Sophomore Internship Advice

Hey all, sophomore here at high semi target/low target school (think Cornell/Williams/Duke) looking for advice on sophomore internship programs. I’m currently juggling 3 main offers, a corporate banking internship at a fairly large European bank, a $30bn AUM pe internship in the Middle East, and a boutique IB internship. For context, I’ve already worked at the middle eastern shop and have also worked at a well known MM PE fund in the US. Tempted to take the middle eastern internship again, but would a repeat internship be a bad look esp since it’s outside of the US? What would you all recommend doing to be competitive at top BB/EB? 

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if your middle eastern id say stay away from middle eastern companies, not a knock on you specifically but seeing someone do an internsip at a "home" country just reeks of nepostism compared to someone genuinley going aborad to expand their skills

 

I would say take the boutique IB if you’re recruiting for IB as it’s more relevant. However, may I ask how you got the MM PE internship? I’m in a similar situation with you and would some advice as well.

 

Thanks for the advice and def leaning toward that. I got the MM PE internship by cold calling the founder who was a school alum. But you can also just spam out hundreds of emails to people, got some offers doing that. look at places where others have worked (literally anyone at BB/EB) and email the founder/MDs. Generally tends to yield a fairly high (5-10%) response rate, with maybe 1 in 3-5 calls leading to an internship. Wish you the best of luck, I'm a big fan of South Korea, tons of great friends from there so hope it works out 

 

Quick question, I’m at a super non target and most of the people here don’t do summer 2026 internships. How important is to have one aligned while recruiting for SA 2027, and how do you put it in your resume?

 

if you're from a "super non target" it obviously helps a lot, having a name brand on your resume/actual experience before recruiting for your big 3rd year gig shows a lot of credibility in my opinion

assuming you get a summer 2026 internship before recruiting for 2027 people i've seen usually put the job as "incoming"

e.g "incoming fp&a summer analyst at f500 - scheduled to complete 10 week internship supporting xyz team under the abc product group" or whatever the job is 

 

Thank you so much, I will definitely be doing that, it my school it was seen as corny doing that but it will definitely help knowing that. Also do you know if leadership programs (MOE LDP/PWP/JPM) should be added to my resume as well? Thank you!

 

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