers for 2026.
I interned in GS/JPM/MS IBD division last summer and then interned this past summer at a PE fund that takes analysts but they didn’t give returns to any interns so got kinda screwed over so do it at your own risk…
I wouldn't. Return offer rates are low as you mentioned. And training is just inherently not the same - even at the MFs, they don't have anywhere near the volume of reps and deals you will see in banking and they don't have a literal meat machine of hundreds of analysts coming in every year with proven methods to teach you. Get your 2 years, it sucks but it'll make you into an outstanding ASO
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